Full lecture title:
An Extreme Make-Over: Recreating a Moroccan Capital and the Margins of its Heritage
The city of Rabat in Morocco is currently undergoing extensive urban renovation projects, which we might qualify as “Haussmannian”. Inhabitants of more or less informal popular neighbourhoods are made to move to new satellite settlements, museums, high-end hotels and shopping malls are under construction or have recently opened, the old inner city and the Oudaya and Chellah heritage sites have been drastically restored, and large infrastructural works in the valley of the Bouregreg river are underway, such as (for the time-being) the highest tower of Africa, a theatre hall designed by Zaha Hadid, and a high speed train connection ultimately linking Tanger to Marrakech and beyond. The authorities are actively promoting the brand of Rabat as “the city of lights.” The interventions are such that UNESCO protested, announcing that it might reconsider the world heritage status it discerned to Rabat in 2012.
This lecture analyses these projects as part of a larger cultural and political movement to recreate a modern national identity, embodied by Rabat as the capital of the Kingdom of Morocco. The approach taken stems from the work of Ernest Gellner and other anthropologists and historians on nationalism, and from “critical heritage studies” which encourage us to consider “heritage” and “culture” as social processes in which various actors play their respective roles. Attention to the margins and to what is left out of the heritage-making proves to be quite illuminating. Rabat is a city on the southern bank of the Bouregreg river, which for many centuries was overshadowed by the city of Salé on the northern side. Despite its rich past the city of Salé and the ecologically rich river valley have not been included in the UNESCO world heritage site. These dynamics of including and excluding in the creation and recreation of a national capital also contribute to a more general understanding of the making of a national culture as part of a state-building process.
Léon Buskens studied anthropology, Arabic and Islamic studies at Radboud University, and defended a thesis on Islamic family law at Leiden University. He is currently a professor of Law and Culture in Muslim Societies at Leiden University and director of the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR), based in Rabat. His main interests are Islamic law and society, anthropology of Muslim societies, especially Morocco, and the history of orientalism and anthropology. At present he is engaged in a study of the making of a national Moroccan culture.
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The lecture starts at 6 pm. We work on a first-come, first-served basis as the number of seats is limited. We open our doors at 5:30 and close them at 6:15 or earlier when the lecture room reaches its full capacity.
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