Abstract Nina Violetta Schwarz
Considering a national Moroccan migration strategy currently in progress and increasing EU-funding for projects focusing on integration in the North African country, the examination of bilateral integration projects between Germany and Morocco marks the opportunity to gain new insights to the concept of integration beyond inner-European debates on this matter. The research project investigates how integration operates as a technology of power in the non-European context and which role this plays in the government and “management” of migration.
The German approach of migration politics to establish practical measures for integration in Morocco targeting migrants and Moroccans returning to the country is considered a developmental humanitarian technology of the European Union that is currently being applied to a variety of non-European regions as part of parallel actions to combat the causes of flight and migration. These mechanisms are currently discussed within the complex of migration and development.
Within my research, I examine how the German government uses integration programs as means to exercise power in Morocco, and which underlying logics of humanitarianism and practice can be detected within this phenomenon. My research perspective is thereby not concerned with investigating if or how migrants integrate to society or not.
The concepts of the German government to promote (re-)integration of migrants and returning Moroccans on a municipal level in Morocco is understood as an emergent practice that is currently being negotiated and constituted. My research focus lies on the heightened interest in investing in integration and the power relations between contributors and people executing the programs on site.
The emerging integration projects are examined regarding their effects on governing migration as well as on the constitution of the border. The gradual implementation of a German-Moroccan integration strategy within the Moroccan state shall be pointed out by examining multilayered dynamics within an ›integration dispositif‹.