Claiming their right to possess: the Guich Oudaya tribe’s resistance to land grabbing

Abstract

ABSTRACT In February 2014, at the heart of an upscale neighborhood in Rabat, police forces forcefully destroyed the homes of Douar Ouled Dlim’s inhabitants – descendants of the Guich Oudaya tribe. Refusing to leave their land, the inhabitants have since continued to live in makeshift camps made of plastic tarp, protesting their dispossession. Ultimately, they all wonder ‘wach hna maghrba – are we still Moroccan citizens?’ The Guich lands, which have been relinquished at nominal prices to private developers linked to the ruling elite, have been used since the 1980s to extend the city of Rabat and, particularly, to erect one of its most exclusive neighborhoods, Hay Ryad. Despite the various struggles that shaped the resistance led by the Guich Oudaya tribe, today their lands have been consumed by concrete, erasing any trace of the existence of this peri-urban agricultural community. By analysing the mechanisms of dispossession put in place by the State, this paper seeks to show how the colonial logic – reconfigured through the discourse of modernity – has implemented a dichotomy between ‘progress’ and ‘nature’. Finally, the paper argues that this dichotomy continues to contribute to and legitimise the destruction of communal agricultural spaces and the consolidation of urban inequality in contemporary Morocco.