INTERSECTIONALITY MEETS SEASONAL AGRICULTURAL WORK: THE CASE OF HUELVA IN TIMES OF COVID-19

Abstract: The COVID-19 has made the structural deficiencies of the global agri-food system more visible than ever. The agricultural enclave of Huelva is no exception. Departing from the pre-COVID scenario and adding the effects of the pandemic, this paper analyses the processes of discrimination and abuse embedded in the rationale and modus operandi of the Spanish temporary workers’ programme (GECCO). In particular, it examines how such processes of discrimination are reflected in three key aspects of the programme: recruitment, working conditions and living conditions. Thanks to the intersectional perspective and the feminist contributions to the world-ecology capitalism, the analysis sheds light on the mutual constitution of different axes of inequality (e.g. motherhood, ethnicity, rural origin) in the practices of discrimination and exploitation suffered by Moroccan women. In turn, it examines how such intersecting inequalities are geographically located in a specific temporal and spatial context that plays a role in the construction of power relationships at a structural level. The paper is fed by recent fieldwork based on in-depth interviews with stakeholders as part of a European research project on schemes of governance and circular migration (ADMIGOV).