In the Mediterranean folds: Ceuta and Melilla

Abstract

Ceuta and Melilla, two very small Spanish cities in Morocco, stand in the way of the continuity of the geographical narrative of the Maghreb to become microcosms imbued with cultural contradictions and discontinuities. The polymorphic identity of the enclaves has in fact been
constructed through different colonial sedimentations, religious differences and unstoppable migratory currents. We are talking about true “middle lands” between Africa and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the North and the South of the world. In recent times, the polarization of the Spanish-Moroccan border has been abetted by the creation of the European free movement zone approved with the Schengen agreement: from historical areas of free commercial and cultural transit, Ceuta and Melilla have become a geopolitical fault line capable of altering and modifying the millennial tradition of a flexible passage to Europe. This redefinition of the border area, together with the migratory movements, has slowly changed the nature of the Spanish-Moroccan border, transforming it first into a rigid border and then transfiguring it into an ultra technological barrier capable of hindering the ius migrandi.