Paper short abstract:

In 2018, Morocco inaugurated Africa's first high-speed rail line (LGV), a project saturated with visions of future prosperity. Using the LGV as an entry point, this paper examines the afterlives, aftermaths, and alternatives to the enduring appeal of mid-century planning and development regimes.

Paper long abstract:

Capitalizing on its comparative political and social stability in the region, the Moroccan regime has been attracting global and regional investors with the promise of spectacular ‘megaprojects’ that aim to radically transform local natural, economic, and social landscapes.

Inaugurated in 2018, Morocco’s (and Africa’s) first high-speed rail line (LGV) is considered a flagship project within this landscape. Built alongside the existing but decaying Atlantic commuter rail corridor originally put in place by the French colonial regime almost a century ago, this 2-billion-euro infrastructure has become invested with political, ideological, and strongly affective meanings related to a shared - yet constantly deferred - future of material abundance and social prosperity, even as it violently displaced informal housing communities and created fatal disruptions along the existing rail network.

Drawing on ethnographic and desk research conducted since 2018 with rail users, engineers, urban planners, and social activists, in this paper I focus on and unpack the future-oriented politics, promises and routine frustrations the LGV has helped channel. In order to elucidate the discursive power and broad appeal behind official visions of high-speed progress, I place the development of the LGV within the longer genealogy of colonial and post-colonial modernization projects and agendas.

Using the LGV as a salient ethnographic entry point, this paper thus offers an investigation into the afterlives, aftermaths, and enduring political currency of mid-century planning and development regimes. Against this, it highlights local initiatives that are trying to un-make and redraw narratives of the future in lateral and creative ways.