Reimagining the Maghreb: Navigating an Autonomous Region in Motion
By Julius Dihstelhoff, Rachid Ouaissa, and Thomas Richter
This article is a shortened version of a MECAM Paper, originally published by the Merian Centre for Advanced Study in the Maghreb (MECAM) and the GIGA Institute in Hamburg, Germany, in 2024. The full version can be accessed here (also available in Arabic and French).
MECAM Papers | Number 07 | July 5, 2024 | https://dx.doi.org/10.25673/116447 | ISSN: 2751-6474
The Maghreb has been shaped and influenced by external powers and forces throughout most phases of its recent history. As a vibrant space in motion, this world region is only at the beginning of a long process of carving out its own future autonomous role. Historically, the Maghreb has faced internal tensions due to acute disparities and complex external interlinkages with surrounding regions. These tensions are crucial for understanding contemporary transformation processes and future dynamics.
While the countries of the Maghreb have distinct historical particularities, they share commonalities such as language, religion, and historical experiences. Since the Arab Uprisings of 2010–2011, Maghrebi societies have encountered common challenges, including transitioning from rentier economies and authoritarianism, addressing issues of justice and equality, and managing identity crises. The dynamics in the Maghreb region, particularly in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, follow key trajectories: social and political transformations, economic challenges and a “New Deal,” visions of unity and mobility, geopolitical challenges, and regional foreign policy outlooks. These changes are reflected in academics now adopting a more critical approach. Contemporary scholarship seeks to enrich dialogue by incorporating diverse perspectives and challenging Western-centric paradigms while promoting epistemic justice.
CONTEXT
Based on its guiding theme, “Imagining Futures – Dealing with Disparity,” MECAM, the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb in Tunis, aims to play a notable role in advancing both current and future knowledge production in the Humanities and Social Sciences within, from, and about the Maghreb.
THE AUTONOMOUS MAGHREB
The Maghreb, the so-called Land of the Setting Sun in Arabic, represents a region of exchange and hybridity between various cultural, economic, geographic, political, and religious spaces at the intersection of Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.[1] According to most contemporary definitions, it consists of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. While this position is advantageous from a geostrategic point of view, the Maghreb is often considered to be a multiple periphery—existing as a zone of external power projection until today (e.g., Galissot 2000). This prevailing understanding largely ignores the autonomous dynamics taking place within the Maghreb itself, including the transregional effects that arise from it (Dirèche and Ouaissa 2021: 35).
Throughout history, the Maghreb’s remarkable nature has been a product of the deep tensions existing between its cultural, linguistic, economic, and political internal disparities on the one hand and its extensive interlinkages and interdependencies with surrounding regions on the other. Any rigorous analysis, whether from the Humanities or Social Sciences, must consider these sources of friction. They constitute the structural starting points of contemporary transformation processes and thus entail important prerequisites for future dynamics (Dirèche and Ouaissa 2021: 35).
While the countries of the Maghreb can markedly be differentiated in regards to their historical particularities and the prevailing complexities of their political systems, they nonetheless share a common heritage that includes language, religion, an Arab–Berber cultural identity, a geoclimatic environment, and comparable historical experiences. Since the beginning of the Arab Uprisings of 2010–2011, Maghrebi societies have increasingly faced a number of shared challenges, including transitioning from rentier to productive economies, democratic transitions and issues of justice and equality, managing multiple identity crises, and dealing with re-authoritarianism. Nevertheless, the classification of the Maghreb as a region with its own specificities should always be treated with caution. As Laroui (2012: 23) points out, “All of these historical [regional] units are the result of history. Now, historians and analysts come much later and try to prove at any cost that this classification is not contingently created but that it is necessary, even unavoidable.”[2]
REIMAGINING THE MAGHREB
From an Area Studies[3] perspective, the inquiry into an autonomous Maghreb raises a crucial question regarding its precise conception: Is the Maghreb to be considered a region, a subregion, or an inter-region? Addressing this entails focusing on two fundamental elements: first, a careful examination of the distinct historical, economic, cultural, and geopolitical identifications associated with the region, and second, the adoption of a broader theoretical lens to gain more comprehensive insights. The various terminologies employed, such as “Maghreb,” “Muslim West,” “North Africa,” or “Southern Mediterranean,” highlight the intricate nature of the subject under consideration while also shedding light on the complex dynamics of political power involved in its constitutive discourse.
The term “Maghreb” indicates inclusion in the Arab world and stands as the counterpart to “Mashreq,” the place where the sun rises (Wehr 1968: 426). First used in the Middle Ages, it designated regions west of Egypt. As seen in the works of the geographer Muhammad Ibn Ahmad al-Muqaddasi, born in Jerusalem in 947 AD, during Islamic rule (seventh to fifteenth century), the Maghreb encompassed not only territories in North Africa but also Sicily, the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the Balearic and Canary Islands (Lafi 2016: 4). It is important to note that a certain geographical, Arabo-centric perspective is already included in the respective designations. Although Arabs represent a sizable part of the Maghrebi population, they are just one of many sociocultural groups.
Using “Muslim West” underlines the region’s belonging to the Muslim world. However, this term somewhat neglects the long history of the Maghreb as a shared Jewish, Islamic, and Christian space. Before the early Islamic conquests, most of the Amazigh people belonged to the Christian or Jewish faith; even after the Islamisation of the Maghreb, a sizable Jewish population remained. The Jewish community notably diminished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries due to European colonialism in the Maghreb and the establishment of the State of Israel.
Applying “North Africa” recalls the region’s history as a former colony. The name “Africa” originally referred to a Roman province in what is now Tunisia and was later adopted for the entire continent. At the same time, the term underscores the region’s belonging to this continent. As a geographical, historical, and anthropological construct, the Maghreb was isolated by French colonial theorists, both in Africa and the Middle East. It is crucial to acknowledge, as Hannoum (2021) aptly reminds us, that the positioning of the Maghreb as a distinct region was essentially a colonial and French invention. Both the Romans and Arabs, in their respective classifications, distinguished Egypt from Africa/Ifriqia. However, neither side explicitly articulated the idea of a “White” Africa in contrast to a “Black” Africa—a notion that emerged much later, pioneered by geographer Emile-Félix Gautier and later embraced by historian Charles-André Julien. Especially within the context of the decolonial struggle, one could assert that the Maghreb represents a concept intricately tied to decolonisation. Maghrebi solidarity emerged against the wishes of the colonial power during the Algerian War. It is against this historical backdrop that we must consider the Maghreb not merely as a geographical entity but also as a dynamic and evolving construct with profound implications for the decolonial discourse.
The complexity of defining the Maghreb was provocatively summarised by Moroccan thinker Abdellah Laroui. He argues that the Maghreb of the peoples simply does not exist: if the idea of “Maghreb” exists at all, it is only because of a small elite and does not correspond to social reality (Laroui 2012; Dirèche and Ouaissa 2021: 36). El Guabli (2021: 36) further explains Laroui’s position: “Laroui is, albeit belatedly, right to allude to the fact that a top-down conceptualization of the Maghreb silenced other groups and erased their views. He thus recognizes, although indirectly, the claim that Imazighen [the Amazigh people, North Africa’s indigenous community] were never given a choice to decide the future of their homeland. Nor was their conception of geography and statehood ever taken into consideration.”
Moreover, he emphasises the Maghreb’s position as a “space-between-spaces” (El Guabli 2021: 34), namely, between different continents and cultures, thus encompassing diverse linguistic, ethnic, religious, and aesthetic elements. Historically, the modern idea of the Maghreb originated in the armed struggle for national liberation in the three North African countries under French colonial rule: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. The “Arab Maghreb” was a revolutionary concept created in 1948 by a group of nationalist leaders living in exile, in Cairo. Attempts at Maghreb unity were initially undertaken in the economic sphere. In 1964, the Permanent Maghreb Consultative Committee was established in Tunis, modelled after the European Economic Community, with the aim of harmonising energy, mining, and industrial policies among states to create a Maghreb common market. However, these endeavours, despite their significant potential, only yielded meagre results. The signing of the Treaty of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) on 17 February 1989 in Marrakech, also by Libya and Mauritania, revived the concept of a common economic space (El Guabli 2021: 35). Still, especially from the Amazigh people, the term “Arab Maghreb” also received criticism for being an ethnically and linguistically exclusionary concept (Bennis 2009: 2). Since colonisation, the concrete political consequence has been the historical land of the Amazigh people being dissected by state borders, massively restricting their freedom of movement (Aherdan 1995).
Reimagining the Maghreb as a region by paying attention to its autonomous dynamics therefore requires studying the diverse entanglements, exchanges, and mobilities that characterise it as a space. This means not only focusing on its internal structures but also shedding light on its relations with Africa, the Arab East, and Europe. Despite its geopolitical centrality, a history marked by great empires and prestigious civilisations, as well as cultural and religious crossbreeding, the Maghreb remains persistently trapped and represented as part of a “triple periphery” (Dirèche and Ouaissa 2021: 36).
For one thing, the Maghreb is a space where multiple external competitors seek influence. It has been subjected to conquest by powerful civilisations and thus regarded as devoid of any endogenous historical identity. In this sense, the Maghreb is condemned to exist as an object rather than as a subject of history (Willis 2012). Furthermore, the Maghreb is widely marginalised within the European research landscape—except in France—regarding its history, dynamics, and future developments. In Germany, North Africa remained for a long time an object researched exclusively by “Romance Studies,” due to colonial penetration and the resulting importance of French as an academic language within the countries of the Maghreb. Meanwhile, classical “Oriental Studies,” when studying Oriental civilisations, were nearly exclusively interested in the Mashreq and the Arabian Peninsula. Similarly, modern/contemporary scholarly work on the MENA is historically dominated by Arab or Islamic Studies. Related to this, German Social Science has only marginally addressed research about the Maghreb; until the 1980s, the region was subsumed under studies of the “Third World”—that is, those countries today commonly referred to as the “Global South” (Dirèche and Ouaissa 2021: 37).
Click here to read the full paper.
Footnotes
[1] A significant proportion of the substantive elaborations contained in this present MECAM Paper originate from the introductory chapter titled “Le Maghreb en mouvement” authored by Karima Dirèche and Rachid Ouaissa as part of the anthology Entanglements of the Maghreb: Cultural and Political Aspects of a Region in Motion (Dihstelhoff et al. 2021).
[2] Authors’ own translation, from the French original: “Mais toutes ces unités historiques sont le résultat de l’Histoire: (…) Viennent les historiens et les analystes bien plus tard et ils veulent à tout prix prouver que cette unité n’était pas le fruit du hasard, qu’elle était nécessaire, inéluctable.”
[3] The debate on “Area Studies” revolves around issues such as the appropriate balance between regionalism and universalism (i.e. between regional and global approaches), integration of diverse disciplines, postcolonial perspectives, intercultural dynamics, and relevance in light of global changes. It addresses the equilibrium between regional nuances and universal concepts, discipline boundaries, avoiding Eurocentric views, emphasizing transnational connections, and the question of how Area Studies can maintain relevance amidst limited resources and shifting geopolitical priorities. In this context, the recent work of Bank and Busse (2021) can be perceived as contemporary advocacy for considering these aspects within the realm of Area Studies, particularly concerning the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Bibliography
Aherdan, Ouzzin (1995), Editorial, in: Revue Tifinagh: Revue de Culture et de Civilisation Nord-Africaines, 8, 3–6, https://archive.org/stream/RevueTifinagh/187534014- Tifinagh- n-8_djvu.txt (11.05.2023).
Bank, André, and Jan Busse (2021), MENA Political Science Research a Decade after the Arab Uprisings: Facing the Facts on Tremulous Grounds, in: Mediterranean Politics, 26, 5, 539–562.
Bennis, Said (2009), The Amazigh Question and National Identity in Morocco, Paris: Arab Reform Initiative, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/storage.arab-reform. net/ari/2009/07/23171003/Arab_Reform_Initiative_2009-07_Research_Paper_ en_the_amazigh_question_and_national_identity_in_morocco.pdf (11.04.2024).
Chena, Salim (2019), Travailler, échanger, apprendre: L’Algérie dans l’espace régional des mobilités, in: Karima Dirèche (ed.), L’Algérie au présent: Entre résistances et changements, Tunis, Paris: IRMC, Karthala, 193–206.
Dihstelhoff, Julius (2018), Tunisian Politics between Crisis and Normalization, in: SADA: Middle East Analysis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 25 October, https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/77582 (11.04.2024).
Dihstelhoff, Julius (2019), Unity – Consensus – Reconciliation: The Substance of Tunisia’s Elite Compromise – An Analysis of Post-Revolutionary Metaphors, in: Mohammed Eid and Dalia Fahmy (eds.), Arab Spring: Modernity, Identity and Change, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 235–255.
Dihstelhoff, Julius, and Alexander Lohse (2020), Political Islam as an Ordering Factor? The Reconfiguration of the Regional Order in the Middle East since the “Arab Spring,” in: Philipp O. Amour (ed.), The Regional Order in the Gulf Region and the Middle East: Regional Rivalries and Security Alliances, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 29–59.
Dihstelhoff, Julius, and Moritz Simon (2023), Power Sharing Processes in Post-Arab Spring Tunisia: From Elite Compromise to Presidential Monopolization, in: Allison McCulloch, Sören Keil, and Eduardo Aboultaif (eds.), Power-Sharing in the Global South: Patterns, Practices and Potential, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 85–120.
Dihstelhoff, Julius, Charlotte Pardey, Rachid Ouaissa, and Friederike Pannewick (eds.) (2021), Entanglements of the Maghreb: Cultural and Political Aspects of a Region in Motion, Bielefeld: transcript.
Dirèche, Karima (ed.) (2019), L’Algérie au présent: Entre résistances et changements, Tunis, Paris: IRMC, Karthala.
Dirèche, Karima, and Rachid Ouaissa (2021), Le Maghreb en mouvement, in: Julius Dihstelhoff, Charlotte Pardey, Rachid Ouaissa, and Friederike Pannewick (eds.), Entanglements of the Maghreb: Cultural and Political Aspects of a Region in Motion, Bielefeld: transcript, 35–44.
Dirèche, Karima, Aurelia Dusserre, and Nessim Znaien (2023), Histoire du Maghreb depuis les indépendances: Etats, sociétés, cultures, Paris: Armand Colin.
Diwan, Ishac, Adeel Malik, and Izak Atiyas (2019), Crony Capitalism in the Middle East: Business and Politics, from Liberalization to the Arab Spring, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
El Guabli, Brahim (2021), Where is the Maghreb? Theorizing a Liminal Space, in: Arab Studies Journal, XXIX, 2, 34–47.
Elsenhans, Hartmut (2001), Das internationale System zwischen Zivilgesellschaft und Rente, Münster, Hamburg, London: LIT.
Galissot, René (2000), Le Maghreb de traverse, Saint-Denis: Editions Bouchène.
Gobe, Eric, and Larbi Chouikha (2015), Histoire de la Tunisie depuis l’indépendance, Paris: Editions La Découverte.
Hannoum, Abdelmajid (2021), The Invention of the Maghreb: Between Africa and the Middle East, Cambridge: University Printing House.
Henni, Ahmed (1993), Le cheikh et le patron: Usages de la modernité dans la reproduction de la tradition, Alger: Office des publications universitaires.
Henry, Clement Moore, and Robert Springborg (2001), Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hill, JNC (2011), Islamism and Democracy in the Modern Maghreb, in: Third World Quarterly, 32, 6, 1089–1105.
Lafi, Nora (2016), Historische Perspektiven auf den Maghreb, in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 66, 33–34, 4–10.
Laroui, Abdellah (2012), Le Maghreb est l’idée d’une élite : Propos recueillis par Mostafa Bouaziz et Maâti Monjib, in: Zamane, [Casablanca,] 18, 21–44.
Ouaïssa, Rachid (2018), Classes moyennes algériennes, rente et stagnation politique, in:
NAQD, 36, 1, 121–145.
Ouaissa, Rachid (2023), Energie, Flüchtlinge, Geopolitik: Die Welt hofiert Nordafrika – aber der Maghreb ist zerrissen, in: Tagesspiegel, 3 October, https://www.tagesspiegel. de/internationales/energie-fluchtlinge-geopolitik-die-welt-hofiert-nordafrika–aber- der-maghreb-ist-zerrissen-10514680.html (11.04.2024).
Rosiny, Stephan, and Thomas Richter (2016), The Arab Spring: Misconceptions and Prospects, GIGA Focus Middle East, 4, Hamburg: German Institute of Global and Area Studies, https://www.giga-hamburg.de/en/publication/structural-reform-in- the-arab-gulf-states-limited-influence-of-the-g20 (11.04.2024).
Storm, Lise (2018), The PJD: The Vanguard of Democracy in Morocco in the Age of Populism and Authoritarian Entrenchment?, Houston: Baker Institute for Public Policy.
United Nations Development Programme (2020), The Climate Security Nexus and the Prevention of Violent Extremism: Working at the Intersection of Major Development Challenges, UNDP Policy Brief, New York: UNDP, https://www.undp.org/publications/ undp-climate-security-nexus-and-prevention-violent-extremism (11.04.2024).
Wehr, Hans (1968), Arabisches Wörterbuch, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Willis, Michael J. (2012), Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring, London: Hurst.
Wippel, Steffen (2023), Branding the Middle East: A Review of Regional Manifestations of a Global Phenomenon, in: Steffen Wippel (ed.), Branding the Middle East: Communication Strategies and Image Building from Qom to Casablanca, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 55–160.
About the Authors
Julius Dihstelhoff is Academic Coordinator for the international Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), Tunis. He is also a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Politics at the Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) at Philipps-Universität Marburg. His research focuses on political Islam and German foreign policy in the Arab world since the so-called Arab Spring, with a special focus on transformation and power-sharing processes in Tunisia.
Rachid Ouaissa is Director of the international Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM). He is Professor for Middle Eastern Politics at Philipps-Universität Marburg. His main fields of research are political, economic, and societal developments in the Middle East and North Africa since the nineteenth century, the rise of Islamist movements, and the role of middle classes in the region.
Thomas Richter is a Lead Research Fellow and Head of the Research Programme “Accountability and Participation” at the Institute for Middle East Studies within the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg. During his tenure from April 2020 to July 2023, he also worked as Editor for the MECAM Papers. His current research focuses on executive personalisation, global political economy, structural adjustment, institutional determinants of authoritarian rule, and shrinking civic spaces. Richter’s expertise extends to small Gulf monarchies and the Middle East and North Africa region.
Citation: Julius Dihstelhoff; Rachid Ouaissa; Thomas Richter, Reimagining the Maghreb: Navigating an Autonomous Region in Motion, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 29.08.2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/127gp
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Forum Transregionale Studien (29. August 2024). Reimagining the Maghreb: Navigating an Autonomous Region in Motion. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Abgerufen am 9. Dezember 2024 von https://doi.org/10.58079/127gp
