Eighth conference in the event series Aula Árabe Universitaria 4,  given by Hassan Rachik, an anthropologist at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic  University in Rabat.

The colonial legacy left behind in the field  of Anthropology includes both theoretical and ideological scars.  Colonial-era anthropologists applied certain theories and concepts to  the origin and development of institutions, social analysis and social  structures. It is therefore helpful to be aware of how the  anthropological knowledge about a specific country can be transformed  into an ideology.

In those countries which endured the experience  of colonization, including Morocco, the incorporation of “local”  researchers into the social sciences as of the 1960s has contributed to a  transformation in the study of anthropology. Within today’s  post-colonial context, understanding what the decolonization of  Anthropology means, Hassan Rachik, an anthropologist and professor at  the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Rabat, will be giving a  conference which examines the many strategies that have been implemented  in order to liberate colonial ethnographic heritage from ethnocentric  ideas, as well as describing the theoretical limits of such strategies.

This  is the eighth conference in the series Aula Árabe Universitaria 4,  organized by Casa Árabe with the cooperation of the EUROSUD - South  European Studies Master’s degree program at the Universidad Autónoma de  Madrid (UAM) and the MA in International Politics: Sectorial and Area  Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). It will include  participation by Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla, a professor in the  Department of Arab and Islamic Studies at the UAM, in representation of  EUROSUD - South European Studies Master’s program, and will be moderated  by Olivia Orozco de la Torre, the Education and Economics Coordinator  at Casa Árabe.

The conference is available on our YouTube channel in Spanish: youtube.com/live/tqxKMtHW1pE?feature=share

Hassan Rachik is an anthropologist and professor at the Mohammed VI  Polytechnic University. He has been a professor at the Hassan II  University in Casablanca (1982-2021) and director of the Moroccan Centre  for Social Sciences (2017-2021), as well as visiting professor at  American, European and Arab universities. His early fieldwork focused on  interpreting sacrificial rituals and explaining social change in rural,  sedentary and nomadic environments. He has studied the use of  nationalist, Amazigh and Islamist ideologies, the ways in which  religions are transformed into ideologies and how ideologies permeate  mainstream knowledge. He has also dealt with issues related to colonial  and post-colonial anthropological knowledge. He has authored several  books.

Further information: en.casaarabe.es/event/decolonizin…occan-perspective