"We don't have women in boxes': Channelling seasonal mobility of female farmworkers between Morocco and Andalusia

International audienceThis chapter focuses on the recruitment of female labour from Morocco for Andalusian strawberry farming. I address the interplay of coercion and control inscribed into the constantly changing recruitment mechanisms shaped by production requirements on the one hand, and the persistence of Moroccan women’s interaction with agricultural production and respective labour markets translating into an unintended empowerment for some of them on the other hand. I will begin by explaining how ‘contracting in the countries of origin’ (contratación en origen) (see Lindner and Kathmann, this volume) evolved in Morocco and reveal how the flow of seasonal workers governs flexible forms of work organization. I address the gap between EU funding intentions and regional recruitment dynamics. Special attention is given to the social locations where control mechanisms are implemented – namely instrumentalizing female family attachment as a means of guaranteeing the return of workers. I will, however, demonstrate how women within these omnipresent control mechanisms seek to direct and command their mobilities and develop their own positions