It is not all “coser y cantar” . Exploring migrant women's domestic spaces

Abstract

This article seeks to understand how people make a living on the urban margins through the domesticity of a group of migrant women who attend a weekly sewing workshop in Torrassa (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat). Despite their stories of struggle, migration and a reality marked by precariousness, they find in the workshop a socialising, mobilising and cathartic space; a valuable pretext for sharing yearnings and frustrations that transcend their own home, given that this does not stop being just another workspace where they carry their obligations, care and social reproduction. The domestic sphere here becomes a blurred concept, which diffuses the boundaries of the home, and whose activities strip women of their own space and time.

Through unusual qualitative research methods such as the creation of textile life maps we seek to delve into the chores and emotions of these women seamstresses and the complexities of inhabiting these places, highlighting their essential role in their homes and communities. Additionally, we aim to understand how, through their daily strategies of underlying and silent resistance, they sustain life on the margins.