Dr. Mehdi Alioua is an Assistant Professor at the International University of Rabat. A sociologist concerned with international migration and an urban anthropologist, his research focuses on the traffic patterns of migration, the self-organisation of migrant marginality and the consequences for socio-political reconfigurations at a local, national and global level. He is the author of several articles that have focused on sub-Saharan trans-migrants, poverty and marginality.