Résumé
Why choose the theme of immigration to study the formation of the state dailyand the transformations of the ways of governing in contemporary Morocco? The Moroccanterritory is reputed to be a ‘sieve’ through which all categories of undesirable foreigners’ transit,whose only ambition is to pass massively into European countries, a territory with borders thatare now known to be ‘deadly’. On the other hand, little is known about the way in which foreignpopulations are governed, administered, and controlled by a diversity of actors who implementa plurality of power mechanisms in heterogeneous spaces. From the wilaya to the medina, fromthe consulate to the tranquillos, from the camp to the counters, from the bus station to theborders, from the forest to the city center, from the neighborhood to the room of a counterfeiteror smuggler, from the agency of a real estate professional (semsar, concierge, lessor and realestate agent) to the office of a legal professional (lawyer, notary, adoul), from the street to theoffice of an association, from the cafeteria to the mosque, from the detention center to the court,from the workplace to the office of a trade union, an archipelago emerges that shows improbablefigures, unusual spaces, illegal practices, cobbled-together devices and plural actors, whocollaborate and confront each other, negotiate the border, bypass and transgress legal rules andsocial norms. Access to these spaces brings together actors in a position of power andintermediation with foreigners seeking resources and services: accessing Moroccan nationality;having one’s illegitimate child, who has been denied Moroccan nationality by the state,recognized; applying for a residence permit or a work visa; applying for a residence certificate;renting a flat or buying a property that is forbidden to a category of foreigners; inheritingproperty left by a deceased foreigner; helping the police identify a deceased migrant; buying abus ticket to travel to the borders; requesting social and material assistance from an association;applying for regularisation; having false identification papers made…While the management of immigration is instantly associated with foreigners’ offices andcounters, legislators, and security services, as well as courts and tribunals, the government offoreigners invites us to go beyond these bureaucratized, specialized, and institutionalized actorsand places. Using the Moroccan case as a starting point, this thesis highlights what governingforeigners means daily; how, in concrete terms, this process is only realized through amultiplicity of intermediaries, through a hybridization of practices of actors operating inheterogeneous spaces and through the coexistence of various ways of thinking about foreigners.It also underlines how much the contemporary situation can only be understood by consideringthe historical trajectory specific to Morocco, and the entire colonial legacy and the first yearsof independence. Based on multi-site surveys, varying scales and combining ethnography,archives, interviews and participant observation, this thesis shows that a state’s immigrationpolicy cannot be measured solely in terms of the practices of the state’s top clerks and its agentswho implement it at the « counter » and in the offices of the public administration, but that it canonly be understood by integrating into the analysis the practices and ways of hybrid and privateactors, from the associative and business worlds, as well as the tactics employed by the migrantsthemselves. The originality of this thesis lies in its ability to hold together all these scales ofgovernment.
Source: http://www.theses.fr/2021PA100141
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