2024 Theses Doctoral

Jebli Music Culture: Soundings from a Moroccan Periphery

Chami, Hicham

Decades of colonial dominance in the 20th century, exacerbated by continued Western encroachment and the persistence of internal elite influence, have produced a stratified and hierarchical cultural infrastructure within the Moroccan polity. As a result, many indigenous musical traditions are relegated to the periphery—misunderstood, devalued, and seldom heard in the public square, eclipsed by more privileged genres.

This study specifically focuses on the repercussions of this hierarchy on the music culture of the Jebala region in the Rif Mountains of Northern Morocco. I investigate how, in the face of marginalization and even silencing within the musical soundscape of Morocco, Jebli musicians have mobilized in response by asserting local identity and pride through the performance of their indigenous musical genres. In doing so, they become allied with musicians throughout the Global South who claim agency through the praxis of their own distinctive aesthetics and traditions, giving voice to the subaltern.

I approach this inquiry via my positionality as a native of Morocco with familial lineage in Jebala; adopting a stance of advocacy in identifying structures of colonialism and neo- colonialism, along with elite hegemony, which perpetuate ongoing cultural marginalization.