Slave Women and Their Descendants among the Upper Classes in Tetouan, Morocco (1859–1956): Between Recognition and Conflict

Abstract

In the Arab world, the recognized children of elite men and slave women could adopt the status of their father, ignoring the slave origin of the mother, owing to a system of patrilineal transmission. This regime co-existed with negative stereotypes toward slaves and blackness, despite the very fact that—as this study of notable families in Tetouan between 1859 and 1956 demonstrates—skin color was not the determinant factor to form part of this group. Rather, it was based on the social definition of filiation, leading to legal disputes between family members to delineate the boundaries of kinship.

Decolonizing Middle East anthropology

“…Also necessary are critiques of the positioning of Bedouin Palestinians through a reductive and culturalized definition of indigeneity that perpetuates the fragmentation of the Palestinian struggle (Tatour, 2019). In some cases, Arab identities are formed through concepts of descent, a product of patriarchy and the patriline (Limbert, 2014; see also Mateo Dieste, 2021). For some, the category of the Bedouin has transformed, once referring to lifestyle and now to social identity (Cole, 2003).…”

“…The Arab uprisings that began in 2011 foregrounded concepts of “cultural diversity” and anti‐racist activism in the region (Pouessel, 2016; Scaglioni, 2020). Local histories of enslavement and migration shape overlapping categories of race, national identity, and Indigenous status (Abu‐Rabia, 2012; Mateo Dieste, 2021; Moll, 2021; Silverstein, 2021; Smith, 2009). Contestation about the relationship between Arabness and Africanness, what Léopold Sédar Senghor (2009, p. 166) called Africanité and Arabité , are long‐standing not only in the political and scholarly realms but also in realms of cultural production (Becker, 2020; Winegar & Pieprzak, 2009; El Zein, 2021).…”