The framing of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in relation to the postwar Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region grafted a political geography onto a broad range of ecological areas. Planners, drawing on climate models, classified the region in agro-ecological terms devised in reference to the tropics. Functionally, their logic shored up a focus on rainfed, or unirrigated, agriculture in semi-arid and arid lands. But their rendering of dry areas masked the geopolitical framing of international agricultural research in the postwar period. Born of the Cold War, ICARDA emerged from exercises of European imperialism, Great Power rivalries, and the improvisation of modern nation-states in Western Asia and North Africa. The chapter charts the imperial origins of international agricultural research in Syria, the Cold War on hunger, and CGIAR’s classification of arid regions, towards an account of (1) the geopolitical logic of international agricultural research and (2) dryland agricultural science as the ground for technological and political intervention in decolonized lands.

This chapter works to historicize and materialize a family of ritualized practices (molk-style rites) related to the burnt offering of perinatal infants, their deposition in a sanctuary space (conventionally dubbed “tophets”), and the dedication of carved-stone monuments alongside the deposits. Instead of religious permanence or diffusion, it argues for four moments, each with distinctive dynamics, that led communities to embrace these rites. First, between the eighth and fourth centuries BCE, these rites were tied to Phoenician colonization; then, between the fourth and second centuries BCE, the adoption of molk-style rites was tied to migration from these colonial centers. But in the long first century BCE, the boom in molk-style rites was instead tied to the creation of a new, interconnected civic elite in the space between Numidian kingdoms and the Roman province of Africa. Finally, in the second and third centuries CE, migrations related to the Roman army drove the foundation of new sanctuaries to Saturn where stelae (and often molk-style offerings) were dedicated. Stele-sanctuaries were deeply entangled with the power dynamics and institutions of empire.

The concluding chapter reflects on how re-materializing worship and elevating a plurality of localized little pictures over the colonial big picture of Africa in antiquity can contribute to decolonizing North African studies. The chapter synthesizes evidence for how stelae participated in and shaped changing worship practices, and how these recursively reproduced imperial hegemony.

The question as to whether a genocide took place in nineteenth-century Algeria has always been deeply contentious in western academic scholarship. By contrast, it has tended to be accepted as a given in many Algerian accounts of the past, both as expressed in conversation and in published works. This divergence has arguably been grounded in the manner in which the prevailing means of framing and defining genocide varied wildly between these two literatures. Curiously, Algerian texts, even when they are 'popular' rather than 'academic' accounts lie closer to the spirit and terms of reference of the scholarly field of Genocide Studies. Looked at comparatively, the violence of imperial Algeria shares remarkable affinities with both the exterminatory impulses and outcomes of other settler colonies, as well as other instances of European incursions into the Arabo-Islamic world, especially in Algeria's north African neighbours Morocco and Tunisia, Mauritania and Libya. Lemkin's diagnostics of genocide certainly seem to map onto the organised system of massacres perpetrated in Algeria, the general desire to cause harm to 'recalcitrant' groups en masse, the belief in the merits of a Maghrebi tabula rasa, and the 'slow violence' of the destruction of groups, communities and identities.

The chapter discusses contact-induced phenomena, the models used in linguistics to represent processes of diffusion, and the principles that govern them. It explains several cases of diffusion across language barriers, borrowing and substrate effects, dialect contact, and new-dialect formation.

The ‘North African novel in French’ is a difficult category to circumscribe and define. It immediately announces a tension, juxtaposing writing in the French language on the one hand with a ‘North African’ culture or identity on the other. This tension bears the trace, moreover, of the colonial past, of regimes established in the Maghrebian region which not only expropriated the land from local peoples and seized local resources but also attempted to impose the use of French language, culture, and ideology. Those novelists who wrote or continue to write in French necessarily record the heritage of France’s aggressive empire-building, even while, as ‘North Africans’, they also associate themselves with local, Arab or Berber cultures. The ‘North African novel in French’ is as a result a divided, alienated creature, disconsolately vilifying the culture in which it nonetheless on some level must participate. This chapter explores three key issues raised by these novels, those of ‘insurrection and revolt’, ‘history and fiction’, and ‘crossing borders’. These issues all reveal the multiple influences negotiated by the North African novel in French as well as signalling its unique contribution to the reinvention of the novel in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

This chapter shows how the adoption of constitutional and legislative women’s rights reforms have converged in the Maghreb region, but also how the Maghreb has diverged from the Middle East in this regard. I discuss the adoption of unified legal systems, which set the stage for future women’s rights reforms. I then examine constitutional reforms followed by a discussion of key areas of legislative reform since 2000, particularly areas showing variation within the region and where we have seen legislative reforms improving women’s status. This allows us to identify the key differences between the Maghreb countries and the Middle East, but also where variance cuts across the entire region.

This chapter looks at the interactions between the women’s movement, the king, the Salafis, Islamists, and the Islamist party, Party for Justice and Development (PJD), and the role the interactions between these actors played in bringing about gender reforms in Morocco. It shows how the symbolic uses of women’s rights made women and women’s rights a focal point of the contestations between the palace and the parties and a key instrument in the struggle against religious extremism. The chapter shows how the PJD changed its position regarding women’s rights for reasons of political expediency. It explores the role of the women’s movement in the middle of this unfolding contest. The chapter thus takes us through the main elements of the hypotheses outlined in Chapter 1 as they apply to Morocco.

This chapter discusses the divergence and commonalties between the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria) and the Middle East when it comes to advancing women’s rights. I hypothesize several possible explanations for the divergence: (1) Maghrebi leaders adopted the political strategy of advancing women’s rights in order to present a modernizing image of their nation to the world and to neutralize Islamist movements, especially extremist ones; (2) the ruling parties, including Islamist parties, sought to stay in power by advancing women’s rights, knowing it would cost them if they did not adopt such reforms; (3) women’s movements exerted pressure resulting in demands for greater accountability (often these reforms occurred in the context of a critical juncture after a change of leadership, the end of a war, a coup d’état, or other major social upheaval); and, finally, (4) the women’s movements in all three countries communicated with each other, thus diffusing goals and strategies. The chapter briefly engages with alternate explanations for women’s rights reforms in the region. One set of explanations relates to cultural factors like kinship and religion, and the other looks at structural factors relating to women’s education, economic growth, the presence of oil rents, and international pressures.

The chapter summarizes the key themes of the book and looks at conclusions drawn from comparisons within the region. By pairing Tunisia with Lebanon, Morocco with Jordan, and Algeria with Egypt with respect to women’s rights regimes, one can look more closely at some of the patterns identified in the book that form the basis of the comparison between the Maghreb and the Middle East. This chapter then examines the broader implications of these women’s rights reforms for a post-Islamist era in the region. I return to the larger questions posed in this book about why autocrats adopt women’s rights and what the consequences are for women and women’s rights. I also discuss the implications of the changes in the Maghreb for understanding other parts of the world with Muslim-majority populations.

This chapter discusses the divergence and commonalties between the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria) and the Middle East when it comes to advancing women’s rights. I hypothesize several possible explanations for the divergence: (1) Maghrebi leaders adopted the political strategy of advancing women’s rights in order to present a modernizing image of their nation to the world and to neutralize Islamist movements, especially extremist ones; (2) the ruling parties, including Islamist parties, sought to stay in power by advancing women’s rights, knowing it would cost them if they did not adopt such reforms; (3) women’s movements exerted pressure resulting in demands for greater accountability (often these reforms occurred in the context of a critical juncture after a change of leadership, the end of a war, a coup d’état, or other major social upheaval); and, finally, (4) the women’s movements in all three countries communicated with each other, thus diffusing goals and strategies. The chapter briefly engages with alternate explanations for women’s rights reforms in the region. One set of explanations relates to cultural factors like kinship and religion, and the other looks at structural factors relating to women’s education, economic growth, the presence of oil rents, and international pressures.