Silencing mestizaje at the Euro-African Border. Anti-Racist Feminist Perspectives on Cross-Border Lives

Dramatically marked by today's European border regime with Africa and a geohistorical oppositional dynamic between Islam and the West, the enclave of Melilla also stands out in Spain for its ethnic, religious and racial diversity. Based on long term ethnographic work, we explore the lived experiences and discourses of people calling themselves mestizas, people of mixed ethnoreligious backgrounds. Delving into the tension of being invisible in discourse and public policies, yet certainly present in the city, their condition is experienced as a relational affective field of care rooted in everyday practices. These practices are silenced by both a rhetorical emphasis on intercultural convivencia and the local and global, symbolic and material bordering of the city. We suggest that the visibilization of the transcultural practices derived from mestizaje sets a perfect ethnographic space to explore current challenges around borders, post-colonial feminist thinking and global mobility.