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Moroccan Diaspora in France: Community Building on Yabiladi Portal ISSN: 2347-7474 International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities Available online at: www.ijassh.com RESEARCH ARTICLE Moroccan Diaspora in France: Community Building on Yabiladi Portal Tarik Samak Abstract Over the last decade, social networking sites emerge as an ideal tool of communication that facilitate interaction among people online. At the same time, in a world which is characterized by massive waves of migration, globalization results in the construction of the diaspora who seek through new ways to build communities. Within this framework, while traditional media have empowered diaspora members to maintain ties and bonds with their homeland and fellow members, the emergence of social media have offered new opportunities for diasporas to get involved in diasporic identity and community construction. The creation of several diasporic groups on social media like Yabiladi.com and WAFIN.be, respectively in France and Belguim, emphasize the vital role they play in everyday lives of the diaspora. To study the importance and implications of these online communities for diaspora members and investigate their online practices, this article carries out a virtual ethnography of the Moroccan community on Yabiladi portal in France. By means of the qualitative approach of interviews, this article aims at justifying whether the online groups of diasporic diasporic Moroccans in France can be defined as communities, and whether social networking sites can be considered as an alternative landscape for the diaspora to create links with other diasporic members. This article, through users’ experience, provides deep understanding of Yabiladi members’ beliefs about the ‘‘community’’ and their online daily practices which enable them to ‘‘imagine’’ it as a community. Keywords: Moroccan diaspora, Community, Social networking sites, Internet, Ethnography. Introduction In general terms, migration is not a new build communities. Bernal argues that the practice for humanity, nor is the web 2.0 applications strongly enabled investigation of migration a new area of diasporic communities to overwhelm research for academic studies. Nevertheless, geographical distance and barriers to re- over the last decade, the emergence of new enact their cultural heritage to creat information and communication technologies transnational, virtual diasporic spaces [2]. (ICT) have led to a review of migration Contrary to the traditional mass- literature. Thanks to these new technologies, communication sender-receiver models, transnational identities have emerged and, Internet in general and web 2.0 in particular thus, have affected the traditional theories have given rise to a participatory privilege in of migration. They have emerged as the cultural consumption, production and ultimate tool to provide the appropriate community building. conditions for migrants to stenghten ties and bond with fellow citizens and re-root in a In fact, over the last ten years there has common sense of community their cultural been a considerable proliferation in the placelesseness [1]. construction and use of the social networking websites (SNS), especially While in the past migrant communities Facebbok, the most popular social always demonstrated interest in exploiting networking site with the number of users traditional media (newspapers, radios, and which exceeds 1.71 billion monthly active TV) to keep themselves tied with their users1. This increasing number is a strong homeland, the advent of the World Wide indicator about the significance of this Web has established a new decentralized medium, which has led to a great and egalitarian platform for diasporans to transformation in the way people 1http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/numb of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ Tarik Samak |Aug. 2016 | Vol.4 | Issue 08 |01-06 1 Available online at: www.ijassh.com communicate, build and maintain virtual inside the research area and shed light on friendships. Because these websites were the diasporic members’ use of the SNS. basically built with the younger demographic as the target, a large part of In order to start this article, I consider the the scholarship has targeted young peoples’ Moroccans on Yabiladi in France as a case use of SNS. study and pay a particular attention to the daily practices of its members. By means of According to digital diaspora studies, one of this case study, this article investigates the the most significant sections of the people practices of the Moroccan diaspora members using SNS include those in the diaspora. In on Yabiladi and how they perceive and an era of globalization, characterized by experience ‘community’ on Yabiladi forum. increasingly intense population movements, has led to the appearance of diasporic Methodology communities. Covering a time period of two years, I observed that Yabiladi website is In this article I exlpore Yabiladi as a social appropriated by Moroccan diasporic groups networking site which provides a setting for for their community communication. This everyday interactions. This theoritical site has become a highly busy space for framework is borrowed to comprehend the Moroccan diaspora that is using it for complexities of the interactions taking place discussing topicsranging from the burden of on Yabiladi forum and the awareness of its finding a job and accommodation in a new participants about Yabiladi as a community. country to ceremonalizing religious By adopting Christine Hine’s [4] definition of festivals ; from the challenge of living in a ‘virtual ethnography’, this is an attempt to new country to the concerns of their explain how participants of an online belonging, their identity and what they can discussion on forum perceive this technology do to maintain their homeland culture. and use it to communicate and negotiate Consequently, Yabiladi website has become their identities. Based on this, it is a virtual space of diasporic discursive reasonable to adopt an ethnographic animation and introduces itself as an area of approach thanks to the fact that it permits research for studying the subtelties of researchers to deeply understand the full diasporic communication, the expression of picture of a certain community and to grasp ethnicity in the new media and the way this the connotations wich the community space empowers the Moroccan diaspora to associates to their social world [5]. Just like negotiate its new identities and realities. in the case under study, Yabiladi allows for the technological setting of interaction as well as the social context of members’ Unfortunately, the Moroccan diaspora whose diasporic status as Moroccans in France, an number increases year after year and ethnographic approach permits investigating constitutes the so-called Moroccans residing the meanings that Yabiladi users socially abroad (Marocains Residant à l’Etranger build through their interactions on this (MRE)) has received very modest attention. portal. Loukili’s [3] article, a unique work carried out on Moroccan diasporic cyberspace, shed some light on Moroccan migrants’ use of Because this research focuses on the cyberspace to give voice to their Moroccan practices through which Yabiladi portal is identity. used and understood in every day settings for the construction of community and identity by diasporic Moroccan members in Despite the fact that the above mentioned France, a virtual ethnography of the social research on Moroccan diaspora conveys the networking site Yabiladi seems thus to fit idea that Internet offers the opportunity for best as an adequate methodological setting up a new communication platform, foundation and Yabiladi portal becomes the none of the researchers up-to-now has ethnographic substance for this research. attempted any exploration of the practices This ethnographic research is carried out to on social networking sites in the context of investigate the long-lasting practices the Moroccan diaspora. Therefore, it is through which Yabiladi community becomes significant to bring social networking sites meaningful to its members. 2 My country in Arabic Tarik Samak |Aug. 2016 | Vol.4 | Issue 08 |01-06 2 Available online at: www.ijassh.com Christine Hine argues that ‘ethnography is a range of administrative information like way of seeing through the participants’ Moroccan embassies and consulates contact eyes : a grounded approach that aims for a information, as well as local and deep understanding of the cultural international news. Yabiladi contains foundations of the group [4]. It is attractive sections about religion, food receipes and in a sense that it helps provide deep updated Morocco-related political and description and offer very close cultural events in Europe and Morocco. It comprehension to the ways which people also guarantees access to Moroccan TV and interpret the world. radio. In addition, Yabiladi contains interactive applications like video and photo Yabiladi is a rich source of information sharing, a chat room and a forum. Generally, about Moroccans as a community. Data participants observation and interview data collection took about two years, hence show that it is specially the forum section experiencing many important moments in that is used by Moroccan diaspora members the life of the community. Another for their community interactions and thus I important feature is that on the forum, will deal with this section for pertinent data identity is revealed naturally, like in every collection and analysis. day life, through stories and experiences.
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