Working women in the export industry in Tangier: An intersectional analysis

• In Event: Gender in contemporary borderlands

Abstract

The reality of the 21st Century is characterized, among other elements, by the process of economic globalization in which the planet is interconnected in an asymmetric geopolitics that blurs the meaning of local. However, we emphasize the importance of the location, in this case the border between Spain and Morocco, as a theoretical and empirical place of social analysis. Applying a gender analysis, we aim to recover the meaning of the production places as part of the economic globalization process. We start from the need to study working women in the export industry through the "lived experience", with the aim of showing the existence of a diverse and plural individual crossed by multiple axis of social differentiation. The starting point is to investigate, through the intersectional perspective, the experiences lived by these women (inside and outside the export industry) so as to analyze the power structures through the responses of the social actors. The exposition will deal with the following points: First, the process of industrial relocation in the region of Tangier-Tétouan will be set in a context, paying special attention to the situation of women. Secondly, a methodological description of the study that was carried out will be made. After that, the experiences of working women in the export industry will be placed in a symbolic space through the intersectional perspective. We will finish with the conceptual conclusions that emerged during the analytical process.

Author

• Rosa M Soriano-Miras, Universidad de Granada