A FAMILY RESEMBLANCE: MIGRATION, WORK AND LOYALTY

Résumé En

Ayoub and Malika Amrani are husband and wife, former farm workers who, for many years, came to France on OMI contracts to do seasonal work for a farmer in the Bouches-du-Rhône area. In the early 1970s, the young woman’s father and uncle, fellahs2 from the Moroccan Prerif who had emigrated to the city, found a contract in the city of Grans, on the Crau plain, and gradually “sponsored” the next generation of migrants. In 1990, when Malika was recruited to join them, there were about ten family members already working on the farm. Though she was formally employed as a farm worker, she actually worked as a “servant” for the farmer and his family. Against the advice of her employer, who wanted nothing to distract her from her work, she got married and held a big wedding in Fez, to which her employer was invited. Ayoub, her husband, was recruited to work in the orchards. As a newlywed, Malika had more …