This paper explores the social worlds and vocabularies surrounding clandestine migration in a rural region of Central Morocco. Focusing on Kamel’s narrative, I show how he mobilizes ideas of ‘risk’, ‘gambling’, ‘adventure’, ‘luck’ and ‘destiny’ to tell his experience and to reflect on the constraints and possibilities in life. Whereas the Islamic notion of ‘destiny’ (maktūb, qadar) evokes events that go beyond personal control and understanding, folk ideas of ‘luck’ (zahr, l-ḥḍ) propel the individual search for money and adventure in the ‘outside world’, a foreign land of socioeconomic possibilities and moral threats. Navigating the creative tensions between ‘luck’ and ‘destiny’, he explores the limits of his action in the face of broader social and transcendental forces. Tracing how Kamel interweaves different vocabularies in his narrative, the paper aspires to capture young men’s gendered and existential anxieties about the future, faced as they are by the combined effects of neo-liberal restructuring, rising unemployment and the increasing ‘illegalization’ of migration.

Menin, L. (2016). “Men are not scared! (rijjala ma tay-khafsh)”: Luck, Destiny and the gendered vocabularies of clandestine migration in Central Morocco, Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo 18 (1). 25-36. ARCHIVIO ANTROPOLOGICO MEDITERRANEO(18(1)), 25-36 [10.7432/AAM180103].

“Men are not scared! (rijjala ma tay-khafsh)”: Luck, Destiny and the gendered vocabularies of clandestine migration in Central Morocco, Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo 18 (1). 25-36.

MENIN, LAURA
2016

Abstract

This paper explores the social worlds and vocabularies surrounding clandestine migration in a rural region of Central Morocco. Focusing on Kamel’s narrative, I show how he mobilizes ideas of ‘risk’, ‘gambling’, ‘adventure’, ‘luck’ and ‘destiny’ to tell his experience and to reflect on the constraints and possibilities in life. Whereas the Islamic notion of ‘destiny’ (maktūb, qadar) evokes events that go beyond personal control and understanding, folk ideas of ‘luck’ (zahr, l-ḥḍ) propel the individual search for money and adventure in the ‘outside world’, a foreign land of socioeconomic possibilities and moral threats. Navigating the creative tensions between ‘luck’ and ‘destiny’, he explores the limits of his action in the face of broader social and transcendental forces. Tracing how Kamel interweaves different vocabularies in his narrative, the paper aspires to capture young men’s gendered and existential anxieties about the future, faced as they are by the combined effects of neo-liberal restructuring, rising unemployment and the increasing ‘illegalization’ of migration.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
illegal border-crossing, future, adventure, destiny, luck, young men
English
2016
18(1)
25
36
none
Menin, L. (2016). “Men are not scared! (rijjala ma tay-khafsh)”: Luck, Destiny and the gendered vocabularies of clandestine migration in Central Morocco, Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo 18 (1). 25-36. ARCHIVIO ANTROPOLOGICO MEDITERRANEO(18(1)), 25-36 [10.7432/AAM180103].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/137866
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