Antonio Trinidad Requena

From “Khadema” to “Zemegria”: Morocco as a “Migration Hub” for the EU

The converging processes of globalization, political and economic integration in the region (in the form of the EU specifically) and growing securitization in the region have created significant change in Moroccan migration over recent decades. First, with the growth in export processing and growing numbers of free trade agreements reaching new heights over the last decade, the considerable expansion of export processing (predominantly for EU markets) in the Northern regions of Morocco (most notably the port city of Tangier) has drawn internal migrants from Morocco and beyond, seeking employment in one of the many under-regulated textile, electronics, and automotive factories. Second, in recent years Morocco has become an important gateway to Europe (primarily through Southern European member states). While Moroccan emigration is not itself a new phenomenon – for example, Morocco has had longstanding bilateral migration agreements with many European states, including Spain, France, and Italy – Morocco’s contemporary migration management terrain has changed considerably. Third, as the country has responded to growing immigration (as both a destination and a transit country), there has been mounting pressures from the EU to control their borders in the face of growing emigration from Africa. The result of these processes has been the emergence of a multi-tiered and messy migration management system made up of national, bilateral, regional, and international policies, conventions and agreements involving administration by numerous government departments and agencies, as well as numerous intrastate and non-state governing bodies and actors. Caught somewhere in the middle – are the migrants, whose rights (both as migrants and as workers) are neglected. Ironically, this myriad of migration and security policies, and the expansion of export processing in Morocco, were in part intended to reduce migration through increased employment opportunities, stay-at-home development, and tightened borders. Yet, this messy migration management system, coupled the global export processing zone with under-protected workers, poor wages and job security, and escalating securitization, has actually served to create the conditions that encourage migration (particularly irregular migration), rather than curb it.

La evaluación de organizaciones prestadoras de servicios de Bienestar social: Una aproximación conceptual.

The present article has the goal of making a conceptual approximation to the field of evaluation in organizations that provide social services. Particularly, the purpose of this article is twofold: Firstly, to define the concept of evaluation of organizations in a field so wide and confuse as evaluation is, supporting an integrative view on evaluation in the management of organizations. Secondly, it is developed a theoretical and practical framework in which evaluation would be feasible along with the analysis of each of the feasible alternatives and the most suitable option for each kind of evaluation.

Multi-site Comparative Studies and Mixed Research Designs in the Study of the Glocal

We explain the research methodology developed to compare the causes and consequences of processes of industrial relocation in border areas in northern Mexico and Morocco. We have chosen a combined qualitative/quantitative methodology with the aim of emphasizing the discursive dimension of the structural reality of the contexts. We compare the two spaces on two levels: First, we carry out a macro-structural comparison to see if there are differences in the process of relocation of export firms in Tangier with the process followed by firms in Tijuana, highlighting the regularities found in migratory strategies; secondly, we do a micro-structural comparison, comparing the life trajectories of Mexican women and men who have emigrated to the United States with Moroccan women and men who have emigrated to Europe.

Globalization as the Worldwide Context for Understanding Local Dynamics

This chapter focuses on explaining the theory emerging from the interpretive analytical process from the research project “Industrial relocation and immigration: the role of the export industry in border regions of Mexico and Morocco”. There are many theories that aid in understanding the articulation and development of the global economic system, but few that have examined what happens when the global articulates and interacts with the local. Thus emerged the Theory of Localized Global Economy (TLGE) that explains how globalism interacts with and modifies the local across the planet. This theory provides an analytical framework for understanding the industrial process in Tijuana and the Tangier-Tetouan region. The TLGE is constructed around Basic Social Processes (BSP) in the industrial relocation process in border regions.

Introduction: Global Localized Economies in a Comparative Perspective

The main objective of this book is to present the results of our comparative research on industrial relocation and its impact on the basic social processes that permit the production and reproduction of industrial spheres shaped by globalization in a border context: specifically, the northern borders of Morocco and Mexico being the empirical references.

Transnational Firms as an Example of Industrial Relocation: Tijuana (Mexico) and Tangier-Tetouan (Morocco)

The aim of this chapter is to examine the role of transnational firms in two places on the Mexico and Morocco borderland: Tijuana and Tangier-Tetouan. Their transformation of local markets with the active participation of political-institutional agents, constitutes the basis for the expansion of these entities in certain regions. Along with proximity to points of sale for manufacturing products (the United States and the European Union), the potential in the reduction of labor costs and the profit to be made in the sale of said products, converts these firms into actors transforming broad zones in Mexico and Morocco. We will examine these and other issues in-depth, presenting an image of the current situation, the effect and result of the presence of transnational firms in these two places.

Estrategias sociales y económicas de los nuevos jubilados (Social and Economic Strategies of the New Retirees)

Since the 1980s, the elderly have been gaining a special relevance and a bigger role in modern society. The retiree of today is not the same retiree of years back, and a distinction must be made between the «traditional» versus the «new» retiree, who will be the retiree of the future. This new retiree is the topic of this project, which focuses on understanding the social and economic strategies which they use to adapt to their new situation. In order to understand the social and economic strategies of this new retiree, we centre on the analysis of their discourse.