Revisiting Moroccan Migrations

Mohammed Berriane, Hein De Haas, Katharina Natter, Mohammed Berriane, Hein De Haas, Katharina Natter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317215301
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Over the 20th century, Morocco has become one of the world's major emigration countries. But since 2000, growing immigration and settlement of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Europe confronts Morocco with an entirely new set of social, cultural, political and legal issues. This book explores how continued emigration and increasing immigration is transforming contemporary Moroccan society, with a particular emphasis on the way the Moroccan state is dealing with shifting migratory realities. The authors of this collective volume embark on a dialogue between theory and empirical research, showcasing how contemporary migration theories help understanding recent trends in Moroccan migration, and, vice-versa, how the specific Moroccan case enriches migration theory. This perspective helps to overcome the still predominant Western-centric research view that artificially divide the world into 'receiving' and 'sending' countries and largely disregards the dynamics of and experiences with migration in countries in the Global South. This book was previously published as a special issue of The Journal of North African Studies.

Introduction: revisiting Moroccan migrations

Mohamed Berriane^a, Hein de Haas^b and Katharina Natter^b

^aEuro-Mediterranean University of Fez, Fèz Shore, Route de Sidi Harazem, Fez, Morocco; ^bInternational Migration Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Since the 1960s, Morocco has evolved into one of the world’s leading emigration countries and in many ways migration has permeated Morocco’s social, cultural and economic life. However, Morocco’s position within Euro-African migration systems seems to be undergoing significant changes since 2000. Although Morocco remains primarily a country of emigration, it is also becoming a destination for migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa and, to some extent, from Europe. The growing presence of immigrants confronts Moroccan society with an entirely new set of social, cultural, political and legal issues around diversity and integration. This special issue explores how continued emigration and increasing immigration is transforming contemporary Moroccan society, with a particular emphasis on the way in which the Moroccan state is dealing with these shifting migratory realities. The analyses highlight how existing migration theories can help to make sense of these transformations and, vice-versa, how the Moroccan case can contribute to migration scholarship. The Moroccan migration experience particularly exemplifies the value and necessity of going beyond Euro-centric biases in migration research that artificially divide the world into ‘receiving’ and ‘sending’ countries.

1. Moroccan migrations in a North African perspective

Over the second half of the twentieth century, Morocco has become one of the world’s major emigration countries. Notwithstanding increasing European immigration restrictions since the early 1970s, Moroccan emigration has shown a striking persistence and has become more diversified, both in terms of destination countries and origin regions within Morocco. Focusing first on France as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, Moroccan emigrations have diversified to Italy and Spain from the late 1980s and, to a certain extent, to North America. This has consolidated Morocco’s position as an emigration country. Since the mid-1990s, Morocco has even overtaken Turkey as the main source of non-EU migration to Europe. Although the 2008 Global Economic Crisis, and particularly high unemployment in southern European destinations, has slowed down the number of departures to a certain extent, emigration is still very high and the roughly 4 million Moroccans living abroad continue to represent vital social, economic and political interests.

Yet, changes in Moroccan migration patterns since 2000 highlight that Morocco is increasingly assuming an intermediate position linking African and Mediterranean migration systems. Besides emigration, Morocco now faces significant transit migration, immigration and settlement of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and elsewhere. This seems to be symptomatic of globalisation and overall increases in Morocco’s regional and global connectivity through media, trade and transport links. Although the numbers are still comparatively small, the growing presence of immigrants confronts Moroccan society with an entirely new set of social and legal issues around diversity and integration, typical for immigration countries. This has engendered new debates on national identity, human rights and religious diversity, as well as triggered policy changes. Challenging the conventional view of Morocco as a ‘sending country’, the question arises whether these changes are a harbinger for a future migration transition in which Morocco might witness increasing immigration alongside a possible decreasing emigration potential.

In order to explore this further, the authors of this special issue investigate six different dimensions of how recent changes in migration patterns have affected Moroccan society, with a particular emphasis on the way in which states have dealt with changing migration realities. The first three articles deal with Moroccan emigration to Europe. Nina Sahraoui’s article ‘Acquiring “Voice” Through “Exit”: How Moroccan Emigrants Became a Driving Force of Political and Socio-economic Change’ looks at diaspora policies – the traditional focus of Moroccan migration policies – and argues that emigrant communities have over time undergone a process of political empowerment through their stay abroad. In ‘Language as a New Instrument of Border Control: The Regulation of Marriage Migration from Morocco to Germany’, Miriam Gutekunst offers an ethnographic insight into the legal obstacles Moroccan marriage migrants face when they seek to reunite with their partners in Germany, which is illustrative of attempts by other northwest European destination countries to curtail family migration. Dominique Jolivet’s study ‘Times of Uncertainty in Europe: Migration Feedback Loops in Four Moroccan Regions’ assesses the extent to which the 2008 Global Economic Crisis has affected Moroccans’ migration aspirations.

The other three articles shift the focus to Morocco as a destination country. In ‘Sub-Saharan Students in Morocco: Determinants, Everyday Life and Future Plans of a Highly Skilled Migrant Group’, Johara Berriane investigates the geopolitics of student mobility in West Africa, with a particular emphasis on the aspirations and life experiences of sub-Saharan students in Morocco. In ‘Immigration and Pensée d’Etat: Moroccan Migration Policy Changes as Transformation of “Geopolitical Culture”’, Myriam Cherti and Michael Collyer discuss Morocco’s 2014 regularisation programme for irregular migrants, and in particular how changing migration policies are related to Morocco’s geopolitical reorientation to the African continent. The final article, ‘French Migrants in Morocco: From a Desire for Elsewhereness to an Ambivalent Reality’, by Catherine Therrien and Chloé Pellegrini, shifts the attention to the (much ignored) experiences of European migrants living in Morocco.

This special issue emerged from a workshop organised by the Euro-Mediterranean University (Fez) and the International Migration Institute (Oxford) in Fez, Morocco, on 22–24 May 2014. Entitled ‘Moroccan Migrations: Transformations, Transitions and Future Prospects’, the aim of the workshop and this special issue was to explore recent migration trends from and towards Morocco, and how these changes are simultaneously affecting and affected by general social, cultural, economic and political transformations of Moroccan society. Besides providing an overview of long-term Moroccan migration trends (in this editorial), the articles explore (i) how shifting Moroccan migration dynamics are related to changing perceptions and aspirations of Morocco’s emigrants and immigrants, but also (ii) how migrants use their agency to defy government constraints, as may be seen, for instance, in the continuation of Moroccan migration to Europe despite immigration restrictions, or the de facto long-term settlement of sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco despite their frequent labelling as ‘transit’ migrants by governments, the media and researchers. While these examples highlight that migration is a partly autonomous social process that often escapes or circumvents state restrictions, the articles also illustrate (iii) how changing migratory realities on the ground as well as broader geopolitical considerations have compelled the Moroccan state to adopt and adapt its own emigration and immigration policies.

Through an analysis along these three key dimensions, this special issue pursues the broader theoretical ambition of relating the particular Moroccan case to a larger conceptual effort underway in migration scholarship, that is, to reconceptualise migration as an intrinsic part of larger processes of social transformation and development rather than as a ‘problem to be solved’ (IMI 2006). This is important because many analyses of migration in Morocco, North Africa and the non-Western world in general are still mired in naive ‘push–pull’ models, which tend to portray migration as consequence of underdevelopment, poverty and conflict. This mode of analysis is also evident in media coverage of the tragic spike in drownings in the Mediterranean in spring 2015. This is at odds with increasing evidence on the highly complex, nonlinear and counter-intuitive relation between development and migration. For instance, going against powerful preconceptions, ‘development’ through economic growth, increasing education and infrastructure improvement often spurs emigration partly because it increases people’s aspirations and capabilities to cross borders (de Haas 2010).

In the remainder of this editorial, we will therefore not only seek to explore how contemporary migration theories – particularly those on the role of development, policies, agency and aspirations in migration processes – can help us understand recent trends in Moroccan migration, but also how the specific Moroccan case enriches migration theory. This is particularly relevant to remove the still predominant Euro- or Western-centric bias in migration research, where most debates and theories on migration and ‘integration’ are informed by the experiences of a handful of ‘migration destinations’ in the Global North, notably the USA, the UK, Germany and France, and largely disregard the dynamics of and experience with migration in countries in the Global South. It is therefore important to understand and analyse the experiences of countries like Morocco that are labelled ‘origin’ or ‘transit’ countries from a European perspective, but that are also immigration countries in their own right.

2. Moroccan emigration

2.1. Morocco, a country of accelerating and diversifying emigration

Since Moroccan independence in 1956, emigration has undergone fundamental transformations and increased in overall complexity and diversity. Today, Morocco is one of the world’s leading emigration countries, with the global Moroccan diaspora estimated at around 4 million (out of a total population of about 34 million; this includes second and third generations). Moroccan contemporary emigration patterns are deeply rooted in colonialism (de Haas 2014). Algeria’s colonisation by France in 1830 prompted Moroccans to engage in increasing seasonal and circular labour migration to Algeria. Morocco’s own colonial era (1912–56) marked the beginning of migration to France, mainly in the context of industrial work and recruitment into the French army in the First and Second World Wars. When France stopped recruiting Algerian workers during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), recruitment and migration of factory and mine workers from Morocco was boosted.

Yet, post-colonial migration was modest compared with the decade 1962–72, when strong economic growth in Western Europe resulted in high demand for low-skilled labour. Labour recruitment agreements with West Germany (1963), France (1963), Belgium (1964), and the Netherlands (1969) led to a diversification of Moroccan emigration beyond France, dramatically expanding its magnitude and geographical scope. Between 1965 and 1972, the estimated number of registered Moroccans living in the main European destination countries increased tenfold, from 30,000 to 300,000, further increasing to 700,000 in 1982, 1.6 million in 1998, and 3.1 million in 2012 (de Haas 2014).

While Moroccan emigration has been overwhelmingly oriented towards Europe, substantial numbers of Moroccans have also emigrated to other Arab countries and Israel. Since the 1970s, approximately 120,000 Moroccans have migrated to Libya and several tens of thousands to the oil-rich Gulf countries to work on temporary contracts. Moroccan Jews followed a distinct pattern, emigrating in massive numbers to France, Israel, and Canada (Québec) after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the Six Day War of 1967. As a result, Morocco’s Jewish population dwindled from an approximate 250,000 to the current number of about 5000.

The 1973 Oil Crisis prompted European governments to freeze recruitment, while the ensuing economic recessions (lasting well into the 1980s), the relocation of labour-intensive industries to low-wage countries and the shutdown of mines in Europe led to soaring unemployment among migrant workers. However, the increasing migration restrictions put in place by European states did not lead to massive returns, but instead interrupted circulation. This had the unintended effect of stimulating the permanent settlement of Moroccan workers in Europe. In the same period, the economic situation in Morocco deteriorated and, following two failed coups d’état in 1971 and 1972, the country entered a period of political instability and repression, further encouraging permanent settlement of migrants in Europe.

Settlement was followed by large-scale family reunification. This largely explains continued migration to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany over the 1970s and 1980s despite high unemployment and the destination countries’ official aim to curb migration. High naturalisation rates and low return migration compared to other immigrant groups in Europe (only about one quarter of Moroccans who emigrated between 1981 and 2009 returned to Morocco) further solidified the permanency of Moroccan presence in Europe.

From the mid-1980s onwards, Italy and then Spain emerged as new destinations for Moroccan workers, mainly as a consequence of high demand for (often irregular, and increasingly also female) migrant labour in agriculture, construction, care and other lower skilled services. Initially, Moroccan migration to Southern Europe had a predominantly circular character, as Moroccans could travel freely back and forth. However, as with the guest-worker generation, migration restrictions and border controls would interrupt this. After Italy and Spain introduced visa requirements in 1990–91 – in compliance with joining the Schengen Area – Moroccans started to overstay their visas or to migrate illegally across the Strait of Gibraltar. Despite border controls, irregular migration continued, primarily because of sustained labour demand in southern Europe and repeated regularisations by Italian and Spanish governments that granted legal status to hundreds of thousands of unauthorised migrants.

While migration of low-skilled workers to Italy and Spain still continues today, it is complemented by more recent and growing emigration of Moroccan high school and university graduates to the USA and the French-speaking Canadian province of Québec. To a significant extent, this reflects structural development trends in Morocco, as manifested in the increasingly urban and literate character of Moroccan society. As this rising emigration of skilled workers and business people testifies, the stereotypical image of the economically marginalised Moroccan migrant ‘guest worker’ is less and less tenable. Among these new Moroccan emigrants, there is also an increasing proportion of women migrating independently. For instance, more and more Moroccan women work as domestic workers, nannies, cleaners, or in agriculture and small industries in southern Europe. This contrasts with the situation before the 1990s, when most Moroccan women migrated as their spouses’ or parents’ dependents in the framework of family reunification.

The 2008 Global Economic Crisis slowed down Moroccan emigration, as high unemployment among migrants living in Europe, and especially in Spain (Khaldi 2014), led to fewer departures and increased temporary returns. However, the 2008 crisis did not lead to the major drop in Moroccan emigration that some had expected. Immigration restrictions play a major role in explaining low return rates: returnees were mainly Moroccans with European citizenship or permanent residency, while those with temporary residence or without legal status have tended to stay put in countries such as Spain and Italy despite unemployment and economic insecurities, because they feared that they might not be allowed to move back to Europe after a few years.

In retrospect, Morocco’s post-independence emigration experience can be characterised along three main dimensions that will be further explored in this special issue: (i) persistent, accelerating and diversifying emigration, notwithstanding European immigration restrictions; (ii) the changing identities and growing political engagement of Moroccan migrants of the second and thir...