Siham Soulaimi, MA
Excluded identities: The Legal Situation of sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco
In terms of migrant movements between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, the Moroccan kingdom serves as a major emigration, transit, and destination country. A migration policy was implemented at the end of 2013 to alleviate violations and integrate legal and unauthorized migrants into Moroccan society. This was necessary due to the apparent presence and precarious situation of migrants eluding unfortunate realities to meet prosperous futures, such as sub-Saharan Africans. This humanitarian policy marked the initial wave of refugees and asylum seekers as well as the beginning of a regularization program for people residing illegally in Morocco. Although this later makes enormous attempts to uphold the rights of immigrants, increasing obstacles still hinder their legal integration and they remain perceived as individuals with excluded identities. In this paper, we shall review the challenges of the migratory journeys as well as the efficacy of the Moroccan policy after hosting regular and irregular sub-Saharan migrants, we will also examine the current legal situations of those migrants living in Agadir city.
Waed Hasan, MA
Voices Beyond Palestine: A Case Study of Refugee Poetics
Refugee literature is at the intersection of postcoloniality, ongoing coloniality, and trauma studies. Hasan’s research aims to contribute to a broader discussion on how we can expand our understanding of displacement. Drawing on Palestinian refugee poetics, Hasan proposes a new approach by introducing refugee poetics as a subgenre of critical refugee studies. In this approach, refugees engage with collective, individual, and generational trauma in their literary works. However, it is important to note that refugee poetics should not be limited to the portrayal of refugees as trauma victims. Hasan challenges this traditional reading of refugee poetics in two ways. First, by considering colonial, cultural, and social conditions when analyzing diaspora literature. Secondly, by using collective and pluralistic models of trauma to unpack the experience of diaspora communities, this paper offers a more nuanced understanding of diaspora literature. The primary goal of this research is to center diaspora voices and offer a deeper understanding of the experiences of diasporic communities. By doing so, the hope is to challenge dominant narratives that perpetuate the marginalization of refugees and contribute to a more inclusive and diverse understanding of displacement in contemporary society.
This interdisciplinary approach draws on fields such as literature, history, sociology, and anthropology, which allows for a broader understanding of the experiences of diasporic communities. Through this research, Hasan aims to contribute to a growing field of interdisciplinary scholarship that focuses on the intersection of diaspora literature, trauma, and critical refugee studies. By introducing refugee poetics as a subgenre of critical refugee studies, Hasan hopes to offer a new and innovative approach to understanding displacement that centers on the experiences of refugees. This approach allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the complex and multifaceted experiences of diasporic communities, and how they shape our contemporary society.
Siham Soulaimi, MA
Siham Soulaimi is a Ph.D. student and a researcher in sociology, migration studies, and biology. She published a review article titled “Zoonotic origins of Coronavirus (Covid-19) in light of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV" in The International Journal of Research and Ethics (IJRE) in 2020. She received her MA diploma from the Ibn Zohr University's sociology department in the master's degree in Cross-Border Societal Dynamics between Morocco and West Africa. She is a first-year Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Languages, Arts, and Human Sciences at Ait Melloul, Agadir, Morocco. Her field of research is gender and migration.
Waed Hasan is a Palestinian refugee and a Ph.D. candidate in the SETS department at the University of Guelph. Her research interests are Refugee Poetics and diasporic literature. Specifically, postcolonial theory and trauma studies in diasporic nations. She has three years of experience as a teaching assistant for multiple courses, including Literature of Trauma and Recovery, Effective Writing, Early Modern Literature, and 18th and 19th-century literature. Moreover, she has six years of experience teaching writing within educational institutions as a writing tutor, writing TA, and learning specialist
