Constructing a Diasporic Identity
Tracing the Origins of the Gnawa Spiritual Group in Morocco
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8976799 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chouki El Hamel (Arizona State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 241-260 |
| Publication date | 2008-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of African History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s002185370800368x |
| OpenAlex | W2143296496 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
| References cited | 5 |
This article reconstructs the forgotten past of the Gnawa who, over many generations, productively negotiated their forced presence in Morocco to create acceptance and group solidarity. The diaspora of black West Africans in Morocco, the majority of whom were forcefully transported across the Sahara and sold in different parts of Morocco, shares some important traits with the African trans-Atlantic diaspora, but differs at the same time. There are two crucial differences: the internal African diaspora in Morocco has primarily a musical significance and it lacks the desire to return to the original homeland. This diaspora is constructed positively around the right to belong to the culture of Islam, unlike the construction of the African American diasporic double consciousness. Black consciousness in Morocco exists in analogy to the Berber consciousness or the Arab notion of collective identity; it does not constitute a contradiction with itself. Black Moroccans perceive themselves first and foremost to be Muslim Moroccans and only perceive themselves secondarily as participants in a different tradition
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Collective identity · Consciousness · Contradiction · Diaspora · Double consciousness · Ethnology · Genealogy · Homeland · Identity (music · Islam · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · African Studies and Geopolitics · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · Philosophy
Understanding slavery in possession rituals
Reconstructing the history of Berber [Amazigh] music
Reconstructing the history of Berber [Amazigh] music
Gnawa Confusion
Refiguring Pan-Africanism Through Algerian–Moroccan Competitive Festivals
Music for the unseen
Spiriti e riti ebraici a Meknes. Seduti alla “tavola di David
Introduction – Imagining the “Musical Memorial” Music and the (re)transmission of the memory of slaveries and the slave trades
Imaginer le « mémorial musical » Musiques et (re)transmissions des mémoires des traites et des esclavages
The Jewish Djinn in Northern Morocco. Old and New Neighborhoods
Underground Music in Tunisia
Memes and the Moroccan Far-Right
Bori practice among enslaved West Africans of Ottoman Tunis
Memory, Slavery and Muslim Citizenship in the post-Emancipation circum-Saharan World
Les ḥarāṭīn entre la baraka des esclaves par Bilȃl (sud du Maroc) et la science coranique (sud de la Mauritanie)
Defining Regions of Pre-Colonial Africa
Saharan Oceans and Bridges, Barriers and Divides in Africa's Historiographical Landscape
Enslaved Muslim Sufi Saints in the Nineteenth-Century Sahara
Morocco's multicultural turn
The politics oftaqlidirap
La religion en partage, la « couleur » et l' origine comme frontière
Contentious Spectacle
| Unique citing works | 22 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,47 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2025 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 22 |