ABSTRACT

A recent, but growing literature on the relationship between student mobility and economic migration has highlighted the similarities between students and high-skilled workers, since students represent ‘a potential human capital asset for sending countries’ (Freitas et al. 2012, 2). This is reinforced by the fact that international students are likely to stay in their training country for work after completing their studies. Studying abroad is often conceived as a strategy to enter a foreign labour market and hence to realise a migration aspiration (Coulon and Paivandi 2003, 45; Rosenzweig 2005). However, some people also choose to study for a specific degree abroad based on the needs of their home country, as a strategy to return home and find a job (Levatino 2014, 8). The theoretical debates on the effects of student mobility (and high-skilled migration in

general) on the country of origin have developed two different scenarios. On the one hand, the concept of ‘brain drain’ became prominent within ‘dependency thinking’ and the historical-structural Marxist paradigm of the 1970s (Freitas et al. 2012, 3). It emphasises the negative effects of scientific migrations on origin countries, because they tend to empty developing countries of their scientific resources. Often, brain drain is accompanied by the phenomenon of brain waste, in which qualified migrants, once they arrive in the destination country, end up taking jobs that are below their skill level (Hunger 2004). On the other hand, new approaches to international migration that became more influential in

the 1990s have been focusing on the migration processes themselves rather than limiting the analysis of migration to push and pull factors. Indeed, migration studies have incorporated the fact that migration is seldom limited to a single, one-off move from one country to another. Instead, migrants often circulate between the home and host country or countries, a phenomenon which has accelerated over the past decades partly because of cheaper means of transport (Ma Mung et al. 1998; Tarrius 1996). The size of migratory social networks, that is, the interpersonal links that connect migrants who are already settled with new migrants and non-migrants living in the home country, also contributes to this process (Boyd 1989; Massey et al. 1993). By keeping up these links and maintaining relations with geographically remote communities, migrants are increasingly assuming the character of transmigrants, that is, migrants who ‘develop and maintain multiple relations – familial, economic, social, organisational, religious,

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Furthermore, the kingdom has participated in the construction of a road that links Senegal with Morocco (Wippel 2004), thus helping to increase the circulation of goods and people between West Africa and Morocco. Since the early 2000s, Moroccan companies have also been increasingly investing in African markets. The Moroccan banking sector in particular (Brack 2014, 93), as well as several Moroccan new communication and information technologies companies and consulting groups are nowadays present in West African countries. Morocco’s regional integration within West Africa is represented in official national discourse as the result of historical and cultural relations that have linked Morocco with countries to the south for centuries – relations in which Moroccan kings are portrayed as having played a crucial role, especially as religious leaders (Sambe 2010). While Morocco is attempting to reconnect with West Africa politically and economically, a

reintegration from below seems to be taking place simultaneously through the increase in subSaharan migration flows, contributing to considerable changes in Morocco’s migration patterns. In fact, since the late 1990s, trans-Saharan movements have been characterised by transit migration, and trade routes formerly taken by caravans have been used by lorries transporting migrants (Bredeloup and Pliez 2005, 6-7). Although these migrants aimed to reach Europe, they would stop in North African countries, including Morocco, sometimes for a considerable period of time. The kingdom’s new awareness of its African identity can therefore also be seen as a result of its role as transit and destination area for sub-Saharan migrants. Together with Morocco’s economic development, the reinforcement of European border con-

trols in 1999 (Natter 2013, 18) has transformed Morocco into an attractive destination for migrants (Bensaad 2005, 28). Although the number of sub-Saharan individuals living in Morocco is estimated to be comparatively small, the migration issue has recently entered the Moroccan public sphere. This led to a more visible political engagement with sub-Saharan migrants (Pian 2009) and to the regularisation of undocumented migrants in 2014. While sub-Saharan ‘transit’ migration in Morocco has been the subject of numerous studies (e.g. Alioua 2005; Escoffier 2009; Khachani 2006), older migration flows and circulations, which are also increasing, have remained understudied. This is the case, for instance, of sub-Saharan students whose number has recently increased in Morocco. Morocco has, in fact, become a preferred country for sub-Saharan students to receive their

training. Since the 1970s, the training of white-collar workers of sub-Saharan origin has formed an integral part of Moroccan-African bilateral cooperation (Barre 1996) and has been constantly developing over recent years. In addition to the official channels allowing and subsidising young sub-Saharans to come and study in Morocco, the country is also welcoming more and more students who are heading for private education establishments. This paper analyses sub-Saharan student movement to Morocco and its relation with broader

immigration trends and Morocco’s recent foreign policy towards Africa. The aim of this study is to show to what extent students’ move abroad and stay in Morocco may develop into, or form an integral part from the very beginning of, a long-term migratory plan and how this contributes to their identity formation as migrants. The article is based on material collected at two different periods of time. The first set of data

was collected in 2006, during a three-month research project conducted in Rabat, and is based on a quantitative survey and semi-structured interviews. 150 sub-Saharan students were interviewed during the quantitative survey. Among them, 79.4% were fromWest African countries and 76.6% from francophone countries; 23% of the students were women, 79.4% were between 20 and 25 years old and 94% had been living in Morocco for less than five years. Due to access problems, only three students from private schools could be included in the survey. On the basis of the

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