In "Identities as Multimedia Spectacle," Nestor Garcia Canclini considers how globalized media, information technologies, and the global circulation of cultural commodities challenges traditional models of national identity formation. Canclini writes:
"One of the greatest challenges for rethinking identity and citizenship today is finding a way to study how relations of continuity, discontinuity, and hybridization are produced among local and global, traditional and ultramodern systems of cultural development." (Canclini, 96).
Review Multiplicity's Solid Sea 04: (m)re-tourism on Moroccan residents abroad (http://www.multiplicity.it/index2.htm). Using one of the eight testimonies on page 3 (select an image to read text) and the Canclini article, explain how the selected testimony is an example of how the MRE's sense of national identity is transformed through their movement between Morocco and Europe (as temporary residents, tourists, or permanent residents), the development of space, and use of commodities (for instance, homes and tourist resorts).
Sara Stearns
ReplyDeleteArt 309 Greene
National identity formation is an interesting topic to look at from many different ways and perspectives. Just as Canclini in states in the reading, “Identities as Multimedia Spectacle”, there are many things that come into the formation of a national identity such as “globalized media, information technologies, and the global circulation of cultural commodities” (Canclini, 96) There are many things that cause a national identity to change over time. Like the Moroccan residents who decide to take up permanent residence in Europe, and come back to Morocco as investors or new colonizers, as well as tourists; their ideas and priorities may change due to their experience of living in Europe, and absorbing that culture. “Identity today, even among broad sectors of the popular classes, is polyglot, multiethnic, migrant, made from elements that cut across various cultures” (Canclini, 91)
In the testimony that I have selected by Sanya Bouhliba, the administrator of the Jnanat Laksar rest area, she explains what activities this rest area entails, and how the MREs are a large part of the reason why this building exists. The building itself is in a very key area. It is on the road to Afir, and the Ouija airport, as well as Nador, Saidia, and the beach. The building itself was designed to be devoted to families and children. Inside it has a restaurant, bar, pizzeria, playground, and dance floor. It is a place highly popular with MREs who come to Morocco for the holidays, especially in the summer months. There is a lot of activity from these travelers that this place is able to support and live off of that fact. The fact that it is in such a busy and well-traveled location, it is able to be what it is. Through the movement of the MREs as tourists between Europe and Morocco, we see the development of this particular space and its commodities, and the necessity that was involved to create it.
The testimony that I reviewed was that of Mohamed Aberkan, who is the mayor and developer of Janazeen holiday village. I chose him because he gets to see firsthand the mingling of cultures as he accommodates Europeans, MREs and Moroccans. This consistent exchange between cultures is goes along with what Canclini says about Identity being multiethnic and cuts across various cultures. The cultures that are being hybridized are those of the tourists and that of the Moroccan hosts. The biggest changes are those that are happening with the MREs because they wouldn’t consider themselves tourists in either Europe or Morocco. Their sense of national identity is a mixture between their home country and that of the one they live and conduct business in now. Another reason why I thought Mohamed interesting is because of his duality of being a member of Parliament and mayor in Morocco. Thus he looks out for both the interests of his fellow Moroccan citizens and those of his European counterparts who provide support for the local economy through attractive tourism. In doing so, he is also exposing the local communities to the incoming cultures, while even further integrating the two and adding to the ever evolving multi ethnicity.
ReplyDeleteJulie Kolaga
ReplyDeleteART 309/509
Greene
The testimony that I chose was of an ice cream seller named Toutouh Hakim. I viewed all eight testimonies but in the end I was drawn back to his in particular. Toutouh Hakim has been an ice cream vendor in Nador for thirty years. His parents sold ice cream and he expressed that it has become a family legacy now that he has carried on with the business. In his testimony he mentions that the ice creams sales are always the highest during the the summer months.
He also mentions that the Europeans and MRE's always buy more ice cream than the local Moroccans and that they are easy to pick out because of their clothes. The constant flow of tourists between the North and South coasts of the Mediterranean are what keep this business alive. I contend that the ice cream vendor AND the MRE's sense of national identity is transformed through the constant flow across the Mediterranean Sea. Canclini writes, "Identity is a narrated construct. It involves the establishment of a set of founding events, which almost always refer to the appropriation of a territory by a people or the independence gained in the struggle against foreigners." In reference to the fist half of the Canclini quote, I think that both the vendor and the MRE's identities are affected by the crossing of the Sea. The ice cream stand may not be considered an attraction but it certainly is a hot spot for tourists. The constant fluctuation of people is what keeps his family legacy alive.
Derek (DJ) Harris
ReplyDeleteArt 309 – Migration and Visual Art
Greene
Giving a national identity can be a tricky thing to do. Some immigrants will identify with where they came from while others call themselves with the identity of where they now live. Like how the Multiplicity website says, the MRE are a very special case. They are both Moroccan and also European but at the same time both identities nearly negate each other leaving them with no identity at all. Having to switch over borders constantly to obtain proper work forces some of them to become “European.” While they are still European, they still revert back to their Moroccan lives on holidays and send money back “home” whenever they can. I put home in quotes because while they call it home, it really isn’t anymore by some peoples’ standards. It’s home to the heart and the mind, but it isn’t home according to the laws of man anymore. What was once their home in Morocco is now just a temporary get away from their new Residence. Another interesting thing is the time zone difference. When they cross borders, they shift between time itself by jumping a couple of hours at a time. This has to be a toll on their body since they are constantly losing and gaining odd numbers of hours in their day. This would be something similar to but not completely like the workers from the Alladeen site or Gulati’s Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night. The MRE are forced to make choices of what they will identify with, regardless of how they really feel. If they choose Europe, they choose a potentially better life for their families, but they then risk becoming tourists in their own home country.
Justin Beale
ReplyDeleteArt 309
Greene
The testimony I chose to review was that of Habiba Ben Amar who works for an Italian NGO that aims to involve securing work for local unemployed women in the region. This organization and Amar are working to promote a project aimed at forwarding eco-tourism in Nador. The contemporary trend of mass tourism that the solid sea has allowed, especially within the MRE population is some that goes against many of the local values with Nador. Instead of only focusing on reaping profits, in “Identities as a Multimedia Spectacle” Canclini states that corporate globalization “should pay greater attention to local and region differences.” Which Amar then illustrates this lack of attention in her testimony and calls attention to the way tourism continues to develop around the Mediterranean Sea. As Cap Trois Fources (the NGO that Amar works for) asserts the local female population of Nador to participate in changing the structure of tourism in the area by reconstructing and operating tourist homes, these women are able to recreate their own Berber culture while influencing important local value systems. In hopes of ultimately providing greater motivation to increase financing within the tourist industry towards more responsible forms of eco-tourism, that considers local and international values at the same time.
Ismar K
ReplyDeleteArt 309
Greene
Blog 6
National identity can be carried across borders, when people move due to good or bad situations, they carry their identity and their version of their nations identity. I evaluated what Lakhdar Mimouni stated regarding the MRE's and movement from Europe to Morocco and vice versa. Identity is formed by our environment and what we experience. He mentions how these MRE's are formed by people like him who travel back to Morocco, and they trust the craftsmen that live there to build them and let them design them the way the designers feel is best. The community functions very well in that area. Wydadya is the community that runs the community and keeps it safe, they help design also since they are the workers. The community consists of MRE's by upper middle class people and middle class people. The person that travels back to have an MRE built puts in their own style and allows the builder to have free play with the design also, thus mixing both identity's or styles.
Kevin M. Otto
ReplyDeleteArt 309
I reviewed the testimony of Saadi Abdella, architect and urban designer for the Isly Golf Project in Oujda. This project, started in 1998 has a hotel, restaurant, bar, two swimming pools, gym, sports club, golf courses and of course 114 villas. Mr. Abdella states that,” Mediterranean architecture is our design reference, so light curves and rounded walls are used; in the interiors, especially those of the villas and hotel, we have respected traditional architecture, using local materials, wrought iron railings, double ceilings, decorated ceilings.” His statement represents the merging of the two cultures of the region and how certain traditions are a respected part of the new culture of the area.
Second and third generation MREs continually return to the area for vacations but also to visit with family. Some have built new homes or apartments with a trend towards traditional architecture. They decorate their homes with Moroccan sculptures however, the MREs do like the European comforts such as air conditioning and satellite TV. As an architect, Saadi notices the differences in styles of the homes built depending on where the MREs have lived in Europe. These new generations of MREs is also investing a good deal of money in the local economy besides supporting their families still living in the area.
The MREs identities are shaped by traditions of the past, new experiences in Europe and also by global tendencies. Their use of computers, credit cards, satellite TV, and the internet have broaden their knowledge base. As the article by Nestor Garcia Canclini states,”…identity is a construct, but the artistic, folkloric, and media narratives that shape it are realized and transformed within sociohistorical conditions that cannot be reduced to their mise-en-scene.” Diverse cultural systems are now being formed in all parts of the world. As a population we can no longer be just identified by the country of our birth but by the images, conditions, and upbringing from our past and our future.
Victor Garcia
ReplyDeleteArt 309
Greene
This conflict of national identity is an interesting topic in that I’ve found myself dealing with it on much smaller more personal scale, but it’s different to read about when a nation and an area are dealing with it. While there are Moroccans who consider themselves to be European and the other way around these people find themselves gravitating back to their roots whether that means investing, colonizing or simply for the sake of tourism. This causes a mixture of culture and priorities from the Moroccans who come back as visitors to their former home countries. I read about Toutouh Hakim who has been an ice cream vendor for 30 years. He said it was what his parents did and since it was a family legacy, naturally he took over the business. Its funny how people who aren’t locals are so noticeable, and even more so to the locals. He could tell the tourists and MREs by their clothing and just the fact that they were buying ice cream from him in the first place. When the MREs move to Europe they are almost forced to give up a certain way of like and being Moroccan for a better life for their families. They can do this and become strangers in their own countries or they can stay in Morocco and continue their struggle to survive. Looking at this with a little more optimism, it is almost a blessing that Moroccans have this “solid sea” separating them that makes Europe so accessible and they have the choice to more there if they want to.
MRE, or Moroccans resident abroad, the term itself is an example of where the people of Morocco see themselves as transnational citizens. I looked at the interview with El Arbi Mrabet, Dean of the Oujda Faculty of Law. In his interview Mrabet describes the different kinds of MREs. Those who were born in Morocco and visit yearly to go back “home”, set up properties and plan for a return to Morocco when they retire. There are second generations Moroccans, those who were born in another country but still maintain the identity of their parent’s homeland, but also maintain the identity of their birth country. They visit and do charity work in Morocco, but do not have any intensions of returning permanently like their parents might. The finial group Mrabet discusses is the third and fourth generations, they visit, but no longer identify as Moroccan. Even though they are still of Moroccan decent. Mrabet references the idea of being identified as Moroccan in Italy, yet being Italian of Moroccan decent when in Morocco.
ReplyDeleteCanclini’s discussion on national identity states that over the past few generations there has been a huge shift in what it means to claim citizenship and cultural identity to one nation or another. Canclini says “Nations become multidetermined scenarios where diverse cultural systems intersect and interpenetrate.” In the case of MREs, they are prime examples of this intersection and interpenetration Canclini is talking about. They maintain the Moroccan identity, yet live and reside, in some cases for several generations, in foreign countries. Thus their identities are “Polyglot, multiethnic, migrant, made from elements that cut across various cultures.” The MREs are perfect examples of Canclini’s anthropological studies on the formation of contemporary national identity.
Cancilinis' discussion of national identity has brought to light the idea of shifts in individual culture and identity. These new ideas are being passed on from generation to generation. From this comes a sense of mixed identity or hybrid identity. For past generations these sorts of ideas and issues were not present. So as new generations arise they are faced with these questions, and have little help from their elders. MREs are an example of this mixed identity. Being of Moroccan descent, they are faced with adversity and national identity conflicts. These Moroccans sometimes have generations before them that have lived this way, but for many it is a new experience. It can be a very difficult situation to deal with when some family members choose one identity, while others may have chosen another. This can be more of an issues for some families than others.
ReplyDeleteI read the testimonial of Toutouh Hakim for instance. Toutouh has lived in Nador for most of his life, and has been an ice cream vendor for close to thirty years. He sells his ice cream year round, and for him it is a way of life. He did not have many other options. His parents ran the ice cream business for many years before he took over. Hakim goes on to discuss sales, and his customer base, most of which being European or MREs. This to me is a great example of a family who has overcome the issues of national identity. They continue to be successful from generation to generation despite where they were born. And despite where they live now as adults. They have taken on this mixed national identity with a vision of tomorrow, and the courage to overcome despite it.
I chose to review the testimony of Toutouh Hakim, a man from Nador who has been an ice cream vendor there for over thirty years. Following in his parents footsteps, Hakim, is now carrying on the family tradition and legacy of selling ice cream. Hakim states that he sells the most ice cream in the summer months when European tourists and MREs are visiting. Hakim even says that he can pick out who the tourists and MREs are by both their clothing and simply by the fact that they eat more ice cream than the locals. Even though Hakim recognizes the difference between himself and the tourists, he still knows that he depends on these MREs and tourists and the money that they spend on his ice cream. For Hakim the increasing movement of people across the Mediterranean, into Nador, has been beneficial to him monetarily and in keeping his family legacy alive. I would think that Hakim feels some sort of tie or shared identity to the Spaniards, Europeans, and MREs that visit his stand because they are what keeps his business going. The fact that the Mediterranean is such a narrow sea and the border being so permeable are founding events for mixed formed identities. Both sides seem to take a little bit from each other as people move between the two and even the people who don't move are effected by the fluctuation of people.
ReplyDeleteHabiba Ben Amar, focuses on securing jobs for local unemployed women. She has another project that is Eco tourism- which is anti-mass tourism. Amar is trying to show a whole new world to the tourist who come through, a more natural and local world. Where people can interact with natives, instead of just seeing what is for the foreign mass’s. The local population is involved with the tourists who come through, by restoring Berber houses and such which helps in the rebirth and recognition of Berber culture. The influence of people coming into the Berber’s lives, go against the values of the local population, a new culture is changing and being influenced by outsiders. National and regional identities are being shared, taking over, or over taken. People who come through the towns whether they are tourist, permanent or temporary residents can affect and are affected by their surroundings. Bringing crowds into the local/native parts instead of keeping them in the “tourist-made” areas, does help and give recognition to the Berber’s, but also outside influences are made on them.
ReplyDeleteThe testimony of Toutouh Hakim is an excellent example of how contact and interaction between two different cultures can affect both parties. Hakim, an ice cream vendor in Morocco for thirty years, practices his business year around. However, his ice cream is most popular in the summer months and is sold to mostly foreigners, tourists, and MREs. In his testimony he mentions his ice cream is far more popular with them then with the local Moroccans and that they are easy to spot due to their clothes. Hakim, through his business associates with MREs which therefore effects him. Hakim has a common bond with them, which then changes his identity as well as theirs. due to constant interaction between the Europeans, the Spanish in particular, and Moroccans, a hybrid, dual identity emerges. Nestor Garcia Canclini writes on this subject describing how cultural identity and identity hybridization is an outcome of these interactions and of the circulation of information and cultures.
ReplyDeleteStefanie McLaren
ReplyDeleteArt 309
Greene
National identity is a subject matter that I can really relate to, being that, I was born and raised in Canada. I am actually a Canadian citizen living in the United States, we did not apply for American citizenship. So for me, I identify with Canada because that is where I grew up and my entire extended family still lives there, but I also identify with the United States because I live here, go to school and work here, and I have friends and family here as well. When looking at the Multiplicity website and the MRE’s, or Moroccans resident abroad, one can see that they identify with either the Moroccan or European identities based on their work or experiences of transit. The testimony I chose by Sanya Bouhiba, who is the admistrator of the Jnanat Laksar rest area, shows how the MRE’s are the ones who gave reason for the building to exist in the first place. It is slow in the winter, however in the summer it is more popular because of the MRE’s who travel there for vacation. The idea of transit and ‘tourism’ is what allows this place to be and the people to continue to do it from year to year and their sense of identity is transformed in the act.