Nationalism, Identity and Citizenship in The Western Sahara

Nationalism, Identity and Citizenship in The Western Sahara

Pablo San Martín argues that the Western Sahara conflict can only be understood by looking at the competing projects of the Polisario Front and Morocco, each trying to define what it means to be Saharawi. He draws on fieldwork in the refugee camps near Tindouf in April 2004, together with Spanish, Moroccan and UN sources.

He traces how Polisario and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic built a national identity from the 1970s onwards. His evidence includes the orderly organisation of the camps, the public services created despite scarcity and a makeshift currency that has value only because people agree it does, which he links to a founding desire for statehood. Photographs taken by refugees focus on official buildings, which he reads as claims to citizenship. In the territory under Moroccan control, he argues, Saharawi nationalism undermines Rabat’s efforts to build loyalty. Official accounts present discontent there as economic, but the protests that began in 1999 and led to the 2005 intifada show that the territory’s status is still unresolved.

San Martín concludes that both sides have partly succeeded and partly failed at nation-building, and that the conflict remains an unfinished decolonisation.

Full article

Read the full article on Taylor & Francis Online

Support our work