Flirting diasporically: visits 'home' facilitating diasporic encounters and complex communities

While generations of Moroccan-origin Europeans have been a focus of policymakers seeking to 'integrate' them in their countries of dwelling, less attention has been paid to how visiting 'home' in Morocco - a perpetuating practice among Moroccan families living in Europe - contributes to their life course trajectories. The summertime influx of Moroccan-origin families from across the globe creates the possibility to encounter a superdiverse community of Moroccans-from-elsewhere when visiting Morocco, many of whom share experiences of individual and collective 'integration' in their countries of dwelling, but diverge in their geographical and linguistic lived categorisations. This paper examines one formative type of integrative event that happens on summer holidays: flirtation. Differences in languages, European regional or national affiliations, or Moroccan ethnic and regional attachments all play roles in facilitating or hindering flirtatious encounters between diasporic Moroccans during the summer holidays. The resulting relationships (or lack thereof) demonstrate how diasporic superdiversity contributes to life course trajectories a process of social ordering and categorisation, simultaneously influencing configurations of diversity across Morocco and Europe.