‘DARKENING’ INFORMALIZED WORKERS: Moral Geographies and the In/Visibilization of Transnational Migrants in Spain

Begoña Aramayona

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2025, vol. 49, issue 4, 892-911

Abstract: In this article I develop the concept of ‘darkening’, understood as a public‐led process characterized by using a dark‐based rhetoric that speaks to the ‘shadow’ or ‘gloomy’ status of certain informalized activities, while evoking neocolonial notions of a racialized Other and often resulting on the increased criminalization and in/visibilization of informalized (migrant) workers. By drawing comparisons between the intersectorial and multiscaled intersection of public policies, public‐led strategies and dominant (institutional and media) narratives affecting three types of de facto informalized labour activities in Spain (sex work, domestic employment and informal street vending) I shed light on the link between the governance of informalized (racialized) work and the reproduction of certain moral geographies in Spanish cities. Particularly, I show how the effect of ‘darkening’ has been to make these informalized workers more clandestine (displacing them ‘into the shadows’), hence criminalizing certain labour activities in public/visible spaces based on moral and legal arguments, while permitting, tolerating or even favouring those same activities in private/less visible spaces. By addressing the underexplored symbolic/discursive dimensions of darkness, and the blurred lines between traditional categories (public/private, urban/rural), this work aims to be a relevant contribution to contemporary debates on urban/night studies.

Date: 2025
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