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The city of Fès as a locus to investigate migration processes on the move

Morocco | Migration, Earth Sciences

Workshop "Migration, Mobilité et Développement" in Fez

Swiss partners

  • Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana SUPSI: Filippo Bignami (main applicant), Niccolò Cuppini

Partners in the MENA region

  • Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco: Moha Ennaji (main applicant), Fatima Sadiqi

  • Euro-Mediterranean University at Fès, Morocco: Mohammed Moubtassime

Presentation of the projet

The project started on 1 spetember 2018 and ended on 31 August 2019. We started working immediately and continuously with the main partner in Fès and also the other local partners (Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University at Fès - INLAC - International Institute for Languages and Cultures and Euro-Mediterranean University at Fès) on collecting information on both Fès situation and features of migration flows in connection with the city, institutional frame and key actors and on deepening the theoretical basic concepts. Considering that this project is not a research one we did not plan a complete theoretical framing and review, though, we considered necessary to sketch an approach where to allocate the project in term of milestones to connect the city and the migration processes acting and feeding in. The further activity undertaken was a first operative seminar (in Fès on 18 October 2018). This event, although not initially planned, became useful and necessary to plan the detailed percourse and the milestones of the project. It was indeed valuable, since during this operative seminar we had the way to set the trial field survey and the following workshops, one of them hosted within the Festival of Amazighe culture (in July 2019) and as well to find useful connections with another project on a close topic where SUPSI is partner (WELCIT – Welcoming cities- project, coordinated by Geneva university within a Swiss Sudac call). After the first operative seminar we worked in collaboration with the Fès partner on start organizing the first workshop and on supporting them in the trial field survey, that started in November 2018. Meanwhile, also a further work, on both sides, on improving the network with key actors and on shaping further the theoretical setting was done. On 11 January 2019 took place in Fès the first workshop. It reached the goals to be a consessus where to discuss the first trial field survey, the articles as part of the project and also to focus on urban citizenship and to deal with inclusion/exclusion patterns, with a particular attention to practices of participation, urban spatialization and enablement of urban experiments. This workshop explored the concept of urban citizenship in Fès with a consideration to the international and national Moroccan frames. Attended this workshop important key actors of the city of Fès and primary and international experts such as Mehdi Lahlou, expert in Moroccan migration from Mohamed V University at Rabat and INSEA. During this workshop we also had the opportunity to get in contact with local coordinators of national communities (Cameroon, Ivory Coast, etc.) supporting them in an experiment of shooting an informative video that they planned to carry out as a tool to show conditions and raise proposals to improve their conditions and participate to the city life. During the following months continued the work in trial field survey, in improving the knowledge of forms of interaction and mutual influences between the city and the migrants and in start planning the way of a further project with the partners and further partners meanwhile raising interest and hints on our work. We submitted then a project on the MENA call 2019 on social innovation with a solid and enlarged partnership (March 2019) unfortunately not being granted.

On 4 and 5 April 2019 Moroccan partners visited SUPSI in Lugano to work on the project, working on a scientific article, updating the survey, coming up with further insights and useful links with the mentioned WELCIT project and having the way to organize an internal seminar in SUPSI, involving a restricted group of researchers/teachers interested in the topic. On 13 July 2019 was held the second workshop in Fès, as an inclusive key event of the Festival of Amazighe culture. It was an effective means to present and discuss the results of the trial field survey with an enlarged and international panel of participants. The project proved to represent a significant nexus in scientific relations between Europe and the Maghreb region, namely between Switzerland and Morocco. The workshop as well reached the scope to sketch a further idea of research-action project to be submitted on a incoming call and was a a good scenario where to present the article on the Pluto journal WOLG – Work, Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, Vol.13 n.1 that was drawn within the project activities, as well as to introduce a further publication in progress, later on submitted to the Journal of North African studies. Reaching a publication, and another submitted as project follow-up, in so short time are indeed quite relevant scientific achievements.

More on this project

Article published in Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation (2019)

Participation in the workshop "Migration, Mobilité et Développement" in Fez (2019)

Story on Swiss Research (2019)

Article published in The Journal of North African Studies (2021)