Abstract

ARAMAYONA, Begoña. The invisibilisation of informality in the nocturnal city: the displacement of sex workers and domestic employees to private spaces. Forum Sociológico [online]. 2023, n.43, pp.35-45.  Epub Dec 22, 2023. ISSN 0872-8380.  https://doi.org/10.4000/sociologico.11969.

In this paper, I propose to explore the concept of darkness and its relation to the increased criminalisation, clandestinisation and invisibility of informalised workers in Southern Europe. Taking the Spanish context as a case, and focusing on two types of de facto informalised, highly feminised, migrant and racialised labour (sex workers and domestic employees), I propose to explore how public governance (discourse and public policy) of the last three decades use a rhetoric based on darkness aimed to criminalise, re-stigmatise and “put in the shadows” these informalised night workers. Aiming to construct closer engagements between debates around darkness, informality, migration and feminist studies, I conclude that the moral geographies of Spanish cities seek to displace informal nocturnal activities towards increasingly invisible and clandestine spaces, moralising about them in public space, but permitting, tolerating or even favouring their reproduction in private spaces.

Keywords : nightlife; urban informality; domestic employment; live-in; sex work; Southern Europe.

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