A tale of two cities: the production of difference in a Mediterranean border enclave

Abstract

In this article, I explore how Christians and Muslims are produced as separate and mutually exclusive communities in the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla. I argue that while the constitution of these groups as 'communities' is the result of a long history of unequal power relations and socio-spatial segregation, the reproduction of the boundaries between the two depends on the active transmission of particular codes of conduct and modes of behaviour in the public sphere. It is through these discursive and bodily practices that difference is actively produced.One half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth … Rabelais, PantagruelWhen I started my research in Melilla, a small Spanish enclave located on the northeastern coast of Morocco, only a handful of people outside Spain and North Africa even noticed its existence. The enclave had made international headlines briefly during 2005, when hundreds of migrants wanting to reach Europe rushed Melilla's security fence. But interest waned quickly, and by the time I began fieldwork in 2008, Melilla was all but forgotten elsewhere. It was the first day of Ramadan, a late afternoon in early September. The stores were closed and the streets empty as people slept through the heat. I was looking for a city map and at Melilla's central roundabout, the Plaza de España, I approached a young boy working in a newsstand to ask the whereabouts of Melilla's tourist office. He looked me over, frowning in confusion, until I repeated the question. He hesitated before responding: 'But, what is that, Muslim or Christian?' The general question organising this essay concerns the ways in which the pair Christian/Muslim plays out in Melilla. The essay is organised in three sections. The first traces the production of 'Christians' and 'Muslims' as legal and political subjects, and examines a tumultuous episode in the enclave's recent history to explore the relationship between citizenship, ethnicity and inequality. The second section turns to representation and discursive action. I examine how old religious-nationalist tropes have merged with a new discourse of multiculturalism, and explore the dialectic between these to show the centrality of the Christian/Muslim divide in the construction of Melilla as a place. Finally, the third section embarks on a tentative analysis of the ways in which fabricating 'Christians' and 'Muslims' as distinct from each other requires a continuous and active process that is played out in the domain of everyday sociality. 450 Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale (2015) 23, 4 450-464.

An Anthropology of Crosslocations

“…In this book, and the research that fed into it, we take on the horns of Mediterranean region-making from a different angle. Inspired by a recent revival in the debate about the meaning of 'Mediterranean' among anthropologists and historians (see Ben-Yehoyada 2017;Ben-Yehoyada et al 2020;Holdermann et al 2020;Purcell 2000, 2020;Rommel and Viscomi 2022b;Soto Bermant and Green 2023), our aim is to depict Mediterranean locations characterised by dynamism, exchange, contingent developments, and border crossings. To this end, we rarely compare ethnographic cases in this book, nor do we assume that a shared set of regionwide historical processes manifest in a generalisable present.…”

Calais-enclave

“…Melilla and Ceuta in Morocco are examples, Spanish enclaves implanted on the southern Mediterranean coast during the first Crusades. In Laia Soto Bermant's current-day ethnography, they are places still riven by uneasy lines that mean Muslim and Christian inhabitants living "together" are kept apart (Soto Bermant, 2015. In Raquel Salvatella de Prada's installation, Cornered, these two enclaves are also passageways; migrants from West Africa converging there, over recent years, attempting to cross over into Spain.…”

Verflochtene Geschichten im postkolonialen Grenzraum

“…So ist der spanische König der Ehrenpräsident des Stiftungsrates, zu den weiteren Mitgliedern desselben gehören die ehemaligen spanischen Regierungspräsidenten sowie zahlreiche Minister und ein Vertreter der jeweils stärksten Oppositionspartei (Real Instituto Elcano 2019). 104 Das wurde in den Sozialwissenschaften in den letzten Jahren unter dem Stichwort der Glokalisierung verhandelt (Robertson 1998;Bauman 2013). sind in den letzten Jahrzehnten zahlreiche Studien erschienen, die sich den bei den Städten im Rahmen verschiedener Fragestellungen widmen (Rosander 1991;Driessen 1992;Zurlo 2005;Campbell 2012;Soto Bermant 2015;Fernández Gar cía 2017;Pelican und Steinberger 2017). Eine Herangehensweise, die sich in vie len dieser von mir rezipierten Forschungen finden lässt, ist die der sogenannten Expert*inneninterviews.…”