INVITATION TO THE CYCLE SEMINAR:
Studying the Mediterranean. categories, keys to interpretation, points of observation

An entrepreneur in 1960s Morocco:
reading political change with a biographical approach

6 December 2023 10 a.m

CNR-ISMed
Humanities Pole (6th floor)
Via Cardinale Guglielmo Sanfelice, 8
80134 Naples

Remote access
On platform Teams

Analyses of situations of political oppression generally focus on repression as a criterion for determining the actors, episodes and phenomena relevant to documenting them. Analyses on Morocco in the 1960s that focus on the perpetrators of repression, their victims and the most dramatic moments of its exercise, do not escape this interpretative prism. In 2004, the launch of a transitional justice process aimed at shedding light on the Moroccan ‘years of lead’, with the 1960s as its first phase, was accompanied by an effort to create sources that included the collection of victims’ testimonies and the re-evaluation of the documentary production of anti-system political organisations. The renewed focus on the main actors and documents considered reliable led to the neglect of other voices and traces not elevated to the status of legitimate sources. Examining the biographies of actors who escape these canons of interpretation allows for a renewed analysis of situations of political oppression and their processes.

The profile of Ahmed Benkirane, who was active in journalism and business in the 1960s, brings the analysis of the functioning of the political game in situations of oppression back to the centre. The biographical approach, centred on direct experience and the way it is expressed, will allow questions and theoretical categories to be constructed before describing phenomena empirically in order to understand dimensions of politics outside conventional frameworks and to explore forms of violence often overlooked in current understandings and condemnations.

Irene Bono teaches political science at the University of Turin. Her research interests focus on forms of political participation and transformations of the state, and in particular on the relationships between the sources and categories used to analyse them from a historical sociology of politics perspective. His main field of research is Morocco, where he has explored these themes by analysing policies to combat poverty, initiatives to promote the employability of young people, the ways in which entrepreneurs intervene in politics, and going back to the period of the struggle for independence, the creation of national institutions and the ‘years of lead’. The book Un entrepreneur du national au Maroc. Ahmed Benkirane, traces et discrétion (Karthala, January 2024) presents the results of his latest research.

SPEAKER

Irene Bono
University of Turin

INTRODUCES AND MODERATES

Sara Borrillo
University of Rome Tor Vergata

FINAL DEBATE

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Gabriella Corona, Desirée A.L. Quagliarotti
CNR-ISMed

 
HOW TO JOIN

The seminar is open to the public, subject to availability.
It is also possible to participate via Teams

INFO AND CONTACTS
desiree.quagliarotti@ismed.cnr.it
www.ismed.cnr.it

In annex flyer and program 2023-2024