The Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies, The Open University

THE FERGUSON CENTRE FOR
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Roehampton Conference Abstracts

18. Taieb Belghazi (Mohammed V University of Rabat, Morocco):
‘Economic Martyrs’: Three perspectives on ‘Lahrig’

Taieb Belghazi is Professeur de l'enseignement supérieur, Department of English, Faculty of Letters. His numerous publications include Actions Collectives: De la mobilisation des ressources à la prise de parole (2001, with Madani), The Idea of the University (1997, edited), Local/Global Cultures and sustainable development (2001, co-edited). He is also a coordinator of the GIPSC Project.

This paper will discuss three representational modes of engagement with Moroccan underground economic migration since the creation of the Schengan space in 1990. The first mode is that of the state that deploys a specific discourse on underground economic migration and uses repressive institutional strategies to deal with it in regional and global context of denationalisation of the economy and transnationalisation of economic migration control systems. The second mode is that of new social movements mobilised by the families of the victims of underground economic migration. The question will be the relation between the economic migrants’ exit from local politics and the re-politicisation of that exit through the action of their families and their friends. Emphasis will be on:

1. A documentary by 2M, the second Moroccan channel. The documentary is construed as a narrativisation of the event of Lahrig (in Moroccan Arabic that means ‘burning’, in reference to the economic migrants’ burning of their past and their taking risks when they try to cross the few kilometres that separate Morocco from Spain on small boats).

2. A novel that allegorises the phenomenon entitled Les clandestins by Youssef Alami.
The thrust of the argument is to demonstrate through a discussion of the various strategies on Lahrig how the latter constitutes a site of struggle for survival and lies at the heart of Morocco’s and the region’s dynamic of economic, social and political change.

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