Multicultural Policy as a Resisting Strategy of a Border Society: The Uses of Ethnicity in the Spanish Enclave of Melilla

Résumé En

The Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla are now the only borders of the European Union located on the African continent. The frontier nature of their territory has determined their whole history. On the one hand, a specific economy developed around the need for these enclaves to find the appropriate resources to live on, resources that were utterly insufficient on their limited territory. On the other hand, such dependency generated throughout the centuries constant relations with native populations and particularly Berber tribes living in the highland of the Rif. With the end of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco in 1956 and the arrival of a standardised legal framework under the auspices of the democracy in Spain in 1978, natives became an integral part of society in both enclaves. The multiculturalism management model issued from this incorporation to citizenship has been used as a way to delegitimize the involvement of natives in politics and prevent their access to power.