Viscous automobilities: diasporic practices and vehicular assemblages of visiting ‘home’

Abstract

This paper analyzes how leisure practices of diasporic visitors cut viscous trails of car-based consumption through Morocco. During ethnography of summer holidays with Moroccan-origin visitors from Europe, research participants were often observed consuming elite leisure spaces in ways that were predicated on both their familiarity with Morocco as a homeland and their access to a car. Microanalysis of emergent dynamics of group distinction and cohesion achieved through car-propelled leisure consumption indicates how these visitors may be intentionally avoiding certain kinds of publics, which may unintentionally accumulate towards deeper economic divisions between themselves and a broader Moroccan consuming public.