Abstract
The protest movements known as the Arab Spring brought the frustration and disappointment of the North African citizens with their governments to the world's attention. Five years after the Arab Spring, the issues of human rights and individual freedom remain important issues in the democratic transition of the Arab societies. Since the countries in North Africa have also been important migrant sending countries for decades, the connection between mass emigration and human right issues forms an interesting research area. This empirical article aims to bring a new perspective to the debate by analysing the narratives dignity, human rights and minority identities of 80 Moroccan migrants living in France. The article first identifies four particularly vulnerable groups among the migrants: women, disabled people, homosexuals and ethnic minorities. It demonstrates how the migration project in case of many study and labour migrant was also motivated by issues related to personal freedom and dignity. Finally, the article discusses the emerging forms of political participation, identities and connections in transnational context and argues for more research on the role of diasporas in the socio-cultural transformations in the North African societies.
Highlights
High youth unemployment rate, difficult economic conditions and wide gaps in income levels have been generally identified as the causes that triggered off the revolts in the Arab World in 2010
Five years after the Arab Spring, corruption, women's rights and the issues of religious and ethnic minorities are still among the challenges that North African societies face in their post-Arab Spring transitions towards democracy
A new stream of research literature is emerging after the Arab Spring, linking the migration and politics in the Arab world, and in the important migrant-sending countries in North Africa such as Tunisia and Morocco (Brand, 2010 & 2014; de Haas & Sigona, 2012; Fargues & Fandrich, 2012, Natter, 2015)
Summary
Difficult economic conditions and wide gaps in income levels have been generally identified as the causes that triggered off the revolts in the Arab World in 2010. The role of the diaspora communities can be important in the post-Arab Spring transitions as the modern communication technology allows the migrants to maintain intensive ties with their communities of origin In this empirical article I am asking what is the relationship between human rights and minority identities in migrants' emigration decision. The above mentioned reasons are all relevant factors triggering emigration from North Africa, there are, as I will argue in this paper, personal reasons related to the issues of individual freedoms, migrant's position as a woman or a minority, or dignity as a human being in general. In this article I analyse the research data in the light of the discourses on dignity, human rights, women's and minority rights and individual freedom in North African and transnational context. At the time of the interviews, less than a third of respondents had been naturalized as French citizens
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