Abstract
AbstractThis book provides a unique approach to the Moroccan context. Many researchers have conducted fieldwork in Morocco, departing from migration studies (e.g., De Haas 2003, 2006, 2010; Czaika and De Haas 2011; De Haas and El Ghanjou 2000), while others solely focused on environmental and climate changes (e.g., Schilling et al. 2012), leaving the interplay between both to be explored more in-depth. The Moroccan context offers a unique research context because it is confronted with gradual environmental change over the last decades and has initiated considerable action at the national level to develop policies or strategies to counteract these changes. Hence, Morocco in 2019 ranked among the leading countries in the fight against climate change on the Climate Change Performance Index (Burck et al. 2019). Furthermore, Morocco evolved into one of the world’s leading emigration countries in the second half of the twentieth century, being characterized by unexpected developments, including colonial migration, labour migration, family reunification, and, recently, undocumented migration. This led to a high degree of internal differentiation within the Moroccan migrant population and strong and influential migrant networks (De Haas 2007; Schilling et al. 2012; cf. Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-61390-7_3).
Highlights
These verses and overall attitude suggest that one should live in harmony with nature and respond. This does not automatically relate to statistical climate change discourses. This leads to the finding that different learning methods for acquiring information on environmental changes in Morocco – through education or the media about more official and scientifically-approved climate change discourses versus the development of tacit knowledge and skills that are built up over the years when working in affected domains
This could contribute to the creation, or the further strengthening, of social inequalities when facing the consequences of environmental changes (Adger et al 2009). These individual adaptation strategies are structured by constraint opportunities, expectations of environmental change and risks, and a mixture of perceived and expected desired future realities, and impacted by climate change discourses, previous experiences, and available resources. These results indicate the social embeddedness of migration aspirations and environmental changes and how they further reinforce existing social inequalities
The distinct chapters of this book highlight how environmental changes and migration dynamics interplay within the Moroccan context, and in Tangier and Tinghir, as well as for people of the Moroccan diaspora in Belgium. This comparative and complementary case study approach focuses mainly on how environmental changes are felt through the existing social structures – gender relations in families and society, distinct socio-economic vulnerabilities and resilience in society related to educational level, professions and dependence on the natural living environment, and the added advantages of having access to all kinds of remittances from migrant networks
Summary
This book provides a unique approach to the Moroccan context. Many researchers have conducted fieldwork in Morocco, departing from migration studies (e.g., De Haas 2003, 2006, 2010; Czaika and De Haas 2011; De Haas and El Ghanjou 2000), while others solely focused on environmental and climate changes (e.g., Schilling et al 2012), leaving the interplay between both to be explored more in-depth. Given the relatively large timespan for these changes to occur, especially in the gradually-degrading natural living environment of Morocco, environmental changes are not always so easy to perceive by individuals This finding has far-reaching impacts on the study of environmental migration since this is a condition for categorizing migration aspirations and trajectories in terms of environmental migration or to conceive migration as an adaptation strategy, or both. The chapter’s results stress the limited and relative (perceived) importance of environmental factors compared to other social, economic, demographic, and political drivers of human mobility Within this sample of Moroccans who had migrated to Belgium, socio-economic and especially family-related reasons appeared as the main factors that initiated the development of migration aspirations and plans – despite the impact people in Morocco feel from slow and gradual environmental changes, such as drought, especially the irregular and erratic rainfall that makes them aware of these changes. Their migration trajectory will mainly be undertaken for individual survival and less to structurally contribute to ways in which the migrant and their family will be able to shield against even worse environmental conditions or counteract disruptive effects of environmental changes
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