Research Workshop: “Instruments in the Struggle”: Sousveillance and Human Rights Activism in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara
November 15, 2023 | 5:00PM | Kevorkian Center Library | Register here
Open to the NYU Community Only*
Research Workshop: “Instruments in the Struggle”: Sousveillance and Human Rights Activism in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara
Mark Drury (Colgate), Tyson Patros (NYU)
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This chapter describes the emergence of human rights as a political terrain in the Western Sahara conflict, and in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, in particular. An historical overview of the development of human rights in Western Sahara is organized in three parts: first, its emergence following the UN-brokered ceasefire between Morocco and Polisario in 1991; second, its expansion with the first Sahrawi uprising in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara to make widespread use of nonviolent protest as a tactic, known as Intifada al-Istiqlal in 2005; and, third, the use of videography as a means of documenting Moroccan state violence over the past decade. This periodization of human rights discourse in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara highlights the shifting uses and effects of this discourse over time, showing how human rights has functioned both as the ethical basis for advancing political claims, and as an “instrument” in the broader struggle over self- determination and sovereignty. Shifts in human rights discourse between 1991 and 2020 have also entailed changes in the modes of representing human rights violations, with a recent emphasis on the visual aspect of documenting Moroccan state violence on video. The last section of the paper focuses on how the visual aspect of recording state violence (also known as “sousveillance”) has become particularly prominent over the last decade. In Western Sahara, the effect of human rights activism as “sousveillance” has not been to end violence in Moroccan-occupied territory, but to make it visible – in order to induce the intervention of another observer – or, another form of veillance. This relationship between human rights activism and proliferating forms of monitoring, or “veillance,” emerges from the “disaggregation” of sovereignty between occupation and the politics of recognition, a dynamic which, in the context of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, dates back to the conflict’s roots in mid-20th c. decolonization.
Discussant: Tyson Patros, Clinical Assistant Professor, Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
Political anthropologist, historian of decolonization and scholar of the Sahara, Mark Drury examines how anticolonial political projects continue to shape borders, identities and forms of political mobilization across northwest Africa, including those related to the Western Sahara conflict. His transnational approach to understanding political belonging in this region has taken him to Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Morocco, Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, and Mauritania. As a member of the International Academic Observatory on Western Sahara, Drury has participated in efforts to draw attention to political conditions in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara; his commentary related to these conditions has appeared online in the Middle East Report and Jadaliyya. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program at Colgate University.
*Please note:
-This event is only open to the NYU Community who are registered.
-Those who express interest from the NYC Academic Community will be considered based on space. Please email kevorkian.center@nyu.edu for consideration.
-Participants are not allowed to share the work without prior permission from the author.
-All registered attendees will receive a copy of the work one week before the research workshop.
-Participants are expected to have read the entire work before the event.
Accommodation requests related to a disability should be sent to kevorkian.center@nyu.edu by November 1, 2023. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill requests.
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