Migratory trajectories: Moroccan borderlands and translocal imaginaries

The creation of the E.U., a polymorphous political, economic and ideological space, has transformed and distended European states' national borders. This Europeanization of national borders has made all E.U. borders equally appealing to migrants and refugees. Instead of detente in movement and flow, E.U. borders became increasingly militarized and E.U. states increasingly securitarian in their approach to migration. One of the most problematic consequences of this state of affairs is the rise in irregular migration.;Based on research conducted in Morocco in 2005-2007, this dissertation explores irregular migration as a set of organized and chaotic (creative, unexpected) actions. I understand migration as an act without a finite beginning or a finite end, fluid, non-linear. At the center of this act is desire---desire for something else, somewhere other. This desire takes root in the individual and social imaginary and often transforms into obsession. But the word obsession' begs its grounding in what is partially its opposite: the banal, the quotidian, the culturally mechanical. The desire to migrate structures and permeates the everyday: it affects the perceived value of the work produced and profoundly transforms concepts of space and time. Further, it invades conversations, participates in radical changes in patriarchal, gendered relations and in relations with returning immigrants. I suggest that (irregular) migration is both structural and intensely individual.;Irregular migration, a global phenomenon on the rise, unwanted by host and transit states, is shaped by blocks, indefinite stops, liminalities and barriers. This leads me to question theoretical approaches to migration as constituted of flow and movement. Consequently, I concentrate on the disjunctive and derivate spaces created by irregular migration. I also come to understand that there is no finite, polished understanding of irregular migration as migrant treks and trajectories both create and are created by structural and collateral conditions.;A new phenomenon has appeared. A transit country to Europe for many migrants from Subsaharan Africa and, increasingly for the Middle East and the Subcontinent, Morocco has become a host country due to the sheer difficulty of border crossings. Many economic and political refugees have trekked, often on foot and for months on end, across vast No Man's Lands in the hope of reaching Europe. They may remain in transit for 5, 7 years. Morocco, an emitting country, has become an immigrant country---a fact both the Moroccan state and the Subsaharan Africans refuse to acknowledge.;Finally, irregular migration has become an economic enterprise rooted in the individual and global imaginary and based on self-sacrifice. Though migration cannot be separated from larger socio-capitalist structures and necessities, I argue that it is also a daily practice, alive, both creative and nihilist. Basing my research in different regions and among different groups, I problematize the notion of 'type' of migration and think through how different 'types' are produced by cultural imaginaries and translocal lives.