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The Moroccan Moment and Communities of Itinerants: Mobility and Belonging in the Transnational Trajectories of Sub-Saharan Migrants

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Forging African Communities

Part of the book series: Global Diversities ((GLODIV))

Abstract

By critically documenting sub-Saharan African migrants’ everyday lives and urban social encounters in the city of Fès, Morocco, this chapter shows how apparently transitory ‘moments’ can give rise to a sense of transient, transnational belonging. It further explores how migrants who are largely uninterested in staying become part of the Moroccan urban spaces where they pass through or temporarily settle. This chapter demonstrates how migrants do contribute in shaping the city through their physical and economic presence and the circumstantial social relations that they foster with other migrants and locals. During their ‘Moroccan moment’, migrants participate further in raising debates about rights to the city and the right to be mobile.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This research was part of the research project ‘New Mobilities around Morocco viewed through the case of Fès’ carried out in the frame of the programme ‘African Perspectives on Human Mobility’ (Université Mohamed V Rabat and International Migration Institute). This study found that—as in most other Moroccan cities—sub-Saharan migrants living in Fès are mainly from West Africa (84.64 per cent), while only a minority is from Central Africa (10.51 per cent). The sub-Saharan migrants who took part in the survey were primarily men (77.4 per cent), aged between 20 and 35 years old (91 per cent), with most of them having received a school education (92.7 per cent), while 14 per cent had graduated from university before going abroad. The investigation comprised of a survey among 400 sub-Saharan migrants and 34 biographical interviews with migrants who had been living in Fès in the summer of 2010.

  2. 2.

    Alioua mentions that the migrants build relations with Moroccans encountered in Rabat who also aspire to emigrate, but he does not give further details about the type and length of these relationships (Alioua 2011).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Historical Institute of Paris, Paris, France

    Johara Berriane

  2. Center for Research on Social Policies, Dakar, Senegal

    Johara Berriane

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  1. Johara Berriane
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Oliver Bakewell

  2. African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Loren B. Landau

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Berriane, J. (2018). The Moroccan Moment and Communities of Itinerants: Mobility and Belonging in the Transnational Trajectories of Sub-Saharan Migrants. In: Bakewell, O., Landau, L. (eds) Forging African Communities. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58194-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58194-5_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

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