Marocchini verso l’Europa: storiografia, approcci e prospettive d’analisi

In this essay I try to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of academic literature on Moroccan migration flow to European countries most of which tend to analyse the phenomenon through a cyclic perspective focusing on the economic and social factors. I shall refer to main methodological approaches and I will look into the theoretical framework that provides a useful analytical tool to trace the continuum of the migration flow and the way it changes according to the historical context. This means that in the case of Morocco the researcher must take into consideration the historical background of the country, e.g. French and Spanish colonial rule which creates peculiar power relationship between peoples and countries. By means of examples, I will show how the historical approach allows us to analyse how migrants adapt themselves to the context and renew the flow, seen as a single uninterrupted movement throughout the time. Finally I will show why I prefer the concept of “migration chain” to “migration waves” and how I use it in a wider sense.