Performing the nation, pre-figuring the state: the Western Saharan refugees, thirty years later

Mundy, Jacob

doi:10.1017/s0022278x07002546

Cited by 47 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Up to that moment, mainly women undertook the limited economic activities in the camps as they attempted to supplement consumption; former soldiers slowly refocused household activities towards production for trade and commerce. A similar transformation occurred in relation to livestock: traditionally, women managed small livestock production for own consumption and they re-initiated this during the war, whereas camel husbandry and commercial livestock production can be traced in most instances to demobilized fighters (Mundy 2007).…”

Section: Access To Capital and The Development Of An Informal Economymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Some host families collect money to send to the children's families in the camps, thus greatly contributing to refugees' income and to the emergence of a cash economy (Crivello et al 2006). It is estimated that this injects between 500,000 € and 1,000,000 € into the camps each year (Mundy 2007).…”

Section: Access To Capital and The Development Of An Informal Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With war and displacement, most of the Sahrawi who fled lost their camel herds, became refugees settled in camps and depended on international food aid for survival. Although several authors reported the recovery of livestock husbandry among Sahrawi refugees at the turn of the millennium (Bhatia 2001;Caratini 2007b;Mundy 2007;de Juan Canales 2010;Herz 2013), little attention has been given to the trajectory pastoralism took beginning with war and sedentarization in refugee camps or to Sahrawi refugees' agentic actions to recover camel husbandry. Indeed, the Sahrawi are seldom referred to in modern literature on pastoralism; for example, they are not mentioned in Homewood's (2008) recent book on the ecology of African pastoralist societies and are generally absent from edited books on pastoralism (Chatty 2005;Bollig et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The material and cultural recovery of camels and camel husbandry among Sahrawi refugees of Western Sahara

Volpato

Howard

2014

Pastoralism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For nearly 1,500 years, Sahrawi nomads of Western Sahara respected the camel; camels were essential to life in the desert environment, constituting both the main means of production and exchange and the keystone of Sahrawi cultural identity. The capacity to adapt to drought is crucial for the resilience of nomadic populations, which are particularly susceptible to its repeated occurrence. Knowledge of coping strategies is transmitted and embedded deeply within nomads' cultural institutions. In 1975, the Moroccan army occupied the Sahrawi's traditional nomadic territory, decimating camel herds and forcing most Sahrawi into refugee camps in Algeria where the Sahrawi became wholly dependent on foreign aid for their sustenance. However, with the signing of a ceasefire agreement in the early 1990s, the Sahrawi recovered part of their nomadic territory and the right to move within it, while at the same time, new flows of capital entered the camps. Refugees began to recover camel husbandry as a livelihood strategy and the camel re-emerged as a potent symbol as refugees and the Polisario Front (the Sahrawi's political representative) struggle to assert their newfound national identity, regain access to all of their traditional territory and reaffirm their shared nomadic cultural heritage.

show abstract

Section: Access To Capital and The Development Of An Informal Economymentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Access To Capital and The Development Of An Informal Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The material and cultural recovery of camels and camel husbandry among Sahrawi refugees of Western Sahara

Volpato

Howard

2014

Pastoralism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This performance of national identity and pre-figuration of the state might have resulted in greater democracy within the SADR territories and camps, renewing desires of a Sahrawi state. 32 It has been observed that the refugee population has created new social and political structures differing from those of pre-exile tribal households and wartime social units and spaces, which speaks of a new, post-conflict Sahrawi identity arising from the experience of war and exile. 33 This is exacerbated by differences stemming from education abroad and foreign links, particularly to Spain and Cuba, as well as the contrasting roles of women in the camps.…”

Section: The Western Sahara Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

Struggles over identity in diplomacy: ‘Commie terrorists’ contra ‘imperialists’ in Western Sahara

Orellana

2015

International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How does diplomacy recognise the political identity of international actors? Drawing on critical approaches, this article analyses the development of identities in diplomatic communications concerning the Western Sahara conflict from the early 2000s to the present. It argues that a failure to question relationships between identities as projected in diplomatic sources and those of global threats like IntroductionName-calling has a role in contemporary diplomacy. Moroccan governments and Sahrawi independence movement Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro (POLISARIO) call each other "Communists", "terrorists", and "imperialists" at every available opportunity. Linking POLISARIO to global identities like Communism or Islamic terrorism through diplomacy achieves far more than insult. These identities globalise the conflict, for antiimperialism, Communism and Islamic terrorism have defined the widest international struggles since the end of WWII. Such name-calling, it is argued, releases agency for actors to pursue policies that might otherwise appear less acceptable to allies and the international community. This is the case with POLISARIO, whose identity was subsumed into the global binary of the Cold War from the beginning of the conflict in 1975, and subsequently to also being a facilitator of Islamic terrorism in the 2000s. This represents a staggering success of Moroccan diplomacy: the alignment of Moroccan and POLISARIO identities with the latest dominant global security concerns, contributing to securing significant US and French support for Moroccan occupation and administration of the Western Sahara non-self-governing territory.This article analyses diplomatic communication in the Western Sahara conflict to explore how diplomatic communication about political identity enabled Morocco to pursue policy outcomes from the early 2000s to the present. POLISARIO defines itself as a defender of the Sahrawi nation that seeks self-determination and recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). POLISARIO highlights the plight of over 100,000 Sahrawi refugees in camps at Tindouf awaiting self-determination since the desert exodus of 1975, whilst accusing Morocco of imperialism. Morocco claims sovereignty over what it considers its southern provinces. As part of this claim it defines POLISARIO as a Cold War hangover; a Communist dictatorship controlled by Algeria's geopolitical interests, implicated in crime, smuggling, and Islamic terrorism -in contrast to Moroccan democracy and human rights. POLISARIO stands accused of being simultaneously Communist and Islamic fundamentalist, holding a dictatorial grip on the Tindouf camps and facilitating lawlessness. Notably, similar contradictory narratives thrived in 2003 about Iraq and the "Axis of Evil". A British journalist opined that 'attempts to tar POLISARIO with the Al Qaeda brush have been as cack-handed as the previous depictions of POLISARIO fighters as being, variously, Cuban mercenaries, Iranian-backed revolutionaries and...

show abstract

“…60 A prolific academic advocate of the Polisario cause has argued that the refugee camps around Tindouf are ''a microcosm, a prefigurative lived model, of what an independent Western Sahara would, and still could, look like.'' 61 Despite his determined attempt to present a picture of ''the camps' success in social and political organization,'' 62 the grim reality is that the track record of the Polisario indicates that a Western Sahara governed by the movement is more likely to be that rare and extreme version of the failed state known as the collapsed state, where ''security is equated with the rule of the strong'' and the inhabitants are ''no longer citizens.'' 63 With a miniscule population that would be among the poorest in the world with no arable land to speak of, an independent Western Sahara would be struggling from the outset to make its way in the world.…”

Section: The Polisario's ''Failed State''mentioning

confidence: 99%

Not Another Failed State: Toward a Realistic Solution in the Western Sahara

Pham

2010

The Journal of the Middle East and Africa

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Performing the nation, pre-figuring the state: the Western Saharan refugees, thirty years later

Cited by 47 publications

References 10 publications

The material and cultural recovery of camels and camel husbandry among Sahrawi refugees of Western Sahara

The material and cultural recovery of camels and camel husbandry among Sahrawi refugees of Western Sahara

Struggles over identity in diplomacy: ‘Commie terrorists’ contra ‘imperialists’ in Western Sahara

Not Another Failed State: Toward a Realistic Solution in the Western Sahara

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About