Morocco: Migration and Transnational Identity

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People in Transit
Students on the Migration Studies program examine how Morocco’s diverse human mobility has shaped, and continues to shape, the country's class and economic structures, ethnic and racial relations, and the overall tapestry of Moroccan culture and society.

Morocco has long been at the crossroads of human civilizations. Over thousands of years, successive civilizations have emigrated and settled in Morocco including the Phoenicians, Vandals, Byzantines, Carthaginians, Romans, and eventually Arab tribes who moved from Arabia. Moments of intense mobility can be traced back to Moroccans' migration to Andalusia, the waves of Andalusian Muslim and Jewish refugees who fled Europe in the wake of the Spanish reconquista and inquisition, and the migratory flux to Morocco from a number of European countries during the colonial expansion.

Since its independence in 1956, Morocco has been a major source of unskilled, and more recently skilled, labor for expanding European economies. Today, Europe is home to more than two million first-, second-, and third-generation Moroccans. More recently, Morocco has moved from being a mere "labor frontier" country for Europe to becoming a popular country of transit for sub-Saharan African migrants and is rapidly becoming a receiving country of immigrants, as well.

Explore the complex effects of migration on local communities, global politics, and transnational economies.

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This program examines the factors driving internal and international migration particularly in Morocco and elsewhere in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Students consider how human mobility is shaped by religion, security, youth culture, desertification, poverty, and other pressing issues and how mobility engenders transnational art and multilayered identities.

The program is based in Rabat, Morocco's academic, political, and cultural center. In Rabat, students receive thematic lectures and intensive language instruction in both Modern Standard Arabic and the Moroccan dialect. Learn more about the program’s coursework.

Excursions to northern and rural areas of Morocco, as well as to Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, illuminate many different aspects of migration. Learn more about these excursions.

Students learn from Moroccan and European academics and policymakers, NGO and human rights activists, artists, and experts in the area of migration as it relates to law, international relations, and development. Lecturers are drawn from institutions such as:

Throughout the semester, students are deeply immersed in Moroccan society and culture. Homestays gives students exposure to different Moroccan perspectives and daily life.