Down to Earth: Manufacturing modernity in the Haouz
Down to Earth is a PhD research project that
examines the reconstruction of Morocco’s rural Haouz region following the 2023 earthquake that destroyed approximately 50,000 homes, displacing thousands of residents.
This region, home to a rich living heritage of mud and stone architecture, faces numerous challenges as its reconstruction unfolds amidst the growing dominance of concrete that is steadily replacing rammed earth constructions throughout the country.
The research looks at the ways post-disaster reconstruction in the Haouz becomes a critical site for negotiating material futures, rural identities, and the politics of Amazigh vernacular knowledge. By examining the earthquake beyond its natural aftermath, the research explores the tensions produced by the reconstruction efforts and how they mirror deeper conflicts between vernacular spatial practices and Morocco’s Vision 2030, situating concrete in this context, as not simply a technical solution but a social agent that restructures labor relations, material hierarchies and rural temporalities while enabling new aspirations of modernity and citizenship.
Rather than questioning what does it mean to be modern in today’s rural Morocco, this research project ventures into the how we do become modern in the countryside : What are the logics at play behind the manufacture of modernity and how, amidst the cracks of mud walls patched with cement mortars, can we read the emergence of a new spatial identity in the Haouz ?
The research looks at the ways post-disaster reconstruction in the Haouz becomes a critical site for negotiating material futures, rural identities, and the politics of Amazigh vernacular knowledge. By examining the earthquake beyond its natural aftermath, the research explores the tensions produced by the reconstruction efforts and how they mirror deeper conflicts between vernacular spatial practices and Morocco’s Vision 2030, situating concrete in this context, as not simply a technical solution but a social agent that restructures labor relations, material hierarchies and rural temporalities while enabling new aspirations of modernity and citizenship.
Rather than questioning what does it mean to be modern in today’s rural Morocco, this research project ventures into the how we do become modern in the countryside : What are the logics at play behind the manufacture of modernity and how, amidst the cracks of mud walls patched with cement mortars, can we read the emergence of a new spatial identity in the Haouz ?
