Séminaire : « Productions et circulations des biens culturels : le cas des pays d’Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient », My Father’s Stories, My Daughter’s Paintings: A Historical Ethnography of Southern Colonial Rural Morocco
Les séances auront lieu désormais les jeudis entre 16h et 18h dans la salle 3.023 du bâtiment Sud du Campus Condorcet (5 cours des Humanités 93322 Aubervilliers) qui est situé à la sortie de la station Front Populaire (ligne 12 du métro francilien). Il sera possible de suivre le séminaire à distance en s’inscrivant ici : le lien Zoom qui vous sera communiqué sera inchangé pour l’année. Si vous êtes déjà inscrit sur notre liste de diffusion, il est inutile de répéter cette opération.
L’équipe d’organisation : Maria Adib-Doss (Université Paris 13, LabSIC), Asmaa Azizi (Université Paris 13, LabSIC), Abdelfettah Benchenna (Université Paris 13, LabSIC) et Dominique Marchetti (CNRS, CESSP)
Contacts : maria.doss[at]univ-paris13.fr ; asmaa.azizi[at]univ-paris13.fr ; benchenna[at]univ-paris13.fr ; dominique.marchetti[at]cnrs.fr
Jeudi 12 juin 2025 – Aomar Boum – My Father’s Stories, My Daughter’s Paintings: A Historical Ethnography of Southern Colonial Rural Morocco
In this paper, I present a graphic history illustrated by my daughter, serving as both an ethnographic sketch and a visual memoir of my father’s life as a foot courier (rekkas) in southern colonial rural Morocco. Drawing on interviews with Faraji my father conducted over twenty years, I explore his experiences during the interwar and early postwar periods as he transported mail between villages and towns in the Anti-Atlas and High Atlas Mountains. Through a series of sketches, my daughter reimagines her grandfather’s travels and trials, providing a fresh perspective that challenges the colonial artists’ and travelers’ portrayals of the region in the first half of the twentieth century. Her paintings offer a postcolonial view, allowing Faraji’s own voice to express his struggles, joys, perspectives, and pain. This project not only delves into the personal dimensions of my family’s history but also aims to highlight family historical ethnographies as a significant component of native ethnography.
A historical anthropologist and Resident Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, Aomar Boum is Professor and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies in the Department of Anthropology, Department of History and Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. Boum is also Faculty Fellow at the Université Internationale de Rabat, Morocco. Boum is the co-founder of the Amazigh Studies initiative at UCLA, and co-founder, co-director of the Moroccan Jewish Studies Initiative at UCLA. A native of a Saharan community in southeastern Morocco, Boum has interdisciplinary training in anthropology, history, Islamic studies, Judaic Studies and Middle Eastern and North African studies. Boum is interested in the place of religious and ethnic minorities such as Jews, Bahais, Shia, Amazigh, and Christians in post-independence Middle Eastern and North African nation states. Boum is the author and co-editor of many articles and numerous books such as Memories of Absence: How Muslims remember Jews in Morocco (Stanford University Press, 2013); The Holocaust and North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2019, co authored with Sarah A. Stein), Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History 1934-1950 (Stanford University Press, 2022, co-authored with Sarah A. Stein); Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey to North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2023, co-authored with Nadjib Berber) and recently an illustrated book about his late father titled The Last Rekkas: Chronicles of a Foot Courier in Southern Morocco (2024, co-authored with his 14 years old daughter Majdouline Boum-Mendoza).