Morocco
Morocco
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The research explores the artisanal and shore fishing practices within a Slow Food community in Sidi Bounouar, situated in the Souss Massa region. It investigates how these practices are intertwined with food security and how they are affected by profound environmental, infrastructural, political, and economic changes in the context.
The second field of research in Morocco is Tangier, where the relationship between urban development and the transformation of local food systems is explored. Starting with the analysis of specific food chains and their nodal locations, the research aims to investigate the relationship between spatial and food injustice and the bottom-up responses of local food communities.
Participatory mapping in Sidi Bounouar
Participatory mapping in Sidi Bounouar
11th December 2024
Beatrice Ferlaino
The work done during the fieldwork in Sidi Bounouar was visualized in two maps. I developed these maps through focus groups, photo elicitation, ethnographic walks, and walking interviews with local residents. The maps are in French to make them more accessible to the people who participated in their creation - since those who speak a foreign language in Sidi Bounouar prefer French. The selected places are combined with images in order to convey their meaning also through visual methods.
"The sea takes, the sea gives". Sharing the Insights from Our Research
"The sea takes, the sea gives". Sharing the Insights from Our Research
18th November 2024
Beatrice Ferlaino; Ginevra Montefusco
During the Slow Fish Tigri Festival, in the evening of the 24th October 2024, we had the occasion to share a part of our research with the community of Sidi Bounouar. We shared the video "The sea takes, the sea gives", created by Ginevra Montefusco with the contribution of Beatrice Ferlaino.
Preparations underway for the Slow Fish Tigri Festival
Preparations underway for the Slow Fish Tigri Festival
17th October 2024
Beatrice Ferlaino
Preparations underway for the Slow Fish Tigri FestivalThe people of Sidi Bounouar are in the midst of preparations for the Slow Fish Tigri festival. The women are collecting seafood to cook. The men are supervising and coordinating the work to rebuild parts of the village that will host stands, conferences and cooking competitions. Several problems have been solved: a leak in the public water supply has been repaired, the materials needed to complete the construction have been delivered, and the challenge of finding enough mussels has been overcome. The various cooperatives involved in the festival are organising their materials. Plans for hosting outside visitors are underway.
Soon more updates :)
Tanger MED Free Zone
Tanger MED Free Zone
2nd October 2024
Ginevra Montefusco
The port of Tanger MED and its free zone are hubs of production and attraction for international investors. Investment flows trigger a great expansion of the urban space and the urbanisation of rural areas historically dedicated to traditional indigenous agriculture, such as that of the Jbela women. The peri-urban area of Tangier, which has been fragmented in industrial and free zones, is the node where fishing and farming flows meet. The Rue des deux mérs, an artery connecting the Mediterranean shore, the city and the Atlantic shore, is traversed daily by both large trucks transporting containers to the industrial zone and small producers (artisanal fishermen and small farmers) transporting goods to the city. This area is symbolic in the process of foreign market orientation, the damage to local food sovereignty, the exploitation of resources and the negative impact on local producing communities.
Terra Madre 2024. Moroccain and Palestinian delegation
Terra Madre 2024. Moroccain and Palestinian delegation
2nd October 2024
Beatrice Ferlaino
The Slow Food Terra Madre event was held in Turin from 24 to 30 September.
It was a very interesting moment for the Fo.C.E. team: only one person from the group involved in the research was invited (the president of the Wakkad Presidia). This situation opened a discussion on how the group wanted to participate in the Slow Food association and what the current relationship of the Italian association was with them.
In addition, the serious and worrying situation in Palestine and Lebanon was almost ignored by the Italian association, and people (from Palestine, other MENA countries and Italy) participated in a manifestation at the festival to shed light on this issue.
On the Jordanian page an insight into the problems encountered by the Palestinian delegation.
Tangier: the M’sallah market
Tangier: the M’sallah market
30th September 2024
Ginevra Montefusco
The M'sallah neighbourhood was developed during the International Era (1912-1956) to decongest the urban density of the medina and is therefore considered the ‘new Medina’ outside the gates of the old city. This popular district is home to one of the city's most important markets. The market is built by the intermingling of formal stalls and informal vendors, who negotiate the space of the streets with each other. Among the informal actors, the market is populated by indigenous Jbela women farmers (Jbela means woman from the mountain). Both merchants and farmers, particularly of beldi (local) vegetables and traditional Jben Arabi cheese, Jbela women are recognisable by their traditional hat, now one of the most popular tourist gadgets in town. They mostly sell a few seasonal products (described by those who buy them as organic, local, healthy). Men merchants have on average larger stalls with different varieties of products, many from intensive agriculture in the Casablanca and Agadir area. Given the crowding on market days, the local authorities threaten to evict the informal vendors, also pushing towards a regeneration of the neigbourhood. The Jbela women, regarded as guardians of ancestral agricultural and dairy practices, are thus under a double pressure: on the one hand, expanding industrial agriculture that guarantees lower prices but lower quality, and on the other, the formalisation of the spaces they have historically inhabited for direct sale in the city.
Slow Fish festival in Sidi Bounouar
Slow Fish festival in Sidi Bounouar
19th August 2024
Beatrice Ferlaino
The Association Amoud, in collaboration with the Coopérative Feminine Sahel Aglou des Produits de la Mer, is organizing the 7th edition of the Slow Fish Maroc festival. Sidi Bounouar will welcome local cooperatives, associations, and national and international fishing experts (fishermen, scientists, institutions, chefs, etc.) from October 24th to 26th.
In order to valorize the local knowledge, and to share the practices and the common challenges that the different communities living with the fishing activity face every day, the association will organize games, competitions, conferences, and formal and informal meetings. The festival will be an occasion to celebrate the practices and knowledge built around the fishing sector and to spread awareness about the problems and challenges it encounters.
Fo.C.E. will take part in the organization and creation of these days. We will present our work and develop a photovoice workshop during the festival week to discuss with the community of Sidi Bounouar the needs and wishes they have for the future of their sea.
Partner of the research in Sidi Bounouar
Partner of the research in Sidi Bounouar
30th July 2024
Beatrice Ferlaino
Coopérative Feminine Sahel Aglou des Produits de la Mer
Association Amoud Sidi Bounuar
Presidio Fondazione Slow Food per la Biodiversità Cozza Wakkad Tigri
Here the three main partner with which we are working in Sidi Bounouar.
You can also follow the activities of the Association Aglou Slow Fish on their Youtube channel !
The liminal city of Tangier: first steps
The liminal city of Tangier: first steps
1st July, 2024
Ginevra Montefusco
The city of Tangier, long perceived as peripheral by the central government, is acquiring a strategic role for the kingdom of Morocco. Structural investments in Tangier involve several key sectors of Morocco's growing economy, namely logistics, tourism, fish industry. From being an exotic and cursed city, ('Tanger, Danger', as the popular saying goes), Tangier is redefining itself internally and externally as a Mediterranean city and liminal place: gateway to Europe, centre of development and growth. These ongoing transformations are very interesting to read through the lens of food, due to its power to unlock the sense of place, the processes of identity construction, as well as community fragmentation and deconstruction. Reading urban food systems and the movements that shape them opens up interesting spaces to discuss food injustice intersected with spatial injustice, as well as grassroots possibilities of food sovereignty and resistance.
Changes in Morocco. Insights from field research in Sidi Bounouar.
Changes in Morocco. Insights from field research in Sidi Bounouar.
1st July, 2024
Beatrice Ferlaino
From April 15th to 31st, Ginevra and I, Beatrice went to Morocco. We started our trip in Sidi Bounouar in the Souss Massa region, where we met with the Slow Fish Community of Aglou. We stayed together until April 25th. These ten days were intense, filled with interviews, and spent conducting participant observation with the people of the douar (village in Moroccan Arabic, Darija).
The region of Sidi Bounouar is well-known for the practice of “foot fishing”, the harvesting of mussels and other seafood. Once collected, the mussels are sun-dried in order to consume them when needed, cooked in a tajine with spices, onion, and – if possible – other vegetables.
This first period of field research has been very important for understanding the context in which the Aglou community lives and to delve into their relationship with the sea. Three main themes stood out from these days in Sidi Bounouar. Each of them deserves a larger investigation, and in-depth follow-up posts will follow in the next months. In the meantime, I’d like to provide an overview of them all, to create a general representation of the context we will be studying over the next few months.
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