Maintaining Islam, ‘Moroccanness’ and white privilege
Catherine Therrien, Catherine Phipps
This interdisciplinary article examines mixed families in Morocco from French colonial rule to the present day, focusing on experiences and perception of mixed individuals within Morocco. Our comparative approach considers a 1949 French colonial study, post-independence magazine articles, and 73 in-depth interviews from 2018 to 2022. We focus on how concerns around social cohesion, the transmission of Islam, and racial categories construct symbolic boundaries around children of mixed couples. We argue these symbolic boundaries are partially the result of colonial rule and power structures present in Morocco since slavery. Experiences of discrimination have changed since the colonial period, when French authorities believed mixed marriages would threaten colonial power. But religion, racial hierarchies and white privilege still shape social perception of mixedness and impact daily life for mixed individuals and their families. In post-independence Morocco, they were considered a neo-colonial threat, and today, mixed marriage is believed to threaten social cohesion despite increasing openness to mixedness. Concerns continue within Moroccan society about the transmission of Islam, but freedom of choice is fundamental to mixed families’ religious identities. We conclude by addressing how mixed individuals in Morocco continue to navigate racial discrimination that has historical roots, but functions differently than in the colonial period.
