In and Out of Morocco: Smuggling and Migration in a Frontier Boomtown

by David Arthur McMurray

Every summer for almost forty years, tens of thousands of Moroccan emigrants from as far away as Norway and Germany have descended on the duty-free smugglers' cove/migrant frontier boomtown of Nador, Morocco. David McMurray investigates the local effects of the multiple linkages between Nador and international commodity circuits, and analyzes the profound effect on everyday life of the free flow of bodies, ideas, and commodities into and out of the region. Combining immigration and population statistics with street-level ethnography, In and Out of Morocco covers a wide range of topics, including the origin and nature of immigrant nostalgia, the historical evolution of the music of migration in the region, and the influence of migrant wealth on the social distinctions in Nador. Groundbreaking in its attention to the performative aspects of life in a smuggling border zone, the book also analyzes the way in which both migration and smuggling have affected local structures of feeling by contributing to the spread of hyperconsumption. The result is a rare and revealing inquiry into how the global culture is lived locally.

Genres: Nonfiction, Morocco

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Danielle Kim]

Crazy how many social experiences in 1980s Morocco shared commonalities with American experiences (e.g. tensions between country/city and new money/old money). A great localized study of the impacts of mobility and early globalization. I found the second half to be more interesting than the first.

Picking this back up was a great reminder of the benefits of taking a bird’s-eye view on my own life. Acknowledging that I am a pawn in a complex system who often unknowingly reinforces this system with my individual actions seems synonymous with admitting that there is very little that inherently distinguishes me from you. In fact, the popular question “Who am I” is negated by the conclusions we reach when we ask ourselves “Why am I?”. If we are creatures of such little control over our own pasts and futures, if our biology and our cultures and our gods dictate so much of what we think and do, there is no room for ego. I don’t mean that I am you are the world (which is just collective ego), but instead that I am nothing, I am no one.

[Sara Bombardieri]

Bella monografia. In alcuni punti il discorso passava da narrazione degli eventi ad analisi in modo un po' brusco, non sempre era facile trovare come queste due parti si connettessero. Di tempo ne è trascorso dalla sua prima pubblicazione, rimane ancora oggi una monografia ben fatta.

[Kate]

Written by one of my favorite professors in college. Interesting book.