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On board the Macoris , the British woman traveller Eleanor Elsner peregrinated into French Morocco, landing in Casablanca in 1928. Elsner's The Magic of Morocco is about the author's search for the atavistic at a time when the European colonial power structure and the rise of tourism had transformed the exotic referent into the familiar sign of Western hegemony. Elsner could not help but experience a sense of displacement in time and space, an experience that produced either a sense of disorientation and loss, or an obsessive urge to discover the "authentic" Other. Elsner's account is imbued with discursive ambivalences and ideological uncertainties. Her discourse is complicitous as she vociferously lauds the French colonial enterprise in the person of General Lyautey, the engineer of the "peaceful pacification." The present paper focuses on Elsner and her account as a staunch advocate of the French colonial enterprise in Morocco and her quest for elsewhere. This paper explores Elsner's discordant practices and discourses as a split subject/traveller in Protectorate Morocco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the debates over, and the promulgation of, the new Moroccan laws on unregistered customary marriages and on establishing the paternity of offspring resulting from such marriages, and it analyzes how those laws have been implemented by the judiciary. The paper closely examines the relevant deliberations of the Moroccan Royal Advisory Commission, and analyzes 24 court cases involving the laws. I argue that, while monogamous registered marriage is depicted in the national legal system as the basis for establishing a modern Moroccan society, legislators regard fātiḥa marriage as a social reality that has its roots in customs and religious practices. The paper shows that judges abide by the conditions specified in law but differ in their interpretation of "force majeure" when it comes to a couple's having not registered their marriage. The study also reveals how the laws create legal loopholes in terms of underage marriage and polygyny, which are strictly restricted in the code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper identifies the Moroccan diaspora in Spain, the largest foreign diaspora in that country, and explains the causes for its rapid establishment. After six regularisation processes, which took place between 1985 and 2023, and the ongoing regularisation process in conjunction with family reunification channels, more than 1.3 million Moroccans now live in Spain. This example shows the significant demographic transformations that can result from mass regularisation, the social and political transformations that follow in the host states that enact such measures, and the transformation in external relations with the diaspora's state of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the politics of form in ʿ⁠Abdullāh al-ʿ⁠Arwī's 1989 ʾAwrāq: sīrat Idrīs al-dhihniyyah (Papers: Idrīs's Intellectual Biography), an important contribution to Moroccan experimental literature in the postcolonial era. Together with Muḥammad Barrādah's 1987 novel Luʿbat al-nisyān (The Game of Forgetting , 1996), Awrāq consolidated the experimental turn in the Moroccan literary scene, aiding thereby its ascent to the mainstream. ʾAwrāq is a two-layered text, presenting the reader with, first, a stack of papers of various sorts belonging to the diseased protagonist Idrīs, and second, the commentaries on this archive by the narrator and Shuʿ⁠ayb. The book constantly oscillates between these two layers, attempting in the process to shake the dominant realist form and its underlying European point of reference. ʾAwrāq 's search for its best form parallels Idrīs's quest to restore, or be reconciled to, his identity in the context of France and Europe's colonial project and its legacy. The text's experimentalism is thus strategically harnessed to wrestle, within the diegesis, with various political and sociocultural challenges facing Morocco, and the Arab/Arabo-Amazigh world more broadly, in the postcolonial era—including the colossal task of reconciling the Islamic heritage (al-turāth) with hegemonic Western discourses of modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical reading of some of the most important elements in the philosophy of the Moroccan thinker Taha Abderrahman (TA) (b. 1944), who has had a significant impact on contemporary Arab thought. It examines (1) his views on the essence of being human and the degrees of reason, (2) his concept of iʾtimāniyya (trusteeship paradigm), (3) his concept of the 'discursive field' (al-majāl al-tadāwulī) and how it relates to his struggle for intellectual emancipation from the hegemony of the West, and (4) his views on politics and democracy. First, the paper argues that TA is not as innovative as he repeatedly claims to be in his works; rather, he promotes a traditional type of Sufism that he skilfully cloaks in modern language, as well as in numerous neologisms that he himself has invented. Second, it is shown that any reading of TA's philosophy must take into account his affiliation with the Budshishiyya Sufi order (one of the most influential players in the internal power structure of the Moroccan state). This paper contributes to the study of philosophy in the modern Arab world in general and to the study of TA in particular, who thus far has received only limited attention in Western academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how development cooperation can actively support democratic governance through cooperation in the water sector. To answer this question, we develop an analytical approach based on democratization research and on water governance research. We tested the approach in three donor-supported water projects in Morocco and carried out over seventy interviews with key stakeholders. Our findings show (a) key factors influencing the scope for external support for democratic governance in the water sector, (b) potential negative effects of the support when local elites grasp new resources, and (c) unintended positive spill-over effects of water projects on democratic governance within and beyond the sector (for instance, strengthening formerly marginalized groups). As these empirical findings suggest, there is a potentially large scope of action for supporting democratic governance through water sector cooperation. We therefore highlight the need for more analytical and empirical research on causal interlinkages between these two fields of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain drain, or human capital flight, is the emigration of highly educated individuals and well-experienced professionals from low-income economies to more prosperous ones. Brain drain in Morocco has dramatically increased over the last years, and has become one of the most hotly debated issues in the country. This paper explores the main push and pull factors behind this ever-increasing flight of skilled labor, and highlights its effects on development and economic growth. It further suggests some ideas to be considered so as to address this increasingly complex challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jbala region in northern Morocco is known for an enormous number of Sufi lodges, shrines of local saints, and the cults of those saints. However, this topic has entirely escaped the attention of modern scholars. This paper focuses on the ziyara , or tradition of pilgrimage to a shrine of a saint, connecting it to the debate on place and space on the one hand, and identity studies on the other. Using a classical ethnographic approach, I analyze one such pilgrimage that took place in 2018, in which I was invited to participate as a guest,. In this paper I understand pilgrimage as a communal spiritual journey and analyze the roles the collective and individual play in it, as well as how and by what means the participants cocreate and experience constructs of place and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will consider the extent to which two competing norms—freedom of religion, on the one hand, and Islam as the religion of the state, on the other—are in tension with each other as seen through the lens of three Muslim-majority countries in the Maghreb. I examine this potential tension in four steps: first, the transformation of meaning of the Arabic word " hurriyya " (freedom) during and after the 19th century; second, the articulation of Islam as the religion of the state in the constitutions of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; third, the articulation of freedom of religion (whether freedom of worship or conscience) in the constitutional texts of these three countries, and finally, the question whether the laws and practices that implement these two constitutional norms are compatible or whether they in fact give priority to Islam as the state religion over the norm of freedom of religion. In Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, Islam plays an important role in the legal system, especially in family codes: the Moroccan Family Code (2004), the Algerian Family Code (2016), and the Tunisian Personal Status Code (1957). These are the remaining citadels most implicated with references to Islamic law, the interpretation of which has placed women in an unequal position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents important results from the Middle Draa Project (MDP) in southern Morocco related to two mid-1st millennium CE hilltop settlements (hillforts) that were associated with significant rock art assemblages. The combination of detailed survey and radiocarbon dating of these remarkable sites provides a unique window on the Saharan world in which the pecked engravings, predominantly of horses, were produced. As the horse imagery featured on the walls of buildings within the settlement, the radiocarbon dating around the mid-1st millennium CE can also be applied in this instance to the rock art. The rarity of rock art of this period within habitation sites is also discussed and it is argued that its occurrence at both these locations indicates that they had some special social or sacred significance for their occupants. While it is commonplace for rock art of this era, featuring horses and camels, to be attributed by modern scholars to mobile pastoralists, a further argument of the paper is that the desert societies were in a period of transformation at this time, with the development of oases. The association of the rock art imagery with sedentary settlements, where grain was certainly being processed and stored, is thus an additional new element of contextual information for the widespread Saharan images of horses and horse and riders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide a linguistic analysis of a recently digitized Luso-Moroccan correspondence corpus kept in the Portuguese National Archives of Torre do Tombo. All these documents date back to the first half of the tenth/sixteenth century and stand out for their being written in Middle Arabic, a language register which is characterized by the use of features from both classical and colloquial Arabic. The ultimate aim of this study is to find some clue to enable us to trace the history of present-day Moroccan Arabic dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, trade liberalisation has been extensively promoted by international agencies and actors around the world, including the Arab region, based on the assumption that it would contribute to promoting growth, jobs, development, democracy and even gender equality. The aim of this article is to rebalance such over-optimistic narratives about trade, taking as a starting point its concrete effects on the working conditions and lives of women workers in the export-oriented garment industry in Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. Drawing on feminist political economy research and labour studies, the first part of the paper sets out the context in which to understand the impact of trade liberalisation on working-class women by problematising the dominant narrative and presenting the analytical framework that will be used. The second section reviews the empirical evidence documenting how the expansion of garment exports in the three countries has relied entirely on the recruitment of the most powerless women, under precarious and indecent working conditions. The third section examines the trajectories through which trade liberalisation has led to the observed pattern of female exploitation. Using the analytical framework discussed in the first section, it will look at the interplay between the specific structure of the Global Supply Chain in which the three countries are integrated, state policies and existing gendered social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the monarchies of Qatar, Jordan, and Morocco to demonstrate how specific policies and ideologies do not necessarily correspond with the label of "moderate," which instead primarily reflects a reputational strategy. Prior to 2011, Qatar had cultivated an image as a relatively "liberal" Gulf monarchy, but although few policy changes occurred, after 2011 the emirate was seen as sponsoring terrorism. The government of Morocco developed a reputation for promoting "moderate Islam," yet religious intolerance persists, while the Jordanian regime has focused less on cultivating a moderate image than previously. Government efforts to develop a specific reputation reflect strategic maneuvering for both international religious soft power as well as consolidation of domestic control. Combining nine months of ethnographic fieldwork involving interviews with government officials, religious bureaucrats, and embassy personnel, the paper offers insights into how the strategic use of reputation has shifted in the post-2011 context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city reflects a politics of possession, upon which pieces of land ultimately get encircled by walls for exploitation. Walls—the entities that frame up the city—are territory ma(r)kers, yet this architectural gesture, far from being innocent, symbolizes a lurking desire at owning territories in the ma(r)king. This paper brings this idea home by examining the other meanings of the wall in contemporary Morocco, by closely studying the poetics and politics of the wall in the context of the Jidar street art festival of Rabat, situated, as it were, in the intersection of concepts (such as festival, paint, street art, wall, patronage, cooptation, resistance, local and global). We argue that the JSAF presents, among other things, a venue for local artists to perform and translate their thoughts and artistic visions into murals of a grand scale. Yet under the gaze of power, their performances accentuate the existentialist yet ambivalent position of city walls not only as embodiments of visual escape, but also as terrains of artistic/economic opportunities, incompatible social emotions, and contentious politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2011, Morocco has been undergoing a series of political, constitutional and institutional reforms, including the issue of rights. These reforms were a response to the February 20 movement that emerged against the background of the Arab Spring. Prompted by this movement and its nationwide protests, the King of Morocco delivered a speech in March 2011 on reform and modernization, resulting in the rapid drafting and adoption of a new Moroccan constitution in June 2011. After a referendum on the constitutional reforms in July 2011, parliamentary elections were held in which a coalition government led by the Justice and Development Party (JDP) came to power. This paper analyzes the context of the 2011 constitution and assesses the trajectory of the constitutional reforms up to 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The complexity of today's heterogeneous world demands more than the dominant binary of Islam versus West established via the identity framework of critical communication and cultural studies, particularly when discussing diasporic spaces. Drawing on qualitative interviews with twenty Muslim Moroccan women, conducted in the United States and Morocco and informed by interdisciplinary research on space, this paper argues that attaining the diasporic space should be understood both in terms of physical migration and in terms of discursive migration that includes non-territorial movement. The paper starts by addressing the debate on diasporic spaces, the local or global spaces that can still be considered diasporic in an era of mediated communications. Second, the paper illustrates how the respondents negotiate diasporic identities in relation to both physical migration and discursive immigration. Finally, it considers how these young women are exploring possibilities for their gender identities by drawing on alternative diasporic identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terrorist attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004 were one of the most traumatic events in recent Spanish domestic history, and have had a profound influence in internal policy as well as determining the strategy of its foreign and security policy. In many sectors it has created a climate in which there are serious negative repercussions in the acceptance and integration of immigrants from Morocco, bearing in mind that most of the people detained and put on trial are from that country but were residing in Spain. However, if the March 11 terrorist attacks are an important factor militating against Moroccan integration in Spain, the truth is that for many years they have had greater difficulties in integrating into the host community than other immigrant groups. This paper argues that Spanish-Moroccan political relations constitute further factors that create special difficulties for Moroccan immigrants in their integration into Spanish society. In order to demonstrate this hypothesis, the paper first describes in section one the specific Spanish migration context, firstly from the demographic point of view, analysing the rapid change of Spain from an emigrant country to an immigrant country and the increase in foreign population over recent years and, secondly from cultural point of view when it discusses the already existing diversities among the different Spanish regions and, finally, from a legal point of view the paper studies the changeable and unstable Spanish law on migration. The main goal of this introductory section is to show the general problems of integration applicable to all immigrant groups living in Spain, including Moroccans. Secondly, in sections two and three, the paper attempts to examine the unequal treatment against Moroccan immigrants and argues that this situation is not only due to Spanish attitudes toward immigrants in general and the social, racial and religious characteristic of Moroccan immigrants but also because there are other political reasons related to the relations between the Spanish and Moroccan Governments that affect the situation of Moroccans in Spain because of their nationality. In order to show this unequal treatment of Moroccan immigrants in comparison with other immigrant groups, section two describes the main examples of clear discrimination: specific racist and xenophobic attacks against Moroccans in Spain; employment discrimination against Moroccans; and the institutional declarations that negatively affect Moroccans. The third section attempts to demonstrate how old and recent political crisis and controversies in the fields of fishing, agricultural, territorial disputes, and illegal immigration controls between both countries constitute factors which have made the integration of Moroccan labourers in Spain more difficult. The fourth section shows how the political crises and conflicts between Spain and Morocco have worsened the Spanish population's perception of Morocco and have influenced the treatment Moroccan immigrants receive in Spain. Finally, the last section contains several conclusions as a warning to the Spanish Government to improve its relations with Moroccan Authorities not only to obtain institutional and political results but also to bring about positive consequences for Moroccans living in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1960s and 1970s presented fertile soil for a number of anthropological theories in Morocco. Those theories tried to offer explanatory paradigms for societies that had just shaken off colonization, especially in Anglo-Saxon studies. Segmentary theory, as part of this tradition, should be understood within the dichotomy of continuity and rupture in theoretical contributions on Morocco; its roots derive from both Khaldunian and colonial thought. Ernest Gellner's work on theSaints of the Atlas(1969) is considered among the most interesting studies that applied segmentary theory to understand Moroccan society in the post-independence era. In fact, much criticism has been levelled at this theory from different researchers such as Jacque Berque, Paul Pascon, Abdelkbir Khatibi, Abdellah Hammoudi, Abdellah Laroui and Mokhtar Harras, among others. Criticism mainly focused on the ideological and ethnocentric background that frames the frozen starting arguments of the segmentary approach. It maintains that ‘pre-capitalist’ societies were static, had no history and could not produce but social orders and intellectual and economic institutions that exalt loyalty to community and the authority of customs and ancestry, while they lacked power centralization, would reproduce themselves routinely and statically as well as diminish the prospects of social change. This paper criticizes Gellner's segmentary theory for neglecting the role of kinship and blood ties, social stratification and chiefship, marginalizing socio-historical dynamics, and the overemphasizing of the pacific role of religion and saints. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper revisits the issue of the representation of sentential negation in Arabic varieties with particular reference to Standard Arabic and four colloquial varieties, Egyptian Arabic, Gulf/Kuwaiti Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and Jordanian Arabic/Levantine Arabic. The goals are both empirical and conceptual. Empirically, the paper incorporates data from different Arabic varieties including varieties that have not figured prominently in recent debates about sentential negation in Arabic. Conceptually, the paper aims to engage the important topic of the location of the negative projection relative to the projection that carries the temporal information of the clause. The paper also discusses some patterns that, so far, have not received extensive attention and which provide strong support for locating the negative projection above the temporal projection. The overall goal is to broaden the debate about the syntax and morphology of negation in Arabic varieties and add critical and novel facts that any diachronic or synchronie analysis would want to take into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper looks at how Arab Muslim feminists have deployed Facebook and blogging in recent years as a tool for networking with other feminists and forming different groups. It offers an analysis of the ways Muslim women in Morocco and Saudi Arabia converse online about issues of gender and Islam in the present globalized context. Their topics of discussion include their personal legal status, discourses on feminism, redefining gender roles, sexuality, and a range of other issues. Facebook and blogging allow these women to speak freely to one another and encourage them to form groups. These platforms are useful not only for coalescing around key social and political issues pertaining to women, but also for initiating social change. Women utilizing online social networking are using new forms of feminist discourse-and the technology to fuel such discourse-to promote change from within. What is also happening is a revolution in the way these women are approaching Islam. They are turning to Facebook and blogging not only to debate, discuss, and explain their religion to people who do not understand the concept of Islam, but also to learn about the rights of women elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper explores the particular way in which the subjectivy of the narrator is constructed in the Masa Ba-'Arav, Samuel Romanelli's travelogue of his stay in Morocco between 1786 and 1790, published in Berlin in 1792. The Masa Ba-'Arav may be read as revealing the inadequacy of a discourse interested only in understanding every encounter with the Oriental Other in terms of 'power' and 'hegemony.' From the vantage point of the historian of literature, it shows how Romanelli's literary rendition of his traumatic experience in Morocco within the European genre of the travelogue can be assumed as a possible paradigm for emergence from the ghetto and its anxieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the poetics and politics of representing cultural otherness in Sellam Chahidi's travel-inspired narrative Hijra ila ardi al-ahlam. Since Western cultural encounters have developed an overall epistemological outline in which Moroccan cultural identities are framed and often preconditioned to express western perspectives, Chahidi's narrative foregrounds new ways whereby the existing paradigm of interpretation and power relations are disturbed and subverted. Hijra ila ardi al-ahlam shows an inquisitive mode of cross-cultural negotiation in which various ideological and cross-cultural appropriations are dislocated to take on new twists. It is motivated by a strong desire to forge a new space capable of transcending the sociopolitical reality of the motherland but also capable of challenging the unilateral constructions of identity dictated by the ideologies of an Orientalist mindset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an ethnographic image of 'Āšūrā' delineating how a cultural and religious ritual may play the role of establishing and sustaining cultural hegemony in Morocco. It forwards into a position of prominence the carnivalesque aspect of the ritual. The cultural authority of the male is transgressed, mocked and crushed down by the joyful moment of female becoming in a ritual outlet that permits power to rejuvenate its yoke of domination over women in the normal existing social conditions. Carnival is a form of social control of the low by the high and thus serves the interests of the official culture that it apparently opposes. It is a licensed relief. Hegemony permits the ritual inversions of hierarchy and status degradations to re-affirm the status quo. In this sense, 'Āšūrā' seems to offer an occasion for the ritual emancipation of women fulfilled by their practice of magic and ceremonial alfresco gatherings, chanting songs of challenge to the male authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, a new species of the genus Chaetogammarus is described from Moroccan fresh waters, as Chaetogammarus saisensis sp. nov. This species inhabits a restricted area in the north-central and Rifian region of Morocco. Some remarks on its variability and ecology are given. Information about the epigean fresh water Gammaridae of Morocco is also presented: seven species of Gammarus and two Echinogammarus are known with certainty from Morocco. A key to the Moroccan species of epigean Gammaridae is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses 'Abdelmajīd Ben Jallūn's 1956 autobiographical novel Fī al-Tufūla from the perspective of the spatial theories of the French cultural geographer Henri Lefebvre. Ben Jallūn spent his early childhood in England and brought the sociospatial practices of 20th-century Britain—what Lefebvre would term "abstract space"—to Morocco with him, where he encounters a profoundly different set of sociospatial practices. The paper describes these Moroccan practices and defines them as "labyrinthine space" by examining the differences Ben Jallūn's childhood alter ego encounters when trying to make his way through the city and receive an education. As he grows into adolescence, Ben Jallūn adapts to the labyrinthine spaces of traditional Islamic culture in Morocco and creates a hybrid space of his own; this enables him to have a bird's-eye view of the nascent Moroccan literary scene. He uses this space and the perspective it provides him to create a map of Moroccan literature and in effect creates the idea of "Moroccan literature" as opposed to literatures by authors from various Moroccan cities. Yet this act is itself a political act, an accrual of power to Ben Jallūn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtually from the beginning of the protectorate (1912), the French in Morocco attempted to seal off the Berber-speaking tribes from the penetration of Islam and of the Arabic language. The present paper argues that this policy (the "Berber policy") was modeled on a similar policy (the "policy of races") adopted by the French in West Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, the main difference being that in West Africa it was the "animists" who were to be sealed off. In both cases, the French acted as they did in order to ensure the permanence of their rule. It is argued that Paul Marty, the eminent authority on Islam in West Africa, was a key figure in the implementation of these policies in both regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is generally assumed that the Horseshoe Whip Snake (Coluber hippocrepis) originated in northern Africa, its biology and ecology has been studied mainly in southern Europe. In this paper we report on morphology, feeding, and reproductive ecology of Coluber hippocrepis in the Rif region (northern Morocco). Males attained larger sizes than did females, but there was no body-size difference between populations separated by the Strait of Gibraltar. The species feeds exclusively on vertebrates: mammals (45%), reptiles (28%), birds (17%), and amphibians (10%). There was an ontogenetic dietary shift in terms of frequency of prey consumed and in terms of prey size; moreover, an intersexual difference in prey frequency was found. Sexual maturity was attained at 540 mm snout-vent length (SVL) in males, and 720 mm SVL in females. Males showed a vernal spermatogenic cycle. Oviposition occurred at the beginning of summer, and offspring were observed in the field during September. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a large calligraphic panel from Morocco preserved in the Harvard Art Museums (2016.206). The artwork features stylized representations of Mecca and Medina alongside Prophet Muhammad's sandals and a selection of religious texts praising the prophet. This composition is characteristic of Islamic devotional imagery, highlighting artistic transfer from Moroccan illustrated copies of the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt by the ninth/fifteenth-century Sufi mystic al-Ǧazūlī. This article aims to contextualize the production of this specific panel artwork within the Wazzāniyya Sufi Brotherhood in Morocco. It also presents how the expression of religious devotion through symbolic images reflects a mediation between the believer and Islamic holy sites and relics of the prophet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it take for a couple to stand out as married to others? In Morocco, an ideal scenario to marry today involves families celebrating three stages: an engagement, a legal contract, and a wedding. Yet, as I will show, couples may also turn out to be married without such ceremonies. Other elements can make for evident marriages. Still, legal recognition has, over the past decades, become increasingly essential within people's own creations of conjugal bonds. Moreover, family and penal code revisions, together with the civil registry's expansion, have profoundly changed proceedings and possibilities to legally marry. These processes defy simple binaries of legal versus licit domains. Legal and licit understandings of marriage interlace both in people's own evaluations and in state officials' approaches. However, as I will argue, increased emphasis on legal registration also heightens state control over family ties and reduces people's opportunities to leave marital definitions open-ended as this suits them over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment of parasites and their pathogenicity is essential for studying the ecology of populations and understanding their dynamics. In this study, we investigate the prevalence and intensity of infection of haemogregarines (phylum Apicomplexa) in two sympatric lizard species, Podarcis vaucheri and Scelarcis perspicillata , across three localities in Morocco, and their effect on host immune response. We used the Phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) skin testing technique to relate the level of immune response with parasite infection. Prevalence and intensity levels were estimated with microscopy, and 18S rRNA gene sequences were used to confirm parasite identity. All parasites belong to the haemogregarine lineage found in other North African reptiles. There were differences in prevalence between localities and sexes. Overall, infected lizards were larger than uninfected ones, although we did not detect differences in parasitaemia across species, sex or locality. The swelling response was not related to the presence or number of haemogregarines, or to host body size, body condition, sex or species. We found no evidence of impact for these parasites on the circulating blood cells or the hosts' immune system, but more data is needed to assess the potential impact of mixed infections, and the possibility of cryptic parasite species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the image of Queen Elizabeth I (reg. 1558-1603) in Moroccan writings, focusing specifically on the period between 1588, the English victory over the Spanish Armada, and 1596, the English attack (with Moroccan logistical assistance) on Cadiz. Contrary to what some historians have claimed about Arab-Islamic ignorance of, and indifference to, Western Europe in the early modern period, the writings of Abd al-Aziz al-Fishtali (1549-1621), the Moroccan scribe in the royal court of Marrakesh during the reign of Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur (reg. 1578-1603), provide valuable information about English political and naval activity in the last decade of the 16th century. The letters of al-Fishtali include the only contemporary description of the English Queen by a non-European writer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we compare representations of the pilgrimage to Mecca posted on Facebook and Youtube by 'ordinary' pilgrims from Morocco and (semi)professional bloggers of Moroccan parentage in the Netherlands. We discuss how such posts challenge representations that circulate in the mainstream media in both countries about Islam in general and the hajj in particular. For Morocco we demonstrate that this kind of digital mediation of pilgrimage contests the ways in which the state-organized hajj is framed in Morocco's national media. For the Netherlands, we argue that bloggers deconstruct dominant images of the Muslim 'other' in their self-presentations as specifically Dutch Muslim pilgrims by connecting the meanings they attribute to the pilgrimage to Mecca to universal issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines French and American observers' perceptions of Moroccan goumiers' participation in the Second World War. For these Western commentators, including soldiers and military officials, the goumiers were often stereotyped either in terms of positive assumptions about their bravery, or otherwise negative depictions of their supposedly bestial violence and seemingly 'exotic' appearance. Situating these military perceptions of goumier troops against previous research on French understandings of Moroccan irregulars, this article contrasts these external accounts of the soldiers, with veterans' own accounts of their military service. Stereotypical accounts of the goumiers' bravery and excessive violence are contrasted against veterans' own valuation of combat in religious and cultural terms, as well as the linguistic politics of the term goumier. While concerned with drawing attention to Moroccan contributions to the conflict, the article also contributes to a wider literature concerning African veterans' voices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is Moroccan literature, where and when does it happen, and in what languages? In this essay, we tackle these questions by tracing the evolution of the definition of "Moroccan literature" from the first half of the twentieth century until the present. The earliest works of Moroccan literary historiography, such as ʿAbd Allah Kannūn's al-Nubūgh al-maghribī fī al-adab al-ʿarabī (1937), situated Moroccan literature within the Arabic literary tradition and treated Moroccan literature as an important element in the "Arab-Islamic" identity promoted by the Moroccan nationalist movement. Since Moroccan independence in 1956, this definition of Moroccan literature has come under increasing pressure, as the languages and imaginative geographies of Moroccan literature have expanded to include new voices. In what follows, we consider these debates through a survey of a diverse corpus of literary-historical works that throw into question the linguistic, temporal, and spatial borders of Moroccan literature (and of Morocco itself). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northwest African material previously ascribed to the subspecies Nephrotoma guestfalica surcoufi (Pierre, 1925) proved to belong to two distinct morphological forms, the true N. g. surcoufi from Algeria, and Tunisia, and the here newly introduced Nephrotoma guestfalica vaillanti n. subsp. from Morocco. With the distinction of the new form, four subspecies of Nephrotoma guestfalica (Westhoff, 1879) are now recognized, all occurring in the western Palaearctic. An identification key for the males of the four taxa of Nephrotoma guestfalica s.l. is provided. The male terminalia of the four taxa are illustrated. The distribution of the four subspecies is summarized, based on material examined and published data. A map showing the currently known distribution of N. guestfalica surcoufi and N. guestfalica vaillanti is presented. Nephrotoma guestfalica guestfalica is recorded here for the first time from Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women of color have long used the transformative power of writing and theorizing through their bodies to speak back to the pervasive racist and sexist hierarchies in hegemonic cultures. I extend this argument in the specific context of Muslim feminism that is theorized outside orientalist and patriarchal frames of reference. In this article, I turn to a performative autoethnographic approach to look at the Moroccan era, 'Now and Then,' through my grandmother's lens, that of a Moroccan woman erased from the written history of Morocco. Drawing on 'theories of the flesh,' I privilege my grandmother's voice and her embodied experience that transmits her story of resistance and survival under French colonization. Through 'fleshing,' my Moroccan grandmother reclaims her lived experiences and deconstructs the hegemonic universalist knowledge of feminism and struggle. It is important to foreground the political urgency of surveying the theoretical frameworks of Arab and Muslim scholars in order to create new ways of understanding communication in postcolonial/neocolonial settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than twenty years, politics in Morocco has been witnessing a change in the cycles of protests under the influence of the parameters linked to the economic liberalization and evolution of the processes of disenchantment with a conventional political culture. The frequent use of repertories of collective action has not failed to shake the political and social landscape to the point that the demobilization of an area is followed by uprisings in neighboring sites. The response of public authorities varies according to the intensity and objectives of the social uprisings. This research is to study the evolution, over time, of the links between repression, the index of consumer prices of basic foodstuffs, and social uprisings. It covers about twenty years from January 1997 to November 2018. In addition to the descriptive temporal evolution, the work applies autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) modeling to examine whether there are short- and long-term associations between the variables mentioned above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rather than being an exception, judicial permission for minor marriage has become a rule in Morocco. Based on legal analysis and anthropological fieldwork in 2015, I show that the gender of the judge does not significantly contribute to the way the provision on minor marriage is implemented in Moroccan courthouses. Instead, I argue in favour of an approach that is grounded in a relational understanding of law. Both male and female judges were manoeuvring the internal incompatibilities contained within and between state laws, which are the result of external recognition —in other words, the recognition of other normative orders, notably customary law practices. This relational understanding of law, and the ambiguities it naturally results in, amounts to a better understanding of law in action than the distinction between an "ethic of justice" and an "ethic of care," which highlights gender-specific ways of legal decision-making, which are not supported by the Moroccan case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the influence of the common goals of Education For All (EFA), Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the international development realm, many countries around the world have reached a great level of development through continuous improvement in education since 2000. Meanwhile, Morocco could be one of the developing countries that struggle to resolve many problems resulting from having a weak educational system, which has been considered as one of the main obstacles to the country's economic growth. The purpose of this article is to analyse the gender gap in access to primary education in rural areas of Morocco, focusing on primary school girls. Based on the investigation on the major obstacles, we carried out descriptive statistics with selected variables such as the adjusted net enrolment rate, the cumulative drop-out rate to the last grade, the gross intake ration (graduation ratio) to the last grade, and Gender Parity Index (GPI). In addition, we conducted a few private interviews via Skype with local stakeholders to underpin our research and to reflect personal ideas on the Moroccan educational system from their own perspective. Lastly, we suggested applicable solutions against those barriers from the perspective of education ODA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northwest African material previously ascribed to the subspecies Nephrotoma guestfalica surcoufi (Pierre, 1925) proved to belong to two distinct morphological forms, the true N. g. surcoufi from Algeria, and Tunisia, and the here newly introduced Nephrotoma guestfalica vaillanti n. subsp. from Morocco. With the distinction of the new form, four subspecies of Nephrotoma guestfalica (Westhoff, 1879) are now recognized, all occurring in the western Palaearctic. An identification key for the males of the four taxa of Nephrotoma guestfalica s.l. is provided. The male terminalia of the four taxa are illustrated. The distribution of the four subspecies is summarized, based on material examined and published data. A map showing the currently known distribution of N. guestfalica surcoufi and N. guestfalica vaillanti is presented. Nephrotoma guestfalica guestfalica is recorded here for the first time from Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the changes effected by the new constitutional bills of rights of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. In the Introduction, the conceptual and empirical framework is presented, enunciating four descriptive hypotheses: (1) the new Arab bills of rights are longer and denser, (2) they take up the most recent catalogues of rights as expressed in the globalized constitutional models, (3) they recognize the international human rights law as a binding legal category, and (4) they grant a special importance to women, children and minorities' rights. The testing of these hypotheses, by means of a descriptive statistical analysis and the study of the novelties introduced, constitutes the second section. The third section analyzes the evolution and functional rationale of these new constitutional provisions. Finally, a conclusion is provided, arguing that the new Arab bills of rights are situated within globalized constitutional trends, adjusted with certain regional particularities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between security and democracy in Morocco. It discusses the state's behavior towards the popular uprisings, how it responds to the social movements demands, and how it manages the security unrests. Throughout, the discussion throws a light on the democratization process of the security sector, in particular, and on the trajectory of democratic transition in the kingdom, in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most Muslim-majority countries, the legislators who drafted family law codes sought to produce a codified version of one of the many Islamic fiqh schools. Such is the case, from West to East, for Morocco, Egypt, and Indonesia. There are situations, however, in which the law remains silent. In such cases, judges must turn to fiqh in order to find appropriate provisions. It is up to judges to interpret the law and to locate the relevant rule. In this process, judges use new interpretive techniques and modes of reasoning. After addressing institutional and legal transformations in Morocco, Egypt, and Indonesia, this article focuses on the domain of family law. We examine cases that illustrate how judges seek a solution in the body of fiqh when asked to authenticate a marriage. In conclusion, we put forward an argument about how judges who are required to refer to fiqh deal with this matter within the context of positive, codified, and standardized law. We argue that the methodology and epistemology adopted by contemporary judges, the legal material on which they draw, and the means by which they refer to this material have fundamentally altered the nature of legal cognition and of law itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1962, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) agreed to negotiate a guestworker agreement with Morocco in order to create guidelines for handling 4,000 so-called illegal Moroccan migrants, most of whom lived in North Rhine-Westphalia. Unlike other guestworker agreements, this one was not about recruitment, but rather it was designed to restrict migration from Morocco, legalise the stay of Moroccans already in the country, and establish guidelines for future deportations. Looking at the history of the West German-Moroccan Agreement from its start until its termination in 1973, this article provides a discussion of Moroccan labourers access to and legal status in West Germany, demonstrating how international and economic interests as well as cultural stereotypes of both Moroccans and Arabs shaped West German migration policies. In so doing, the article emphasises the West German federal and the North Rhine-Westphalian state governments' different goals, revealing that the West German government was not a monolithic entity; it was in fact defined by multiple, sometimes contradictory, viewpoints and pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States alternate between the roles of ‘caretaker’ and ‘rescuer’ when providing care to citizens abroad. This article suggests that they are more likely to assume the ‘rescuer’ role when core values underpinning their self-identity are at stake. This dynamic is explored by examining a case where a Norwegian mother re-abducted her two children from Morocco. In the process, Norway’s foreign minister authorized shielding the children at the Norwegian Embassy in Rabat, citing ‘Norway’s duty to protect two Norwegian minors in fear of their lives’. A diplomatic conflict between Norway and Morocco followed. The Norwegian response must be seen in light of Norway’s self-identity as a frontrunner for children’s rights. Ultimately, helping the children ‘had’ to trump concerns about diplomatic costs. The broader dilemmas that this case exemplifies should be relevant also to other cases where a state’s concern for a child citizen is pitted against its obligation to diplomatic conventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a fatwa written in the late nineteenth century by Jaʿfar b. Idrīs al-Kattānī, a distinguished Moroccan legal scholar. The issue that gave rise to the fatwa was the subject of heated debates among Moroccan Muslims at the time: the legality of using goods manufactured by non-Muslims. New historical conditions brought by Moroccan modernity eroded religious and communal boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims and accentuated concerns about the integrity of Islam. Suspicion and anxiety of the population found expression in widespread rumors about impurities in products manufactured by non-Muslims. By analyzing al-Kattānī's fatwa, this article aims to offer insights into the relationships between the ʿulamāʾ, Islamic tradition, and modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of funding under the 'Mobility Partnership' (MP) concluded between the European Union (EU), various Member States and Morocco. As most academic literature and policy discourse assumes a link between funding and policy implementation, this article enquires into how funding can help us understand implementation and the priorities set therein, and what alternative understandings of funding we could develop. By presenting evidence from the EU-Morocco MP, it is argued that looking at EU funding obscures rather than clarifies the priorities pursued in the cooperation on borders, asylum and migration. Drawing from the political sociology of public finances and from legal literature, this article understands funding as embedded in institutional, legal and political struggles over competences, and highlights the symbolic nature of funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on introduction of laws for coastal zone management in Morocco. Topics include development of the Coastal Bill that was adopted in the Parliament on July 2015, incorporation of integrated coastal zone management mandates in the law, assimilation of coastal zone with maritime public domain (MPD), assistance of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in Mediterranean coastal management plans (CMP)expansion and description of CMP influence over the law implementation.

This article examines the conditions under which state actor-social movement (SASM) coalitions form in policy-making in authoritarian states. Based on a comparison of three cases of policy reform undertaken by the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) in the municipality of Kenitra, Morocco, it argues: 1) in authoritarian states, we must analyse SASM interactions and the interactions between elected state actors and nominated state actors representing the central authorities; 2) the PJD forms coalitions with social movement organizations (SMOS) depending whether its policy preference is in opposition to the authorities' and whether it has mass appeal; 3) when its preference conflicts with that of the authorities yet has broad support, the pjd formally mobilizes SMOS; when it conflicts with the authorities' preference but has limited appeal, informal party-social movement coalitions are formed; and when it is neither in conflict with the authorities' preference nor has mass appeal, coalitions are unnecessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author analyses the influence of Islamic references in the 2011 Moroccan constitutional reform that, far from taking place in a vacuum, was informed both by an internal political perspective and by the broader context of what has come to be called the “Arab Spring”. It will be outlined that, on the one hand, Islamic legal tradition interacts with Western legal principles; while on the other hand the exceptionalism of the “Moroccan Spring” reveals that those very principles are contextualized and adapted within this executive Islamic monarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]