In this talk, Moyagaye Bedward of Rutgers University examines Moroccan nationalism from a subaltern perspective. In contrast to previous historiography, nationalism in northern, urban sites such as Casablanca was also supported by southern Moroccans influenced by their pre-colonial experiences. Moyagaye discusses ordinary Moroccans, and in particular the Haratin, within the decolonization process, and demonstrate the ways in which the mass, broad based, protests that were the center of nationalist and decolonization strategies were made possible by the significant increase in migration from southern Morocco, including the Anti-Atlas.
Moyagaye Bedward is a doctoral candidate in the history department at Rutgers University- New Brunswick. She specializes in the history of the Modern Middle East and Africa. She is currently completing her dissertation entitled, “‘They Say that We are from Africa’: Race, Slavery, and Haratin Nationalists in 20th century Morocco,” which argues that “black” Haratin Moroccans, an ethno-linguistic Amazigh “Berber” community of the southern Anti-Atlas, played an important, and largely unrecognized, role in the making of the modern Moroccan nation. She currently holds a University of Pennsylvania Predoctoral Fellowship for Excellence through Diversity. Her work has been additionally supported by grants from the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (CASA), Fulbright, the American Institute for Maghrib studies, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, among others.
