Adventure

Sébastien Bachelet is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester

The adventure is captivating as it is eye-opening. The engaging and thought-provoking ethnographic stories vividly show how young African migrants stranded in Morocco try to make a life for themselves amidst deeply unsettling socio-political environments. By deploying a phenomenological angle which stays close to migrants’ own ideas and experiences, Bachelet makes visible how the notion of adventure comes to be used as a resource allowing marginalised and highly vulnerable people to endure and contest hostile migration politics in the EU and beyond. The book beautifully draws out the complexity and existential depth of these young men’s stories, thereby moving beyond simplistic portrayals of illegal migrants as either victims or signifiers of crisis.Annika Lems, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Australian National UniversityIn The Adventure, Sébastien Bachelet offers an evocative and powerful portrait of the struggles of precarious migrants in the marginal neighbourhoods of the Moroccan capital. Facing a violent border regime and deep discrimination, these adventurers from across West and Central Africa are, as one of them puts it, on a ‘quest for a life more bearable’. Bachelet follows them on this quest as they build a transient life in derelict ‘ghettos’, as they fight to make a living as cobblers or cooks, and as they keep a fire burning under the epic narratives and everyday struggles of the adventure. The result is a deft and deeply empathetic ethnographic portrait that reveals the adventurers not as victims nor pawns in a politicised crisis, and that draws its analytical force from foregrounding their perspectives. ‘The adventure is not a crisis,’ as Bachelet puts it, ‘but a radical movement towards life’ — a movement that no violent bordering logic is decisively able to quash.Ruben Andersson, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of OxfordA compelling and urgent book about life at the borders of Europe, unpacking with ethnographic care the violence and defiance of illegalised journeys. Alice Elliot, author of The Outside: Migration as Life in Morocco

• Prologue: Golden SandsIntroduction1 The making of a sub-Saharan issue2 Reaching the objective3 Taking a chance4 Life in the ghettoesInsert: Adventurers in Douar Hajja and Maâdid5 Adventurous entrepreneurs6 Chacun sa route7 Between violence and shared dreams8 Fighting illegal migrationAdventure: a radical movement towards lifeReferencesIndex