Mobility,infrastructure,and peacebuilding: (Im-)mobilising Morocco's waters in the early French Protectorate,1912–1925

Abstract

The Administration of the French Protectorate in Morocco sought to build water infrastructure to redirect water resources into the colonial economy. Moroccan water users resisted this process intensely, forcing the Administration to adjust its aims. This article examines this historical conflict through a mobility lens. It argues that the mobile nature of water was a formative element in shaping Moroccan resistance because of the potential of water mobilisation to evoke an emotive response. Perceiving this response as an element of mobility allows a more profound analysis of “active violent infrastructure”, as it explores the need of colonial elites to navigate this emotive response while planning marginalising and deleterious infrastructural designs.