Bibliographic and Audiovisual Resources

Bibliographic and Video Resources

Selection made by Mohamed Daoudi

Select Bibliography

Balfour, S. (2002). Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

An important book on the link between the Rif War and the Spanish Civil War. Balfour argues that the Rif War was the setting in which an elite of Spanish colonial Africanist officers forged their military career and planned their ideological and military conquest of Spain a decade later.

Benhakeia, Hassan. (2016). La traduction poétique amazighe. Paris: L’Harmattan.

On the challenges of translating Amazigh poetry into other languages, focusing particularly on French.

Benhakeia, Hassan. (2019). La littérature rifaine: de la tradition orale a aujourd’hui. Paris: L’Harmattan,  

A survey of the poetry written in the last three or four decades in Riffian Tamazight, and the themes that have dominated it. The book discusses the continuities and discontinuities with oral and traditional folk poetry, and discusses some of the questions concerning the relationship of literature in the Rif to other Amazigh literatures, and also to Moroccan and Maghrebi literature more generally.

Bossard, Raymond. (1978). Mouvements migratoires dans le Rif oriental: Le travail en Europe – Aspect contemporain majeur dans la province de Nador (Thèse doctorat de 3e cycle. Géographie rurale). Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier III.

One of the pioneering works on international migration in the eastern Rif.

Coon, Carleton S. (1931). Tribes of the Rif. Harvard African Studies, vol. IX). Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Harvard University.

This is the first work by an American anthropologist on the Rif based on his fieldwork in 1926-1928. Although Coon was a physical anthropologist interested in skulls and measures and races, this is the first complete ethnographic work on the Rif to be published in English. 

Crivello, Gina. (2003). Dreams of passage: Negotiating gender, status and migration in the Moroccan Rif (Doctoral dissertation). The University of California, Riverside. 

Based on fieldwork in the urban centre of Al-Hoceima in the central Rif.

De Madariaga, Maria Rosa. (2002). Los moros que trajo Franco: la intervención de las tropas coloniales en la guerra civil. Barcelona: Ediciones Martinez Roca.

An important book on the participation of Moroccan conscripts, mainly from the northern Spanish Protectorate, in the Civil War in Spain on the side of the fascists.

Gellner, Ernest and Charles Micaud, eds. (1973). Arabs and Berbers: from Tribe to Nation in North Africa (pp. 25-58). London, UK: Duckworth.

An essential book on Morocco, and includes a few important articles on the Rif.

Feliu, Laura, Josep Lluís Mateo Dieste and Ferran Izquierdo Brichs, eds. (2018). Un siglo de movilización social en Marruecos. Barcelona: Ediciones Bellaterra.

A useful collection of studies of the important movements of protest that Morocco has witnessed in the last century, with a few chapters focusing specifically on the Rif.

Hart, David M. (1977). The Aith Waryaghar of the Moroccan Rif: An Ethnography and History. Wisconsin.

A seminal work on the ethnography of the central Rif by a leading authority.

Hart, David, M. (2000). “Las bases tradicionales socioculturales del Rif Marroquí en un siglo de cambio socioeconómico.” In Maria Angels Roque (Ed.), Nueva antropología en las sociedades mediterráneas (pp. 215-234). Barcelona: Icaria.

One of the last articles published written by Hart, and in which he sums up some of his analyses and conclusions over a period spanning decades of research.

Hart, David M. (2000). Tribe and Society in Rural Morocco. London, UK: Frank Cass.

Most of the articles/chapters were written in the years preceding Hart’s passing, and in a context in which he became increasingly dissatisfied with the segmentary analysis that was central to his prior ethnographic work on the Rif.

Hart, Ursula. (1994). Behind the Courtyard Door: the Daily Life of Tribeswomen in Northern Morocco. Ipswich, MA: Ipswich Press

An ethnographic study of the daily lives of Riffian women. Ursula accompanied her husband David Hart while in the Rif, so she had access to female spaces and worlds that were not accessible to her anthropologist husband.

Jamous, Raymond. (1981). Honneur et baraka: les structures sociales traditionnelles dans le Rif. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme.

A study of precolonial Galiya tribe in the eastern Rif. In spite of the limitations of Jamous’s segmentary approach, the centrality of land in his analysis is an important one. 

Jamous, Raymond. (1992). From the Death of Men to the Peace of God: Violence and Peace-making in the Rif. In J. G. Peristiany and Julian Pitt-Rivers (Eds.) Honor ad Grace in Anthropology (pp. 167-191). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

Joseph, Roger and Terri Brint Joseph. (1987). The Rose and the Thorn: Semiotic Structures in Morocco. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.

A semiotic study of marriage and wedding rituals and esthetics in the central Rif (Ait Waryaghar and Ibbeqquyen). The authors’ own ethnographic work shows, according to them, that both solidarity (Gellner) and agonism (Geertz) are at work in Riffian marriages. 

Karrouche, Norah. (2017). Memory as Protest: Mediating Memories of Violence and the Bread Riots in the Rif. In Norman Saadi Nikro and Sonja Hegasy (Eds.), The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco (pp. 219-237). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

LaPorte, Pablo. (2001). La atracción del imán: el desastre de Annual y sus repercusiones en la política europea (1921-1923). Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.

A important book about the impact and resonance of Spain’s Anwal debacle in the Rif in 1921 on European politics and international relations at the time.

Lazaar, M’hamed. (1987). Conséquenses de l’émmigration dans les montagnes du Rif central (Maroc). Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 3(1-2), 97-114.

Lazaar’s work on international migration movements in the central Rif is essential.

Lazaar, M’Hamed. (2013). L’émigration internationale: Facteur des transformations des campagnes des provinces du Rif. In Faleh, A., Cebrian, A., Bokbot, M., and Serrano, J. Ma. (Eds.), Aspects de l’émigration Marocaine vers l’Europe (pp. 125-143). Murcia, Universidad de Murcia.

McMurray, David A. (2001). In and Out of Morocco: Smuggling and Migration in a Frontier Boomtown. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.

An anthropological study of Nador in the eastern Rif, with particular emphasis on the effects of international migration to Europe.  

McNeill, John R. (1992). The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

A Study of five mountainous areas on both sides of the Mediterranean, including a highly instructive and useful environmental history of the Rif.

Merolla, D. (2012). Narration (La — dans l’espace littéraire berbère) Encyclopédie berbère (Vol. 33). Retrieved from http://journals.openedition.org/encyclopedieberbere/ 2675. doi: https://doi.org/10.4000/encyclopedieberbere.2675

Mikesell, Marvin W. (1961). Northern Morocco: A Cultural Geography. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press.

An important cultural geography of Senhaja-Srair in the western Rif. Mikesell, an eminent authority in the field of cultural geography, studies the patterns of socio-environmental interaction in the western Rif between 1955 and 1957, that is, before, during and after Moroccan independence.

Munson, Henry Jr. (1989). On the Irrelevance of the Segmentary Lineage Model in the Moroccan Rif. American Anthropologist, 91(2), 386-400.

A seminal critique of Hart’s segmentary analysis of Riffian society. Hart eventually abandoned the segmentary perspective following the debate with Munson.

Pennell, R. C. (1986). A Country with a Government and a Flag: The Rif War in Morocco 1921-1926. Outwell: Menas Press.

An important book on the local government and the institutions established in the Rif during the colonial war between 1921 and 1926, as well as the reforms introduced by Abd-el-Krim.

Refass, Mohammed Azzedine. (1992). Historical Migration Patterns in the Eastern Rif Mountains. Mountain Research and Development, 12(4), 383-388.  

Seddon, David. (1981). Moroccan Peasants: A Century of Change in the Eastern Rif, 1870-1970. Folkestone, England: Dawson.

An important sociological and economic study of the Ait Settut, in the area of Zayo, in the eastern Rif, from a Marxist perspective.

Seddon, David. (1984). Winter of discontent: Economic crisis in Tunisia and Morocco. Merip Reports, (127), 7-16.

Seddon’s article, is one of the very few which deal with the 1984 events in Morocco, and includes a brief analysis of the events in the Rif.

Seddon, David. (1986). Riot and rebellion: Political responses to economic crisis in North Africa, Tunisia, Morocco and Sudan. Discussion Paper No.196. School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 1-19.

Video / Documentary material:

Cling, Daniel. (2010) Abdelkrim et la guerre du Rif. Iskra / Arte France. Click here. 

On the Rif War and the figure of Abdelkrim.

Driss Deiback (2006). Los perdedores (The Losers). Sur Films / Zip Films / TV3 / TVE

On the participation of Moroccan conscripts (from the northern Spanish Protectorate) in the fascist army during the Spanish Civil War.

El Idrissi, Tarik. (2014). Breaking the Silence: Rif 58-59. Farfira Films. Click here.

A documentary on the repression of the 1958-59 uprising in the Rif, which includes various testimonies by victims and witnesses.

Sánchez Veiga, Julio (2007). El laberinto marroqui. Intermedia Producciones / Canal Sur. Click here.

On the intertwined histories of the Moroccan Rif and Spain throughout the twentieth century.