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Resistance by repossession: Politics of the margins and social and environmental justice in Morocco
Abstract by Dr. Koenraad Bogaert
Coauthors: Soraya El Kahlaoui
On Session V-05  (Rethinking the Maghreb: Power and Margins Part 1)

On Wednesday, October 7 at 11:00 am

2020 Annual Meeting

Abstract
For more than eight years, the inhabitants of the municipality of Imider, a group of seven villages located near the town of Tinghir, in south-eastern Morocco, occupied a water valve on Mount Alebban. In August 2011, they established a permanent camp and took control of the water pumps that serve a silver mine a few kilometers from the villages. Faced with economic marginalization, continuous pollution of their agricultural land and a serious water shortage, the villagers decided collectively to climb the mountain and cut the water supply to the mine. They hve refused to leave since and continue to resist the mining company in what has become the longest sit-in in the history of social protest in Morocco. Since the start of the 21st century, we have seen a steady increase in the number of socio-economic events in Morocco, especially in small towns and villages, somewhat emboldened by the new political climate. Peripheries like Imider are dynamic spaces, capable of preserving and reproducing counter-hegemonic narratives and alternatives that challenge central power in the long term. Therefore, if we really want to understand the dynamics and the deeper context of the 2011 uprisings, we must take its "margins" very seriously. This article focuses on the case of Imider and understands the dynamics of protest and its confinement in a new context of power and government in Morocco.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Morocco
Sub Area
Arab Studies