Consuming Europe: the moral significance of mobility and exchange at the Spanish–Moroccan border of Melilla

Abstract

Situated on the north-eastern coast of Morocco, Melilla is a fenced territory of 12 square kilometres under Spanish sovereignty since 1497. Over the course of the twentieth century, and particularly after Spain's incorporation into the European Community (1986), Melilla's fiscal and geo-political status has triggered the growth of a black market economy built on a large variety of cross-border activities, most commonly the smuggling of basic commodities and luxury goods. This paper examines the connections between different forms of exchange linking the Iberian Peninsula to the Spanish enclave of Melilla, and Melilla to the neighbouring Moroccan province of Nador. Different forms of exchange rely on one another – from the family links on which smuggling networks are built, to the migratory tradition which connects Nador to Spain and to a number of European capitals and which has influenced patterns of exchange across the border in unexpected ways. In particular, this paper explores how the assimilation on the part of Nadori emigrants of Western consumption practices, or rather, of what emigrants identify as Western consumption practices, has generated, in Nador, a growing demand for certain goods which are now seen as objects of prestige and markers of status. This demand, in turn, has shaped smuggling practices. It is argued that, in the Melillan context, commodity exchange across the border cannot be properly understood without considering the processes by which certain ideas and conceptions have been appropriated and transformed through long-standing migratory practices linking the Moroccan Eastern Rif to the Iberian Peninsula and beyond.