Dynamics of Rural Transformation and Urban Migration in North Africa: A Socio-Ethnographic Study of Immigrant Socialization in Morocco

Recent extreme weather events in the last winter after the Afcon_25, including the severe floods that affected several regions in Morocco, have once again highlighted the structural vulnerabilities of rural livelihoods and the pressures that continue to shape internal migration dynamics. Against this backdrop, rural–urban migrants in North Africa navigate complex processes of socialization within urban environments marked by structural inequality and symbolic hierarchies, yet empirical research on their everyday integration experiences remains limited. Drawing on socio-ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Agadir City (Morocco), this study examines how rural migrants negotiate belonging, identity, and participation in urban social life. Using in-depth qualitative interviews and reflexive field observations, the analysis adopts a relational framework informed by socialization, grounded theory, and Bourdieusian perspectives on capital and habitus. The findings demonstrate that migrants engage in both adaptive and preservative strategies to manage urban life. Adaptive strategies include selective network formation, behavioural flexibility, and the strategic use of urban anonymity, while preservative strategies involve maintaining strong ties to rural communities as sources of recognition and moral legitimacy. Although these strategies facilitate survival and continuity, they also contribute to fragmented integration and structured ambivalence. Migrants frequently experience restricted mobility, limited participation in public life, and forms of structural alienation rooted in precarious labour conditions and unequal access to urban resources. The study argues that migrant integration should be understood as a negotiated and spatially contingent process rather than a linear transition. Addressing structural barriers to participation is essential for fostering inclusive urban environments in contexts of rapid social transformation.