Interrelations of Migrants to/from the South and to/from the North: Reflecting on Social Change and Crisis

This presentation aims to discuss the connection between two forms of migration which are most often studied separately in migration research: migrations from the North to the South and migrations from the South to the North. From two research projects, one on French migrants in Morocco, and the other on Moroccan migrants in France, this paper will discuss the interrelations at work between Moroccan migrants going from South to North and European migrants going from North to South. The studies indeed show that encounters between migrants and the local Moroccan or French population shape migration paths from South to North and vice-versa

This paper will also explore how migration choices are related to the collective and familial history of the migrants encountered. Some of the French migrants in Morocco reveal to have been motivated to migrate because of their family past, by the fact that number of them had ancestors who had lived in Morocco during the colonial period. The Moroccan migrants in Europe on the other side were also motivated in their migration by their complex experience of transnational collective and familial history in the colonial era. Because of these experiences, both familial and national, the encountered migrants had been connected to the “North” and the “South” long before their physical migration.

These cross-cutting perspectives will raise the following questions: how do the interrelations at work between migrants in/from the South and in/from the North affect migration flows? How does the past, here the colonial experience, connect individuals to/from the North or the South even before their physical migration? How is this interaction affected in times of crisis and how is it reflected in an unequal global context?