Aspirations and Hope Distribution in the Emigration of Maghrebi Europeans in Montreal

Abstract

The article addresses contemporary forms of European emigration more specifically of Belgian and French ‘second-generation’ migrant youngsters of Maghrebi background leaving Europe for Montreal (Canada). Building on an ethnographic field research conducted in France, Belgium and Montreal over a period of four years, this article explores the aspirations that participants pursued through migration and how these aspirations evolved in the course of the migration trajectory. This article describes young Maghrebi European’s experiences as unfolding in different configurations of hope distribution in Europe and Canada. While the emergence of emigration desires is connected with the shrinking hope for desirable futures in Europe, moving to Montreal is experienced as an opening of new hopes albeit with mixed results in terms of actual economic or professional upward mobility.

Keywords:

• Emigration
• montreal
• hope
• Maghrebi Europeans

Notes

Notes

1 All of the interviews were conducted in French and translated into English by me. For privacy reasons, the names of the respondents have been changed.

2 My translation. See: https://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/detail_theo-francken-doute-de-la-valeur-ajoutee-des-marocains-et-des-congolais?id=8378856.

3 TV show “On est pas couché”, France 2, 26 September 2015.

4 The construction of Muslim minorities as “others”, at least in France, also involved important continuities with the colonial period (Amiraux, 2010).

5 “La cité” is a term used to name the working class suburbs of the big French cities, often characterized by a high concentration of social housing.