Language as a Barrier, Bridge and Battleground: A Study of Linguistic Experiences in the Context of Moroccan Migration to Southern Portugal

Abstract

This article explores the critical engagement of two academics who confront lived experiences with the institutional and tangible dimensions of linguistic barriers and discrimination in the Portuguese district of Faro. Centred on the challenges posed at the border, the study fits into the wider framework of mobilities between North Africa and southern Europe, and attempts to demonstrate how language, as a form of social practice, impacts access to employment, education and society at large. Portuguese emerges as a dual entity: an institutional barrier, a form of socio-spatial control that reinforces exclusion, illustrating exclusionary processes within hierarchies and structural violence; a transnational bridge that fosters belonging and, simultaneously, a battleground where identity and self-determination face the constraints imposed by the economic, social, and political order that impact Moroccan migration to southern Portugal. The research highlights the imbrications of the undervaluation of migrants' cultural knowledge, the ambivalence of linguistic identity within a globalized world, exacerbating social exclusion, and systemic discrimination of non-privileged migrants in a polarized region shaped by social and economic asymmetries and increasingly representative nationalisms. From a systemic justice perspective, this devaluation reinforces structural inequalities, marginalizing those who do not conform to dominant linguistic norms. The national languages’ role as linguistic and cultural gatekeeper exemplifies the intersection of identity construction and socio-political hierarchies in the context of mobilities. This study, grounded in a collaborative project blending autobiography and biographical research, employs qualitative methods, including biographic interviews, ethnographic observation, and critical human rights studies.