Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how memory is evoked and produced in musical practices to engage with the violent (post)colonial history of the Rif. It particularly considers how the music circulates between the Netherlands and Morocco, forming a trans-national acoustic community of re-membering.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which Riffians re-member and re-construct the (post)colonial past through music. We explore the different ways in which events from the (post)colonial past are articulated (and listened to) in the work of Amazigh (Berber) musicians. Ranging from old cassette tapes, spontaneous jam sessions, to professionally produced music in recording studios and concert halls, we ask: what does this music express and enable in terms of identity claims, hopes and aspirations, and community formations?

In particular, we center on the transnational circulation of contemporary Riffian music between Morocco and The Netherlands, where 65% of Dutch people with a Moroccan background are of Riffian origin (van Heelsum 2008). Most Moroccan organizations in the Netherlands, therefore, focus their activities on the culture and history of the Rif. Music plays a vital role in this and (re)orientates the Riffian community towards their Riffian roots in the homeland as well as towards The Netherlands.

We draw on theories about music's sensory and symbolic power to understand how these musical practices serve as a tool for retrieving and producing memories and collective identities. Through music's ability to evoke feelings of nostalgia, anger, or sadness, it does not only serve as a way to make meaning of personal and collective memories of the (post)colonial history of the Rif, but also as a means to form a transnational community of ‘rememory’ (Morrison 1987). In this way, the musical memory work carves out "the Rif" between remembering and forgetting, beyond its territorial boundaries.