Rescuing Biography from the Nation: Discrete Perspectives on Political Change in Morocco

Abstract

Political biographies and the narratives of the nation-state may exert a reciprocal fictional influence: the nation as imagined community is often embodied in the biographies of imaginary actors. Since the 2004 launch of the transitional justice process in Morocco this tendency has led to increased attention for the stories of the victims of the violations committed by the State between 1956 and 1999 as if they were the main witnesses of the political change. In parallel, the protagonists of the nationalist struggle that led to independence from the French protectorate in 1956 have been acknowledged without, apparently, feeling it necessary to hear what they have to say about it. This chapter reflects on theoretical and methodological perspectives that allow the use of biography to explore political change beyond taken-for-granted conceptions of the nation-state and its trajectories of change. Reflecting on the relationship that developed between the author and a single actor called Abk, who wanted to tell his life story, the chapter proposes the writing of biography as a form of archival research and a fieldwork practice for exploring memory. It shows how paying attention to personal ways of conserving memory and remembering enables us to approach politics beyond predefined horizons of change without seeing a priori social configurations as ineluctable givens. Such a perspective, which the author calls “discrete”, suggests considering politics as a phenomenon that is difficult to fit into formal models of explanation, and taking subjectivity, the variability of life paths and contingency as relevant objects of inquiry for understanding political change.