Precarious lives, invisible deaths. A history of community funeral management among Moroccans in Catalonia

ABSTRACT

Moroccan economic migration to Catalonia began in the mid-1960s and was consolidated in the early 1990s. The history of migration is usually reconstructed on the basis of associative, cultural and religious initiatives, as an expression of a collective identity. But this history is also the result of interaction with the receiving society. This article analyses the process of community funeral management among Moroccans in Catalonia, which represented one of the first expressions of their community configuration, but which at the same time reveals the negative consideration that their presence would arouse in Catalan society. The study of the archives of the Moroccan Consulate in Barcelona allows us to reconstruct the first funerary initiatives, but also some of the situations of early racism that were already occurring throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

KEYWORDS:

• Moroccans
• migration
• racism
• death
• community funeral management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article was supported by the Research and Development project R+D+i “Africans and Maghrebis in the Iberian Peninsula (1850–1975). A history on the margins of Spain and Portugal” (AFROIBERIA), Dir. Y. Aixelà-Cabré. PID2019-108397GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033/ and “ERDF A way of making Europe”.

2 The data on deaths were obtained during two research periods, between 1993 and 1994, from the archives of the Moroccan Consulate in Barcelona, when the author was located on La Rambla in Barcelona. During these periods, the files from 1968 to 1988 were consulted. When the consulate moved to another location, this documentation was mislaid and, from 1997, it was only available through the record books, which provide far less qualitative data. For a more detailed and contextualized analysis of these archives, see Moreras (2024).

3 One quarter of Moroccan residents in Spain live in Catalonia (235,278 out of a total of 883,243 on December 31, 2022, according to the National Statistics Office) (www.ine.es, accessed on January 15, 2023).

4 “Morocco opens general consulate in Barcelona”, La Vanguardia, September 2, 1972.

5 The social invisibility of these migrants, who were systematically ignored by society, brought about a situation of social anonymity among them. The press referred to them in these terms: “they take a long time to adapt, or they never manage to. Their ignorance of the language isolates them and makes them evasive; it is difficult to get a clear picture of them” (Gaceta Ilustrada, February 3, 1973).

6 “35,000 illegal North African workers in the province”, La Vanguardia, December 2, 1973.

7 At that time, there were no social entities that denounced the existence of this emerging racism. The reactivation of old stereotypes in Spanish society in relation to Morocco gradually permeated the social imaginaries that would be applied to this new presence. For the historical reconstruction of this process, the essential reference work is that of Eloy Martín Corrales (2002).

8 El Noticiero Universal, June 5, 1981.

9 “North Africans, victims of indifference”, La Vanguardia, December 11, 1973; “How those mistakenly called Moors are exploited”, Triunfo, 584, December 8, 1973.