Towards the elsewhere: discourses on migration and mobility practices between Morocco and Italy

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyse the preparation process of young Moroccan migrants intended to migrate to Italy. My focus is on the personal and collective formulation of their desire to leave and on concomitant action taken to bring about these aspirations; highlighting the complexity of the imagination, which migration – and expected return – entails. A second point of interest is the agency exerted by such youth, as they prepare for departure; even when they have not yet physically left the country. In addition, my observation is focussed on networks emerging as a result of having to deal with state-imposed, migration restrictions, as well as with the politics of humanitarian agencies and NGOs. I argue that these aspiring migrants project themselves into the future and act in accordance with what they long to become. They shape themselves as mobile subjects through a process of self-making to overcome the above-mentioned constraints.

Keywords:

• migration
• mobility
• Morocco
• imagination
• agency
• development

Notes

1. During my field research, the gathering of bibliographic material concerning migration – spread locally – was given priority. Thereafter, I joined a local NGO particularly active on this issue to exploit the opportunity as a participant–observer of humanitarian activities addressing migration.

2. I approached approximately 30 young people of Khouribga through a local language school that organised Italian language courses. This mediation granted my research some degree of institutional legitimacy, thus allowing me to collect tape-recorded and semi-structured interviews. I conducted what Ong (2005, p. 9) calls ‘commuter fieldwork’, as I was living in Rabat and not in the same city where my interviewees were. Therefore, I regularly commuted between Rabat and Khouribga to conduct face-to-face interviews. I also gathered materials from several unplanned conversations in the street, in cafés and in city shops (one case only in a private home), which, albeit fragmented, turned out to be meaningful in providing insight into local life dynamics and people’s opinion about migration.

3. At present, OCP SA, with headquarters in Casablanca.

4. Excerpts of interviews reported in the article have all been translated into English, being them originally in Moroccan Arabic (only in a few cases in French).

5. Italian citizens of Moroccan origin are not included.

6. In January 2008, 1 dirham was equivalent to €0.09.

7. My research assistant.

8. Inhabitants of the city of Fès.

9. The transliteration of Arabic terms and expressions used in this article follows the simplified code produced by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (2002) instead of the one, scientifically more appropriate, but harder to decode, applied by the Word Organisation for the Normalisation (ISO 233: 1984). This choice is also due to the fact that Moroccan Arabic has a lower degree of standardisation than Classical Arabic and is therefore open to a wider range of transcriptions.

10. The noun blad means countryside as well as country; in this context, it is used by Moroccans to mean Morocco.

11. It is, however, not unusual for migration patterns to fail to improve one’s life conditions, or even to result in being expelled. ‘Umar says: ‘Here he is now begging. He has wasted five years of his life, and came here and beg’.

12. 20-year-old woman, nearly at the end of her work-oriented high school, has a sister in Bologna that she would like to join to go to college.

13. The name is that of a district in Rome.

14. Please refer to http://www.tanmia.ma/fr/thematiques/migration-developpement/1395-pourquoi-je-veux-emigrer.

15. For an interesting study on the creation of illegality from regulation defining ‘legal’ mobility, please refer to De Genova (2002).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elsa Mescoli

ELSA MESCOLI is a PhD Student in Department of Educational Human Sciences ‘Riccardo Massa’, at University of Milano-Bicocca and at CEDEM – Center for Ethnic and Migration Studies, Institute for Human and Social Sciences, University of Liège.