(Post) Colonial Lands: Patterns and Consequences of Colonial Settlement and Withdrawal in Rural Morocco

Benjamin Kaplow, Yale University

During the French Protectorate in Morocco (1912-56), French settlers acquired approximately one-fifth of all arable lands in Morocco. A robust literature on the colonial legacy has yielded valuable insights into the persistence and effects of colonization and colonial land policy, but few have worked to desegregate the types of land settled, the mechanisms used by settlers to acquire land, and the efforts of postcolonial leaders to recover settled lands. By applying geospatial methodologies to a novel countrywide longitudinal geographic dataset of agricultural land ownership from colonial and postcolonial Morocco, this paper seeks to understand how different mechanisms of settler land acquisition and postcolonial land recovery affect local long-term development. By merging land data with numerous postcolonial agricultural, economic, and social data sources, this paper aims to shed new light on the long-term effects of colonial institutions and efforts by postcolonial actors to recover formerly settled lands.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 189. Colonial Legacies in Comparative Perspective