Paper short abstract:

Presenting the encounters with some young immigrants in Rabat (Morocco), institutionally called "unaccompanied foreign minors", I will attempt to share the rich and complex network of relationships around them, trying to grasp the reconfiguration of their relational bonds on the move.

Paper long abstract:

The case of "unaccompanied foreign/migrant minors" category, widely used in today migration speeches and politics, far from being taken for granted, shows and pursues itself a model and idea of family that could not be shared by the actors charged of this label. What happens to the family and especially to the speeches and representations on it, when, on a mere juridical level, it seems not to be there? Which connections and disruptions between the ideas of family mobilized by humanitarian agencies and the ones of the states and people with whom they are involved?

During the research with a small group of young migrants in Rabat (Morocco), coming from West and Central African countries and mainly willing to reach Europe, I tried to figure out the speeches, the representations and the reconfiguration of their relational bonds. Kinship ties were what could help, but what could tie too; what could remain on the place you first left and/or could be constantly refreshed and recreated within (and without) the trans-community on the move. Weaving and crushing together the reflection on family relations with the one on movement and mobility (both physical and virtual) seemed a fruitful possibility to "mobilize" the discussion about family into families on one way and to "relationalize" (take into account the role intimate relations plays) the mobility phenomena on the other way.