Dislocations of empire: colonies de vacances and estivage in Protectorate Morocco, 1912–1956

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers the origins and evolution of colonies de vacances and childhood and youth estivage (summer leisure) in Morocco, over the lifespan of the French Protectorate. It will show how these practices manifested, and sometimes challenged, the social and spatial separations that were inherent to the Moroccan colonial order. The colonies served as enclaves of a kind in the earlier period of the Protectorate, designed to secure European ‘childhood’ amidst purportedly adverse climatic and social/political conditions. Over time, the colonies and estivage became the object of new investments, in line with the broader historical conversion of childhood and youth into a ‘field of action’ and arena of political contestation. In the post-1945 period, incipient colonial crisis compelled a greater opening of these sites and practices to under-represented categories of young people–Muslim, Jewish, female. Conflicts arising from this inclusion reveal how the dislocation that was inherent to colonies and estivage practices hadn't – and really couldn't – be reconciled with the prevailing social order, as happened in France.