The lives of migrant women working in agriculture: An intersectional approach to the border

By Daria Forlenza | OMC 2025

Muelle de Río Tinto, Huelva, Andalusia. Courtesy of the author

Think about the border as something that helps us define who we are

The border is about politics, society and language, as well as gender. The margin theory explains things like how society changes and the inequalities between different social groups. In intersectional theory, the margin is seen as a place where new possibilities for social participation and sharing can emerge. It is not seen as a limit or a boundary, but rather as an idea that can create new spaces for social interaction.

The division of cities into social groups

It is important to highlight that, due to modernisation, urban areas have become increasingly stratified. This is particularly relevant in the research conducted by sociologists Park and Burgess in the late 1920s in North America: in The City (Park & Burgess 2019), the idea of marginality and migrants’ lives is studied in relation to urban life. This becomes a useful way to understand social phenomena that show the relationship between communities and urban space. The way people use space and how they interact with each other is particularly important here. In the city, this is linked to the organisation of society. In the 1970s, sociologists began to recognise the significance of urban marginality: the notion that rural and urban areas are becoming increasingly similar. This is happening because of modernisation. It became clearer that edges and borders are intertwined in global society. When discussing rural areas such as those near the city of Huelva in Spain, where seasonal employers are located, it is important to recognise the profound interconnection between agriculture and urban communities. Research has shown that, despite the perception of division between rural and urban areas, these places are in fact intricately linked.

An intersectional approach to the border

The intersectional analytical approach suggests that the margin is where people build their social identity. It’s a place where people choose to create their own identities (Hooks, 1989; Collins, 2019). This helps us to understand the connection between three elements: margin-space-seasonality. This is demonstrated in the case study of temporeras in the Spanish context. The city of Huelva is an important example of a border city. It is part of the global economic system and has become the first exporter of strawberries in Europe and the second in the world after California. Huelva is a frontier city connecting Africa and Europe and is home to many seasonal workers, impacting the local economy and their lives. Huelva is an interesting place to look at how society changes because of globalisation. This is especially true when it comes to feminisation (the increase in women in the labour force) and the segmentation of work (the division of labour into different roles). These changes are linked to the growing importance of agriculture and the export of fruits like strawberries.

The temporary workers or temporeras

Temporeras are Moroccan women who work in the fields picking strawberries in the Spanish province of Huelva. They are the invisible women of seasonal migration, facing double discrimination in the form of economic inequality compared to their male counterparts and social and cultural inequality due to the increasing feminisation of agricultural work (Arab, 2020; Mozo, C., Moreno Nieto, J., & Reigada, A. 2022; Olaizola, 2012). These rural women are structurally marginalised, which raises important questions about the use of new frameworks for analysing rural migration in a context where globalisation has led to an increase in feminisation.

The stereotypical idea of picking strawberries

Temporeras are seasonal migrants who experience both subordination and social marginalisation. They live and work in spaces dedicated to strawberry picking, far from the city, for the short periods provided for in bilateral agreements between Spain and Morocco, experiencing extreme marginality (Wacquant,1996). They work and live in the field without any form of integration or participation in social life. They are women who work in a field that is traditionally male dominated (agriculture), and they are employed on short-term contracts to pick red fruits. The hiring of these women is “justified” because the strawberry is a “delicate fruit”. This justification underpins gendered discrimination in labour conditions. On the one hand, there is an economic benefit for female workers and there is a political benefit for the state, thanks to the bilateral accord (GECCO). This is in terms of border control between Morocco and Spain. However, the socio-cultural impact can be seen to be more negative for female workers than positive, since there are no supplementary programmes to help them learn Spanish or provide them with the tools to work for or start their own businesses (Molinero-Gerbeau, 2024). This means that, at the end of their contracts, they do not have the option of choosing to work for other employers, which makes social inclusion difficult. This is particularly problematic given the significant pay gap and the relatively unskilled nature of strawberry picking. From an economic perspective, hiring women with families in Morocco is beneficial as they are expected to contribute to the family's economic well-being from Spain. However, there is a downside too. Hiring vulnerable women with families means that they have less freedom to choose a different path. At the end of the contract, they mostly decide to return home, which is known as 'return migration'. In this case, it is more of an option granted by the political and economic scenarios of the states than by the women themselves. It is also true that the important contribution of women to rural activities is starting to be recognised at European level, even though little progress has been made towards the ideal condition of “freedom of choice”.

The need for social change

The idea of women as agents of their own lives is the key to social change in a male-dominated labour sector, and while things have started to change, the local community has become more sensitive to human rights in recent years, with projects to ensure integration also being founded. The WAFIRA project is an example of this: the project aims to enable the selected women to develop or strengthen an individual income generating activity (IGA) project, strengthen their entrepreneurial and/or cooperative management capacities, provide candidates with financial education skills, facilitate and support their access to financing, including by granting a financial guarantee, support and finalize their integration into the national social protection system for those whose status allows it. According to FAO, ‘Women play critical roles in agrifood systems as farmers, entrepreneurs, and community leaders’ (FAO, 2025). It is important to imagine women as active agents of change and to allow them to tell their own stories and share their vision of working in agriculture. In this case, the border becomes an opportunity and fertile ground. It is no longer a boundary, but an intangible dimension from which new spaces for social participation and sharing can emerge. A recent campaign by the Instituto de las Mujeres (Women’s Institute) focuses on the rights of seasonal workers in Huelva. The organisation has produced a series of infographics in Spanish and Arabic, as well as other materials.The organisation has also updated the resource guide for social organisations that support these workers, and has created an awareness-raising video to highlight the situation of many of these women. ​

Daria Forlenza 

Daria is a sociologist and researcher. She is an adjunct professor of general sociology and social service organisation at the Free University Ss. Assunta in Rome (LUMSA). Among her areas of study and research are intersectional feminism, migration and social exclusion. You can find her on LinkedIn.