01/06/2016 GTD Colloquium “Indigenous Masculinities in Berber Morocco: Colonial Violence and Postcolonial Recuperations” by Paul Silverstein

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Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/06/16
3:30 pm - 5:30 pm

Location
Grote Gracht 80-82 (Soiron Building). Room: Attic

Categories


Indigenous Masculinities in Berber Morocco: Colonial Violence and Postcolonial Recuperations

By Paul Silverstein (Read College)

Globalisation, Transnationalism & Development (GTD) Colloquium organized in association with Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE)

Abstract

In this essay, I explore the ways in which visions and expectations of martial masculinity underwrite imperial formations and the debris they leave behind. Drawing on my archival and field research in southeastern Morocco and northern France, I will focus on how the colonial encounter between French military officers and semi-nomadic tribal notables entailed processes of recognition and mimesis established a model of martial agency with which young men on both sides of the Mediterranean continue to struggle to perform, whether as explicitly political activists or simply disciplined individuals. These gendered dilemmas of performance constrain as much as they enable, and provide insight into some of the ways in which the inequities of colonialism continue to haunt our postcolonial present.

Prof. Paul Silverstein is professor of Anthropology at Reed college. He is currently a Fulbright Visiting Professor at KU Leuven. He has published a number of book chapters and articles on immigration, race/ethnicity, nationalism, colonialism/post-coloniality, and cultural politics. His most recent book is on Bourdieu in the Field: Colonial Politics, Ethnographic Practices, Theoretical Developments. Edited with Jane Goodman. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.