ABSTRACT
As with many post-war labour migrations, Moroccans invited as ‘guestworkers’ to Belgium and the Netherlands during the 1960s and 1970s were not predicted to stay (see Bevelander and Veenman 2006; Rath 2009; Bos and Fritschy 2006; Collyer et al. 2009). Eventually, their ‘temporary’ migration became a more permanent one, incorporating family reunification so that Moroccan-origin families and communities now form part of the citizenry in these nations (Vasta 2007). Yet the intention at the outset for temporary mobility is an important element to the story of Moroccan migration in Europe. The combination of an imagined model of temporary, work-related migration that would eventually be reversed, along with the relative ease of travel back and forth between Morocco and Europe, has morphed into temporary, cyclical and perpetuating returns. Migrants and their families – now into third and fourth generations of Moroccan-origin Europeans – enact a summertime holiday visit that has material impacts on built and leisure landscapes in Morocco (Wagner 2011; Wagner and Minca 2012; Wagner and Peters 2013). While relatively few complete the ultimate ‘myth of return’ (Safran 1991) by moving to Morocco permanently, migrant and post-migrant generations are very much present in Morocco as seasonal visitors, whose practices demonstrate a diasporic sense of attachment to a distant homeland (Wagner 2012) by spending their holidays with family and seeking leisure and pleasure in Morocco’s ample touristic facilities.
