Making Money, Marking Identities: On the Economic, Social and Cultural Functions of Moroccan Weddings in Brussels

Abstract

This article focuses on the weddings of second-generation Moroccans in Belgium. These unique, festive events give rise to a niche economy in which Moroccan entrepreneurs supply specific goods and services like the caftan—a traditional ceremonial dress for women. By linking qualitative and quantitative data with theoretical insights, this research relates these commercial activities with the Moroccan migrant community, which is inwardly torn apart by acculturation and individualisation. Therefore the growing social discord between generations and genders needs to be compensated by unifying rituals and symbols. Although traditional at first sight, the wedding ceremony and the caftans are, rather, a reinvention by a community searching for ethnic identity markers that can help it to embrace all its descendants. Instead of merely replicating the home country, this ‘translocation’ of culture is creating new common ground in the host society, thus showing that transnationalist and assimilationist ideas can sometimes link up in a dialectical way.