Research Grants Program | Cycle 6 Grantees and Projects

Zakaria Rhani, Morocco, University of Mohammed V (Principal Investigator)

Mariam Benalioua, Morocco (Co-Investigator)

Salma Bouchiba, Morocco, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship (Co-Investigator)

Project Title: Environmental Exploitation, Impoverishment and Ecojustice Learning within Social Movements in Morocco: The Case of the Movement On the Road’96 (MOR’96), Imider

This research project aims to examine the new rising movements of protest against natural environmental exploitation and the politics of impoverishment that it leads to in Morocco. These movements, which date back to the 1990s, show considerable amplitude, in terms of organization and demands, after the Arab Spring. The ethnographic research (i.e. participant observation, description of natural environment, in-depth interviews, group discussion) focuses on a specific movement in the village of Imider (situated at the foot of the High Atlas), where the protest evolved from a struggle against impoverishment and for basic socioeconomic needs to a more open and dynamic “political ecology” that includes environmental justice as part of its demands, thereby connecting it to wider ecological struggles in the region. The principal aim of this research is to scrutinize both the socio-political and ecological significations of these notable transformations, in order to elucidate the following issues: 1) the reasons of this increasing environmental awareness; 2) the ways this awareness is unfolding on the ground and is translated in terms of ecojustice; 3) the impact of the local culture, regarding the natural world, in shaping the protest and its demands. This cultural influence is not apprehended in a deterministic way, but in an interpretive perspective; that is, how the specific cultural relationships with the environment give an interpretive matrix to act within it. In complete congruence with our conceptual framework, based in a mixed cultural and political ecology, our methodology considers both the natural environment as such, and the politics that affect it, as well as the actions that contest this politics. On one hand, our approach relies on a description of the natural environment in order to assess the changes it has undergone. This evaluation is based on the comparison of our present observations with two different sources: first, with the geographical literature on the region’s environment and its natural resources; second, with the in-depth interviews to be conducted with local actors from different generations. These interviews will serve to make a double ethno-history, that of the natural environment and its changes, and that of the social and cultural interactions with it and their modifications as well. On the other hand, the political part of our “political ecology” is approached through a comprehensive description of the protest movement and its actions. Using participant observations, we aim to scrutinize how the actors organize themselves and how they occupy the space; how they connect with other movements, locally and in the region at large; how they interact with the local authorities and what their strategies in negotiating their demands regarding equality and social justice are.