Contemporary discussions of neoliberal urbanism have tended to concentrate on the developed countries of the western world. Significant neoliberal urban renewal now is under way in historic cities of the Middle East, however. The events of September 11, 2001, effectively have caused an influx of Gulf petrodollars into the Arab world and a consequent increase in investment in Arab countries, which helps account for the creation of these renewal projects. The Bouregreg Project (Le Project d'Amenagement de la Vallee du Bouregreg), a large-scale urban regeneration project in Rabat, the capital city of the Kingdom of Morocco, which was launched in 2006 by King Mohammed VI, exemplifies major characteristics of a number of neoliberal urban renewal enterprises in the region. This project has had "top-down" leadership by the powerful monarchial state with a vision of an "integrated" and "modern but historical" capital. The project therefore is underwritten not only by neoliberal investment capital's interests but also the region's authoritarian state-led urban development practices. One of its key aims is to advance the integration (Les Agglomerations) of the two neighboring but quite different cities of Rabat and Sale, whose historical development trajectories have diverged significantly since the French colonial authorities chose Rabat as the capital for the protectorate. In its investigation of the full implications of the project for the two cities, this doctoral dissertation research project will concentrate on two major questions: (1) What information and insights does this project provide regarding the politics behind the urban developmental impulse of Morocco's monarchy? (2) What is the dynamic historical trajectory of the two cities of Rabat and Sale in this evolving "metroplex"? The doctoral candidate will rely heavily on qualitative research methods, including preliminary documentary research using articles from the Moroccan and French press and academia, and interviews. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with key informants at l'Agence Bouregreg (AAVB), governmental officials in municipalities, Moroccan urban professionals from local associations, politicians from major political parties, and academics and journalists. In-depth interviews will be conducted with medina inhabitants, particularly from the more traditional and conservative Sale medina.
The results of this study will improve basic understanding regarding how the many royal-initiated urban renewal projects in Morocco contribute to the survival and increasing power of the Moroccan monarchy in an era of neoliberal capitalism as well as how urban "modernization" projects engage with traditional built environments and traditional societies represented here by the medina communities. Although focusing on Morocco, the project addresses topics associated with a number of contemporary large urban projects in the Middle East. It will contribute to scholarship on neoliberal urbanism in Arab cities of the Maghreb and scholarship on Arab authoritarianism in modern Middle Eastern politics. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.
Fifteen months of fieldwork in Rabat-Salé, Morocco has been completed in two stages: the first from November 2009 to July 2010 (nine months) and the second from February 2011 to July 2011 (six months). Regarding the scholarly network I used during my fieldwork, I was officially affiliated with the Centre Jacques Berque (CJB), the French Research Institute in Rabat, and the Centre Marocain des Sciences Sociales (CM2S), Université Hassan II, Casablanca – Aïn Chok. These affiliations enabled me to obtain a research permit from the Moroccan government. I employed mostly qualitative methods, conducting semi-structured interviews with Moroccan officials, intellectuals and city notables in Salé from (semi-) governmental and academic organizations such as l’Agence Bouregreg, la Société Bab Al Bahr, Commune urbaine (municipality) de Salé, Préfecture de Salé, l’Agence-Urbaine de Rabat and Salé, Ministère de l'Artisanat, Délégation Provinciale de l'Artisanat Salé, Chambre d'Artisanat de Salé, Institut National d'Am?nagement et d'Urbanisme (INAU), École Nationale d’Architeture (ENA) etc. And it is noteworthy that in the process of my interviews with Salé’s médina community, I established a useful collaboration with the Association Sala Al Moustaqbal, Salé’s emerging local civil society organization, rooted in the city’s middle-class intellectuals. In collaboration with this local association, I was able to gain access to interviewees which would have otherwise been unavailable, including several local artisans and merchants in the medina. Along with my local assistant, a Moroccan female doctoral student, I conducted both enquête & in-depth interviews with Salé’s local merchants, artisans and amins (the heads of each artisanal enterprise), and the mohtasseb (the market controller/supervisor of all economic activities) of Salé’s medina, and made digital recordings of their oral narratives. The fieldwork was conducted in order to make a detailed case study of the Bouregreg project in the valley between the neighboring cities of Rabat and Salé, which is a key part of the country’s powerful monarchial state’s plan to transform Rabat-Salé into a world-class modern Islamic city. This case study in Morocco’s capital city provides an important insight into how contemporary gulf-financed Arab mega projects in major urban centers in the Maghreb (North Africa) are intertwined with politico-cultural and economic interests of authoritarian regimes in the region. In addition, this study also examines the historical dynamics of colonial and post-colonial urbanization through a case study of the relationship between two cities of Rabat and Salé over the course of the Bouregreg project. Salé, which has long been politically marginalized and economically disadvantaged, living somewhat under the shadow of Rabat for over a century since the French protectorate, has been further marginalized during this re-development of the Bouregreg valley, despite royal and public discourse of "reunion" of the two cities in creating the future capital of Morocco. In the long run, it is expected that this study will make a contribution to the currently rather limited scholarship in the field of Arab postcolonial urban studies in Anglo?American academia, in which colonial urbanism in the Arab world has been relatively well researched. Further this study will enhance understanding of the contemporary transformation of Islamic cities of North Africa (the Maghreb) under the forces of globalization and Gulf-driven investment capital. Concerning outreach activities related to this fieldwork, four academic talks were (and will be) delivered: at the annual meetings of the AAG (Association of American Geographers) in Washington DC, April 2010, and in New York, Feb 2012; at the MESA (Middle Eastern Studies Association) in Washington DC, December 2011; and at the UHA (Urban History Association) in New York, October 2012. In addition, this study was presented to the Annual Dissertation Writing Workshop of the AIMS (American Institute for Maghrib Studies) in Los Angeles, May 2012, and will be published in the AIMS’s professional journal, Journal of North African Studies, titled "The Urban Politics of the Bouregreg Project: Monarchial politics of Morocco and the Mobilization of Salé" (accepted and forthcoming in 2012).
