This thesis argues that within the medium of photography during Protectorate Morocco, four agents of power (French protectorate policy, French social science, commercial tourism, and the...Show moreThis thesis argues that within the medium of photography during Protectorate Morocco, four agents of power (French protectorate policy, French social science, commercial tourism, and the photographer himself) are connected and collaborate in constructing and using photography for their own interests. By analysing part of the photo collection of the French photographer Jacques Belin, who worked in Morocco between 1939 and 1961, I argue in what way these four domains were of influence in the production, construction, and use of Belin’s work. I state that these four collaborated and reinforced each other and resulted in the construction of Belin’s work. At times, France’s mission civilisatrice was the bigger picture holding the whole project together; at other times the aesthetic value or ethnographic interests were more dominant than those of the colonial mission. It is thus a much-needed contextualization of an individual photographer and the specific conditions to his work, to understand the workings of power within a larger context of photography and that of twentieth-century French colonialism.Show less
This research argues the collaboration between French colonial scholars and policy-makers in the shaping and reshaping of specific notions of collective Berber identity through exploring the...Show moreThis research argues the collaboration between French colonial scholars and policy-makers in the shaping and reshaping of specific notions of collective Berber identity through exploring the theoretical incentives and practical implications of French Berber Policy in Protectorate Morocco (1912-1956). It is furthermore an effort to include and analyse recent reinterpretations from four Moroccan intellectuals (Mohamed Boudhan, Muḥamed Mūnīb, Hassan Aourid, and Maâti Monjib) who discuss this specific chapter in Moroccan history. By analysing and contextualizing their works I conclude that although these works have their academic value in contributing interesting viewpoints supported by first-hand information and academic knowledge, the accounts are often passionate and personal attacks on Moroccan nationalists and their post-colonial construction of an inaccurate historical narrative about the shaping of Berber identity and French Berber policy in support of their nation-building project. These Moroccan intellectuals are thus more intertwined with political interests than they often admit, resulting in an interesting parallel with colonial and post-colonial academic traditions in Morocco that take on the subject of Berber identity formation and are also subject to both academic and political loyalties.Show less
