Settler colonialism in Morocco: Ahmed Bendella, Ugo d’Ambrosio, Emily Caruso, Gary Martin, Soufiane M’Sou et al, ‘Rights to Land among Amazigh Peoples in Morocco’, in William Nikolakis (ed.), Land Rights Now: Global Voices on Indigenous Peoples and Land Justice, Cambridge University Press, 2025, pp. 229-248 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism in Morocco: Ahmed Bendella, Ugo d’Ambrosio, Emily Caruso, Gary Martin, Soufiane M’Sou et al, ‘Rights to Land among Amazigh Peoples in Morocco’, in William Nikolakis (ed.), Land Rights Now: Global Voices on Indigenous Peoples and Land Justice, Cambridge University Press, 2025, pp. 229-248

15Mar26

Abstract: Morocco sustains a rich diversity of cultures, languages, and livelihoods. Like in other countries, the social organization of the rural populations is closely linked to their historical relationship to land and to their immediate biophysical environment, as well as to centuries-old and ever-evolving demographic, legal, cultural, economic, and political transformations. In this chapter, we focus on Amazigh peoples living in the Moroccan High Atlas (see map, Figure 11.1), who have demonstrated resilience in the face of significant scarcity and uncertainty, through customary systems of natural resource governance– the agdal systems. Despite the many social, cultural, and legal shifts and its degradation or disappearance in many places, the agdal system still remains a robust institutional framework, which is not only a bulwark against the dispossession of communal lands but also sustains the cultural and economic relationships for stewarding resources among High Atlas populations.

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