PhD ThesisContributing to research on geographies of diasporas and migration, this thesis examines how
the Moroccan diaspora in the city of Granada, Spain, has transformed urban space, and
conversely, how the spatiality of Granada engenders distinctive diasporic identity formations,
senses of belonging and spatial practices. Using the geographical insight that diasporas alter
and are altered by the places they inhabit and that identities and belongings are often
spatialised and spatially contingent, the research examines how these processes function for
the Moroccan diaspora living in Granada. Granada’s mixed Christian and Islamic heritage, its
relatively recent transformation from an ethnically homogenous space into a diaspora space,
and the close proximity of the Maghreb and Africa, all herald Granada as a rich arena to
explore social, cultural and spatial processes of diasporas and migration.
Conceptually, the research is positioned within urban geographies of diasporas. The centrality
of the urban spatial scale in diaspora formations and experiences, rather than the national, is
demonstrated and examined. The thesis focuses on four concepts that are at the core of
geographies of diasporas: space, belonging, home and identity. Drawing on eight months of
ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis provides an empirical analysis that is grounded in the
everyday and intimate spaces of the Moroccan diaspora. As such it responds to calls for
grounded studies on diasporas that take locations and their contexts seriously. Overall, the
thesis underlines the fundamental centrality of place for diaspora formations, and argues that
the experiences and perceptions of the Moroccan diaspora in Granada provide distinctive
narratives of European urban diversity
