Living Tangier

"

Living Tangier is an ambitious account of mobility and personhood in a city shaped by transnational migration and commerce...[I]t is a testament to the author’s tremendous ethnographic skill that the study holds together. Rather than history, political economic processes, or even the postcolonial geographies of empire, Hannoum’s personal, often poignant observations about the promise and hardship of migration serve as the through line to this wide-ranging and impressive ethnography.

"—American Anthropologist

"Hannoum is to be congratulated for serving as an assiduous and compassionate guide to the experiences of Tangier’s young migrants. He obliges his readers to pay attention to this painful contemporary face of global social inequality. He asks us to ponder a provocative question: Under what circumstances will an equal relation between Africa and Europe be possible, so that an African can move without a visa to Europe, the way a European can now easily settle in Tangier?"—H-Africa

"In the Western imaginary Tangier appears as exotic and romantic. The reality is far more complex. In this heartfelt and beautifully written account, Abdelmajid Hannoum brings us face to face with protests against the indignities of daily life and the crisscrossed paths of African and Arab migrants seeking a new life in Europe and Europeans seeking a new life in North Africa. From the local response to the Arab Spring to the realities of children's street life, Hannoum's deeply researched and personally involved account adds immeasurably to our understanding of the pain and promise of migration."—Lawrence Rosen, Princeton University

""By combining perspectives from three different sets of migrants-young rural Moroccans seeking to cross into Europe, West Africans in transit from their home countries to Europe, and Europeans who have migrated to Morocco--Living Tangier examines migration on multiple registers at once, allowing the author to draw attention to the universal elements intertwined with all migratory movement as well as to provide an insightful look into the multiple ways in which migration shapes the dynamics of one specific city.""—Dinah Hannaford, Texas A&M University

"Beautifully written and moving, Living Tangier is a truly solid ethnography."—Rachel Newcomb, Rollins College