Rooting lhrig: Burning borders in colonial Morocco (1919–1955)

Lhrig is a Maghrebi term for the act of migrating and crossing international borders ‘illegally’ using various strategies. This is largely believed to be a contemporary practice that emerged in the postcolonial era. However, this article will demonstrate that, while the term is new, the practice itself has much longer historical roots as it first emerged in the 1920s. To this purpose, drawing on documents from different French and Spanish colonial governance institutions collected at the Centre d’Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes and the Archivo General de la Administracion, I draw up a colonial genealogy of irregular migration practices in colonial Morocco, as well as responses to it from the French administration. In this endeavour, I first shed light on the colonial logic of migration governance behind the illegalization of Moroccan migrants. Then, I describe the different strategies and itineraries that were developed by Moroccans in order to bypass the constraints imposed by the French starting 1925. Second, I investigate the colonial administration’s reactions to the emergence of this phenomenon, underlining its punitive logic. Overall, this contribution aims to challenge ideas and discourses of ‘unprecedentedness’ and ‘crisis’ that dominate the conversation on irregular migration in the Mediterranean space by shedding light on its colonial origins.