Une transmission discrète et fragmentaire. De l’histoire migratoire dans les familles maghrébines

In North African families, the process of passing down “migration memories” from one generation to another is rather difficult to discern in view of a lack of consistency in such aspects as the actual content of those memories (which is not particular to people from the Maghreb), the functioning of North African families, and the existing relations between those who carry the memories and those who inherit them. Yet, despite this inconsistency, the memories of those migrants circulate, spread and diffuse rapidly, sometimes even under conditions that may prove unfavorable, but not insurmountable. In due course, those recollected memories turn into a “referential memory”, playing a pivotal role in the shaping of North African life styles rather than being a mere abiding memory of their origins. Fragmented and incomplete as these memories may be, they enable individuals to engage in a reflective analysis of their past, to gain a better understanding of the present and to learn from their mistakes. Quite recently, France saw a public debate on the memories of colonial times, during which the discourse of North African descendants demonstrated unequivocally that, even if the history of North African immigration has come up against some difficulty in its recreation and dissemination, it nevertheless exists and its unpalatable effects are not pervasive. The recipients of the memories of that migration are appealing to the French public to acknowledge those memories so that the neglect, exclusion and racism that their forebears endured should never return