The Adventure - (New Ethnographies) by Sébastien Bachelet (Hardcover)

About the Book

This ethnographic study examines the moral, gendered, affective, social, and political dimensions of irregular migrants' experiences of entrapment, uncertainty, and violence in Morocco. To counter dehumanising narratives of a crisis, the book is articulated around the emic notion of 'the adventure' as a quest to carve out a better life and future.

Book Synopsis

This ethnographic exploration of irregular migration from Western and Central Africa in Morocco deconstructs dehumanising narratives of a "migration crisis" and a "sub-Saharan problem" in politics of migration. The book provides an original focus on how migrants understood and experienced their entrapped mobility. The emic notion of "the adventure" at the heart of this study sheds light on a transformative, epic quest to carve out a better life and future. The book traces how young men from Western and Central Africa sought to assert themselves as agents of their own destinies, despite uncertain, illegalising processes. In steering away from aesthetics of despair and fearmongering narratives, the book brings new insights into inter-disciplinary debates (e.g. illegality, uncertainty, immobility, violence, suffering, transit, etc.). Such focus is essential to draw out the complexity and existential depth of (irregular) migrants' lives, journeys, and stories.

From the Back Cover

This ethnographic study examines the hopes, imaginaries, and everyday lives of young male migrants from Western and Central Africa who find themselves 'stuck' in Morocco. The book deepens and humanises understandings of sub-Saharan migration, exploring migrants' conceptualisation of 'the adventure' as an epic quest to carve out a better life and future in the face of violent, transnational politics of migration. The adventure sheds light on the moral, gendered, affective, social, and political aspects of migrants' own experiences and representations of their journeys and struggles. Steering away from aesthetics of despair, victimhood, and criminality, the book focuses on young men's efforts to face up to bordering practices to retain control over their lives and mobility.

The adventure provides a crucial light on migrants' own experiences and understandings of their entrapped mobility in Douar Hajja and Maâdid, two peripheral neighbourhoods of the Moroccan capital Rabat. The book's focus on how migrants articulate and act on their entrapped mobility offers important insights to critically engage with prominent concepts like illegality in policy debates and scholarship. Such focus is crucial to unstitch the Eurocentric focus in analyses of migration articulated around 'crisis'. The adventure is a quest for 'une vie plus supportable' (a life more bearable), a hopeful and risky journey to become the person one aspires to be, to reach a place where one's dignity and rights might be respected.

About the Author

Sébastien Bachelet is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester