Navigating Borders and Screens: ICTs Practices and Digital Mimicry in the Sub-Saharan Boza Journey

Mouhi Eddine Sadaoui; Souad Azizi

doi:10.14426/dmkj2t81

Authors

Mouhi Eddine Sadaoui PhD candidate, Laboratory of Sociological, Psychological and Cultural Research, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Mohammedia, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2137-0441
Souad Azizi Professor at Department of Sociology, Laboratory of Sociological, Psychological and Cultural Research, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Mohammedia, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1222-2287

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14426/dmkj2t81

Keywords:

ICTs practices, sub-Saharan undocumented migrants, boza Facebook groups, map-elicitation interview, virtual ethnography, digital migratory mimicry

Abstract

This study addresses methodological and theoretical gaps in digital migration studies. It explores the impact of ICTs on the imaginaries and migration trajectories of undocumented sub-Saharan migrants, notably Cameroonians en route to Europe via Morocco. Drawing on an innovative hybrid, multi-situated approach that combined in-depth biographical interviews, digital narrative cartography, and virtual ethnography of a ‘boza’ Facebook group, it revealed the profoundly ambivalent role of ICTs across successive stages of the migratory journey. For undocumented migrants, these technologies serve both as empowering survival toolkits and as sources of vulnerability, while contributing to digital imaginaries that may encourage people to replicate migration patterns. The research advanced the notion of “digital migratory mimicry” as an analytical framework for understanding how idealized success narratives, circulating on social media platforms, can reinforce unrealistic aspirations and mimetic orientations toward high-risk migration. This work goes beyond rational-choice models to apprehend undocumented migration as a process intricately shaped by individual affective dynamics and collective digital practices and imaginaries, thus providing new conceptual perspectives for digital migration studies.

Author Biographies

Mouhi Eddine Sadaoui, PhD candidate, Laboratory of Sociological, Psychological and Cultural Research, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Mohammedia, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco

Mouhi Eddine Sadaoui holds a Master’s in Sociology of Migration with a focus on the relationship between ICTs and undocumented migration, from the Department of Sociology, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Laboratory of Sociological, Psychological and Cultural Research, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Mohammedia, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco.
Souad Azizi, Professor at Department of Sociology, Laboratory of Sociological, Psychological and Cultural Research, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Mohammedia, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco

Souad Azizi is Professor at the Department of Sociology and member of the Laboratory of Sociological, Psychological and Cultural Research, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Mohammedia, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco. Her research interests sit at the intersection of digital and visual migration studies, visual and digital anthropology and urban ethnophotography. She has authored Rites, Genre et pouvoir au Maroc. Textes d’ethnologie marocaine réunis en hommage à Camille Lacoste-Dujardin (L’Harmattan, 2022), and directed L’Internet au Maroc : militantismes, sociabilités et solidarités numériques (L’Harmattan, 2019). She has also published various book chapters and articles in international journals such as Synoptique : An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies ; Enfances, Familles, Générations , Revue scientifique internationale ; and Awal, Cahiers d’études berbères.