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This paper presents partial results of a broader investigation and focuses on describing a process of reification that took place at the heart of an immigrant community in Sant Mateu (Castelló, Spain), and that crystallised through the construction and management of a mosque. The theoretical framework draws on social learning theories, with a particular focus on situated learning and communities of practice. Regarding the method, the study follows an ethnographic, qualitative approach. We present the fieldwork procedures (participatory observation, interviews and focus groups) and analytical procedures (content analysis) followed in the research. The results recount the process this immigrant community followed to build the mosque, and the meanings for the community of the process followed and its culmination. Finally, the discussion and conclusions characterise this immigrant community as a community of practice where situated learning processes arise.

Taking cue from Abdelahad Sebti's study of the social history of the zaṭāṭ (زطَا طَ) (the escort who in precolonial Morocco was hired to protect travellers from highway robbers and thieves), this paper attempts, in the words of Edward Said (1996. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. New York: Vintage Books, XV), a 'coherent description' of the vocation of the Moroccan intellectual in a public sphere characterised by a crisis in hegemony and public distrust of institutional politics. I argue that the Moroccan intellectual tends to avoid engagement with radical politics that aim to create social disorder (al-siba) or unrest (fitna), and embraces instead hybrid approaches that alternate resilience and resistance, dissent and compromise, critique of the a'mma (the general public) and state politics, and advocacy for endogenous 'reforms from within' over drastic social change. In this, the intellectual emulates the role of the zaṭāṭ in that they see their function as a road architect, social navigation engineer, and a link in a plural and contesting social and political organisation. The paper uses the hirak movement in northern Morocco as a case study to illustrate the role of the intellectual as a mediator of social contention. While there are different ways to 'speak the truth to power', confrontation has been the least favoured style of the Moroccan intellectual who has generally conceived of their role as a facilitator of social peace rather than an instigator of revolt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the impact of international migration on the transfer of political and social norms. Exploiting recent and unique data on Morocco, this paper explores whether households with return and current migrants bear different political preferences and behaviours than non-migrant families. Once controlling for the double selection into emigration and return migration, the findings suggest that having a returnee in the household increases the demand for political and social change. This result is driven by returnees mostly from Western European countries, who were exposed to more democratic norms in the destination. However, we find a negative impact of having a current migrant on the willingness of the left-behind households to change. This result is driven by migrants to non-Western countries, where the quality of political and social institutions is lower. Our results are robust to also controlling for destination selectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital revolution has drastically transformed the conventional system of political representation, participation and communication, bringing accordingly many cultural changes in the public sphere where collective action is built and new identity aspects are constructed. This article attempts to make sense of the February 20th movement youth activists' actions, understand their dynamics, analyse their mobilisation process, examine their paradoxes and highlight their promises from a social and political outlook. Youth activists in this movement used the internet as a tool to strategise, organise and mobilise supporters across the country to take the streets to demand for the democratisation of political institutions, lifting the veil on the dysfunctional and seriously out of touch political parties, more freedom of expression, more limits on the royal power and an end to corruption, nepotism and favouritism. To address this concern, a quantitative opinion survey was addressed to 100 activists in the February 20th movement in 2011 in three major cities in Morocco: Rabat, Casablanca and Meknes. The results obtained were significant with regard to gender participation in the movement, level of education, political affiliation and the use and manipulation of the Internet for political activism. Similarly, the manuscript shows that activists in the February 20th Movement have managed to transform the Moroccan society and changed the meaning of political participation and social debate in Morocco, altering, thus, Morocco's protest culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hot Maroc (2016), Yassin Adnan, a Moroccan author and journalist, reconstructs through the literary fiction the political and social changes of contemporary Morocco, from the end of the reign of Hassan II until today. Through the eyes of the main character, Raḥḥāl, the reader discovers both the social jungle of Marrakesh and the digital Moroccan jungle in which the young man becomes a professional keyboard warrior. Being paid by Moroccan mukhabarat, Raḥḥāl manipulates public opinion through readers' comments published in an electronic journal, called Hot Maroc. The present study aims to analyse styles, registers, and linguistic variation through a sociolinguistic perspective. Although the main language of the novel is Fuṣḥā (here intended as Modern Standard Arabic), discursive parts make also use of Dāriǧa (Moroccan Arabic). The plurality of voices and linguistic diversity which emerge from online and offline discourses and interactions among characters is not limited to merely enhancing the novel's 'realism', but it makes it possible to analyse how the communicative nature of language is functionally manipulated to serve instead as an instrument of miscommunication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to cast light on one of Moroccan women's cinematic voices: Narjiss Nejjar. Thanks to her growing filmography, she is nowadays considered a promising member of women's film community in the country. Her debut feature film Al-Oyoun Al-Jaffa (Les Yeux Secs/Dry Eyes, Morocco and France, 2003) has been widely acclaimed. I argue that this work negotiates female spectatorship through two main strategies. First, it represents Amazigh (Berber) women as full-fledged citizens away from any process of eroticisation or fragmentation. Second, it pushes the spectators, male and female, to identify with the female characters through this counteractive strategy of representation. To identify with them, one has to identify with their journeys of becoming. The film will be closely investigated from a postcolonial vision, and read against the backdrop of political and social changes that have been animating the contemporary Moroccan society in the recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]