Mercedes G Jiménez

Resumen El artículo analiza el estudio de caso de «menores no acompañados» de Marruecos para mostrar cómo ha prevalecido, tanto en la investigación académica como en la gestión política, una concepción de los menores que migran solos que no incorpora la agencia como sujetos que su movilidad a través de las fronteras manifiesta, generando una deficiente e ineficaz construcción de los mismos bien como víctimas o como criminales. A partir de una propuesta teórica y metodológica que conceptualiza estos menores como nuevos acto-res migratorios, el trabajo presenta los resultados de la investigación sobre sus vínculos familiares, las relaciones con sus padres, y sus procesos migratorios como configurados a través de una tensa relación entre la Ley de Extranjería y la Ley de Protección del Menor. El artículo se basa en el trabajo de campo realizado en España y Marruecos, y muestra el modo en que los estados involucrados manipulan la dependencia y/o autonomía de estos menores a través de acuerdos políticos, creando una tendencia de exclusión creciente de estos menores de un sistema de protección en el país receptor del que ellos se reivindican como titulares.

Abstract. Minors in the transnacional migratory field (Drari d'sentro) The article analyzes the study case of «Non Accompanied Minors» from Morocco to show how a conception of minors who migrate alone without actively incorporating their agency as subject crossing international borders, precludes a correct and efficient work in both academic research and policies which informs dominant conceptions of them as wither victims or criminals. A new theoretical and methodological proposal of these minors as new migratory actors thus informs the findings of our research on their familial networks, the relations with their parents, and their migratory processes as shaped by a strained arti-culation of Alien Law and Minor Protection Law. The article is based on fieldwork in Spain and Morocco, and shows how the States involved manipulate minors' dependency or autonomy through political agreements creating an even-increasing exclusionary tendency of minors from the protection system they are claiming to be entitled to.

This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the meaning of the independent migration of Moroccan children and adolescents at the southern European border, taking a particularly close look at their status as subjects and their autonomy. Unaccompanied child migrants are trapped in a dual status of being both migrants to be controlled and minors requiring protection. Their entitlement to rights is constantly challenged – a result of the tension between protection and control. This chapter studies the autonomous migration of minors in the context of studies on child mobility and the construction of childhood and dependency. The mobilization of children and adolescents on the global migration landscape is related to breakdowns in dependency systems, selective border processes, and the perception of dependency as a resource that makes it possible to move in a transnational context. The meaning of autonomy is also explored, analyzing how decision-making on the part of children is done in accordance with their circumstances, their own nontransferable resources, and their distinct objectives. Finally, the family is considered within the context of the mobility of these children and how family ties combine with dependency and autonomy. Families are “left behind” in migration processes undertaken by children, making the reformulation of gender and generational relations possible.

This chapter provides a reflection on subjectivities and the way in which spaces for children and adolescents are appropriated and considered in migration contexts, where these young people have either gone through the process of migration or find themselves in a border context. Here, migration is just another form of mobility, found in the daily discourses and narratives of the subjects who inhabit it. To that end, the study compiled ethnographies of children and adolescents in migration contexts in the city of Tangier, Morocco. The starting point is a reflection on the subjectivity of the author herself, considering her epistemological reflexivity and how her work has conditioned how she looks at and analyzes the mobility of children and adolescents. This article then takes a closer look at how these children are constructed by forms of government that classify them according to the way in which they move through border spaces and their migration trajectories before analyzing how they understand the Tangier port space where the borders come into play. This article concludes with an analysis of  their self-perceptions of their mobility through forms of cultural production such as rap music.

This chapter examines the autonomous migration of children, adolescents, and young people under the age of 18 in two border cities, Tangier, in northern Morocco, and Tapachula, on the southern border of Mexico. The world’s border regions are paradigmatic spaces and provide the basis for an analysis of the coordination of border regimes, the management of global mobility, and the dynamics of transnational capital. Unaccompanied child migrants are actors articulating new transnational mobility processes. The chapter begins with an analysis of both border regions. The border is regarded not only as a physical element but also as a process within countries, with its legal, procedural, technological, and ideological aspects all taken into account. The intersection between the European and North American migratory regimes and existing legal regimes for the protection of children turns unaccompanied child migrants into ambivalent legal subjects who are at once young people requiring protection and migrants to be controlled. Against the backdrop of this situation, the article examines the mobility processes of these subjects and the vulnerability they may experience. It also describes the actors who mobilize to control these subjects and those mobilizing to defend their rights. The article ends with a description of the work being done to defend the rights of child migrants by organizations in the two border cities (the Al Khaima Association in Tangier and the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Centre in Tapachula) and the insights that these groups provide into the international paradigm for child protection through transnational social mediation. The work being done by the two organizations then leads to an examination of how to incorporate mobility into the protection paradigm promoted within the framework of international law and human rights