Theorizing Sovereignty in Empty Land - Contested Global Landscapes

Officials not only needed to facilitate the solar installation, they needed to govern an area simmering with
land conflicts and economic hardship.
This was a showcase project and everything had to be done impeccably--impeccably legal,
professional and efficient. I do not know whether local officials were specifically given instructions to
scrupulously follow proper procedure because of the high profile nature of the project, but it was clear
that everyone understood what was at stake. The process of land acquisition is a good example. The
World Development Institute's critical assessment of the project blandly notes that "the site was originally
owned by the Ait Oukrour Toundout ethnic community. The sale followed the usual procedure adopted
by the Moroccan government when public agencies purchase land from a local community" (15). There is
much more to this story. Ait Oukrour is not in a formal sense an "ethnic community." It is an ethnic
collectivity, or tribe, as laid out in French Protectorate (1912-1956) indigenous policy and land law, a
juridical framework that still governs land tenure in Morocco. When the French established the
protectorate in 1912, the first Resident General, Hubert Lyautey, attempted to avoid the mistakes of
previous French colonial administrations--especially Algeria where, in his estimation, the use of force and
massive land expropriations had alienated local populations and compromised the colonial mission. 5 His
administration laid down the architecture of colonial land policy as a delicate balancing act between
appeasing European speculators and agricultural concerns lobbying for large-scale expropriation and, in
Lyautey's narrative, respecting Moroccan tenure institutions and the ability of Moroccans to continue
living as they always had (Bidwell 1973, Davis 2007, Lyautey 1927). Of course, over a century of
aggressive European encroachment on Moroccan sovereignty and immersion into global markets had
already eroded Moroccan livelihoods throughout the country by the time the French took power in 1912
(Pennell 2000). Regardless, the idea of preserving Moroccan customary institutions by absorbing them
5 There is an extensive literature--both critical and hagiographic--that examine's Lyautey's approach to colonial
governance. Lyautey was also an articulate spokesman for his views. More recent assessments detail how this
indigenous policy shaped French colonial rationality and urbanism (Rabinow 1989 and Wright 1991), land policy
and environmental degradation narratives (Davis 2005 and 2007), and other aspects of the colonial economic and
political project (Bidwell 1973).
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