Paper short abstract:

From the 1960s onwards, the fringe of the Sahara desert controlled by Spanish colonists was object of overlapping claims of sovereignty: this paper explores the implication for citizenship of all of them, in Western Sahara as much as in the areas across its borders.

Paper long abstract:

Relations between territory, people and political power in the Western Sahara have been object of intense debates along history. Since last years of Spanish colonization, these debates developed around the question of sovereignty and its holder. In 1959 Spain declared that Ifni, Tarfaya and the Spanish Sahara were integral part of Spanish state as provinces. At the same time, the government of recently independent Morocco claimed the Spanish Sahara as part of its national territory. During the seventies, the national movement lead by the POLISARIO Front demanded for an independent state on its own, in the name of a Saharaui nation. Even Mauritania, independent since 1960, developed its own national aspirations towards Western Sahara.

In all cases, advocates would make extensive use of history: some alleging the legacy of Spanish colonialism, others reminding older political relations, such as those of the Moroccan sultan with the Saharan quabilas. This history has been well documented in other places.

What our research aims to illuminate are the effects that these alternative claims of exclusive sovereignty has had on the configuration of citizenship, not only in the territory occupied by Morocco since 1975, but also in adjacent places such as Tinduf in Algeria, Tarfaya in Morocco and even Mauritania. The paper will present preliminary insights, based on archive work and field research. We will analyse the processes through which populations are at the same time integrated, excluded and fragmented, and their rights redefined and differentiated.