MER Article Center-Periphery Relations in Morocco In Nador, a regional capital located on the Mediterranean Sea at the eastern end of the Rif Mountains in Morocco, coffee shop talk often turns to the relationship with the capital city, Rabat, a five-hour car ride or a nine-hour train or bus ride to the west. Nadoris are sensitive about their status David McMurray • 13 min read
MER Article Recent Trends in Middle Eastern Migration Although the history of Middle Eastern labor migration to North America is not as well known as that of Irish and Southern European immigrants, Yemenis were working in Detroit by the 1920s and Palestinian and Lebanese diasporas existed around the globe before the end of the nineteenth century. North David McMurray • 12 min read
MER Article Rai, Rap and Ramadan Nights The collapse of the Berlin Wall has forced Western Europe to rethink its identity. In the past its conception of itself as a haven of democracy and civilization depended in part on a contrast to the evils of the Communist bloc. Today there is a revived notion of Europe as David McMurray, Joan Gross, Ted Swedenburg • 18 min read
MER Article Rai Tide Rising Two Algerian rai tunes make the top ten of the Village Voice music critics’s poll in 1989. Rai is now heard daily on college radio from the University of Pennsylvania to Oregon State. Urban dance clubs with “world music” nights feature rai discs along with their usual mix of reggae, salsa, zouk and David McMurray, Ted Swedenburg • 9 min read
MER Article Works on North African Migration Mariarosa Dalla Costa, “Reproduction and Emigration,” Zerowork 3 (1984). Jean Guyot, Ruth Padrun, et al, Des Femmes Immigres Parlent (Paris: L’Harmattan-CETIM, 1977). Michel Oriol, “Sur la dynamique des relations communautaires chez les immigres d’origine Nord-Africaine,” Peuples Mediterraneens 18 David McMurray • 3 min read
MER Article Algerian Migration Today Richard Lawless and Allan and Anne Findlay, Return Migration to the Maghreb: People and Policies, Arab Papers 10 (London: Arab Research Centre, 1982). Philippe Adair, “Retrospective de la Reforme Agraire en Algerie,” Revue Tiers-Monde 14 (1983). Jean Bisson, “L’industrie, la ville, la palmeraie au David McMurray • 4 min read