Trouble at home: diasporic second homes as leisure space across generations

Abstract

Like migrants from various southern sending countries, many Moroccan post-war guest worker migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands invested part of their foreign earnings in building a house in Morocco. These houses were often earmarked for eventual retirement, but over the course of years of return visits became the familial vacation home in their place of origin. Their cyclical presence enabled ongoing communion with family in Morocco, while also often exacerbating economic inequalities among family members resulting from migration. As post-migrant generations of Moroccans from Europe are now purchasing homes in Morocco, their choices indicate how diasporic property ownership over progressive generations may tend more towards leisure-oriented second homes rather than the stereotypical image of migrant investment in place-attached ‘hometown’ houses.

Keywords:

• diasporic practices
• post-migrant
• second home
• VFR tourism
• caretaker

Notes on contributor

Lauren Wagner is in the Cultural Geography Group at Wageningen University, where she in the Mobilities cluster, focusing on issues of migration, leisure and belonging. Her research concerns diasporic Morocco and travel mobilities related to migration and tourism.