Projekt

This research project examines the socio-cultural implications of past and present forms of childhood playing in Morocco from pre-colonial times to present. It offers a novel critical and conceptual framework to analyzing playing practices by positioning the term "game" and "play" in relation to notions of space, urbanism, globalization, and consumer culture. We argue that, while childhood games are forms of expression and creativity, they are sites of struggle and negotiation of fundamental cultural and social changes. From the self-made toys and collective games of the 50s to the latest 3D-video games, childhood culture could be said to have undergone huge transformations. Across this period, what happened to the culture of gaming, in which little boys and girls design, govern and celebrate a world and vision of their own? What inclusions and exclusions have infiltrated the existing playing repertoires in Morocco? More specifically, we aim to investigate how childhood playing in Morocco can be a site of struggle between innocence and experience, the local and the global, the traditional and the modern, the self and the other, or the social and the individual. As part of this study, we investigate the various meanings and connotations attached to the concept of playing between past and present, dwelling on pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial junctures. We will consult childhood playing narratives and rituals associated with Sale and Rabat from the pre-colonial times to the present. These narratives, told from the perspective of former-children, will help us consult questions of memory, place, and identity.

• Prof. Dr. Brigitte Reinwald

  Universität Hannover
  Philosophische Fakultät
  Historisches Seminar
  Fachgebiet Geschichte Afrikas
  Hannover
  

• Dr. Moulay Driss El Maarouf

  Université Mohammed V-Agdal
  Rabat
  Marokko