Blog Post Two

The Invisible Costs of No-Amazigh-Studies 

Brahim El Guabli, Williams College /Johns Hopkins University

I have written several articles in which I grappled with the moral obligation owed to the Indigenous People of Tamazgha to bring back the study of their societies as a full-fledged, discrete component of the current field of North African (Tamazgha) studies. In two articles, published in the Journal of North African Studies,[1] I focused on  the scholarly, curricular, and programmatic benefits that would be gained from the reintegration of Amazigh studies into Anglophone academia from which it has been discontinued since the only universities that had such programs or departments closed them in the mid-1990s. One of these two articles articulated what I called the “Amazigh indigenous post-coloniality,”[2] which shed light on  both the importance of treating Imazighen (Amazigh people) as the Indigenous people of their homeland of Tamazgha and transformative ramifications this new approach would have on the study of the region. This shift to indigeneity, I have argued, would require deep changes to the way Amazigh societies, histories, and humanistic traditions are treated in scholarship. From using Tamazgha and respecting Amazigh nomenclatures to learning Tamazight and conducting research in it, these two articles and others were an attempt to chart a path for an Amazigh-inclusive conceptual framework and methodology for the study of Imazighen’s homeland and societies beyond the current focus on Arabic and French as the sole, or at least the main, entries into specialization in a much-transformed landscape.

I am not going to reiterate these already published ideas in this short essay. My goal this time is to draw attention to the cost of the current no-Amazigh-studies situation on both scholars and the discipline itself.  A vicious circle would be an understatement to describe the multitude of impacts that the actual inexistence of a fully- recognizable field of Amazigh studies within the dominant departmental setups in African, Maghreb, and Middle Eastern studies has had on scholars, posing equity issues that need to be addressed by all stakeholders in these fields and their subdisciplines. While scholars working, say in anthropology, history, and literature, have clearer parameters for their disciplines, those working in Amazigh studies, in the absence of programs and departments, face many hurdles that impact their scholarship and professional opportunities. In fact, in the absence of a body of colleagues who understand its stakes across disciplines, Amazigh studies remains illegible to most colleagues outside North African studies, and the impact of this illegibility has had unarticulated, nefarious effects that are major obstacles for research in Amazigh studies.

Grant opportunities is one of the areas in which the absence of Amazigh studies from the larger academic departmental setups has a major negative impact. As we know, grant applications go through the sacrosanct review process by colleagues who may not necessarily be working in the same area of research as the applicants. While theoretically, a reviewer should be able to detach themselves from their disciplinary boundaries to be able to evaluate a project based on its merits, the knowledge that a given reviewer brings with them to their reading of the applications is crucial. Therefore, a reviewer who has never heard of Tamazight nor understands the stakes of Amazigh studies and its importance will simply feel unable to endorse a project of which they cannot determine the value. Someone who has no colleagues who work on Amazigh studies would simply have no direction on how to read a proposal that stems from a field that is obscure to them. This goes to say that the absence of Amazigh studies from departmental and programmatic offerings is not just a shortcoming in terms of student learning and teaching, but also removes this entire field from the academically conceivable, encounterable, and engageable for colleagues working outside Tamazgha. Thus,  projects solely presented as Amazigh studies projects may be rejected for the simple reason that they are not legible to readers. While a reviewer may feel that this is the right thing to do, their decision has a two-fold negative impact. It deprives Amazigh studies scholars of their right to receive grants and strips the field of the publicity that comes from the announcements of the recipients of these grants, which, in turn, set the agenda for knowledge production. Thus, Amazigh studies is doubly penalized because its absence from the fold of the current Maghreb studies institutional offerings limits its ability to reach beyond specialists in the geographical location of Tamazgha.

The loss for Amazigh studies also extends to the scholarly peer review process. Because Tamazight has not been taught for a very long time, Anglophone academia has not been able to produce a large number of scholars who can read and write in Tamazgha’s native language. The consequence of this situation, which is in no way the scholars’ fault, is that it has deprived the field of the existence of a group of Anglophone scholars who can evaluate and assess scholarly works primarily based on sources in Tamazight. This might seem like a minor  issue, but the reality, however, is different. Peer review is an important step toward the production of cutting-edge scholarship that opens up the boundaries of knowledge forward. Reviewers invite manuscript authors to make interventions that both deepen knowledge in a given field and  sharpen its methodologies. As a result, while fieldwork-based studies in Amazigh studies do not face these obstacles, the studies in English that draw on written sources in Tamazight have suffered from this structural issue. Of course, native speakers of Tamazight are a tremendous help in adjudicating this scholarship, but their generosity cannot resolve a structural problem that requires departmental decisions about curriculum, hiring, and doing justice to an Indigenous people’s language and culture.

Tamazgha-focused Arabic and Francophone studies do not face these obstacles. They are spared the fate of Amazigh studies because they are formed into resourced departments and programs that have trained generations of scholars who are well-versed in these disciplines and their languages. Consequently, Tamazight needs to have its moment of fair treatment, not just as one of Tamazgha’s academic languages, which is used on a daily basis to produce knowledge, but as the language of an Indigenous people who have survived domination and cultural suppression. This work should not and is not the sole burden of Imazighen because it should be the duty of everyone working on Tamazgha and caring about doing justice to its indigenous culture.

No-Amazigh-studies has also meant that Tamazight has yet to become an ordinary mainstay of applications and calls for papers. A few months ago, a Tamazgha-centered center published the list of projects selected for their annual fellowship. I was surprised to notice that neither “Amazigh” nor  “Tamazight” figured on any of the projects selected and displayed on their website. This realization pushed me to  email the director of the program who reassured me that they received no submissions in Amazigh studies. However,  I know that there is no shortage of Amazigh scholars who are working on exciting and cutting-edge projects. This is just one situation that reflects the longue durée crisis in the field of North African studies, which has been unable to recognize and integrate its Amazigh dimension, as well as a failure on the part of organizers of calls of papers to simply be diligent about explicitly highlighting Tamazight in their calls for submissions. Because I always write privately to colleagues to draw attention to this fact, the response has usually been positive. Nevertheless, this feels like a burden that comes with the risk of irritating well-meaning people. Thus, the more sustainable solution should be an explicit affirmative action vis-à-vis Tamazight and Imazighen by stating that projects on Tamazight are particularly welcome. I would not be surprised if these calls elicit dozens of Tamazight-centered proposals when their language becomes explicitly Tamazight-inclusive. The disciplinary histories that need to be dismantled have siloed Amazigh studies scholars from the rest of the current Maghreb studies, and unless their discipline is mentioned they may not even attempt to seize many of the opportunities that they qualify for.  

Discussing the wide-ranging ramifications of no-Amazigh-studies in current Anglophone Maghreb studies deserves a longer study, but I wanted to draw attention to the invisible toll the no-Amazigh-studies situation has taken on both the field and the people working in it. I understand that the dynamic in the United States has infused a new life in Anglophone Amazigh studies, but these initiatives cannot replace the more sustainable work of Amazigh studies’ institutionalization within existing programs and departments focused on the study of Tamazgha. This work has been long overdue.  

[1] Brahim El Guabli, “Where Is Amazigh Studies?” The Journal of North African Studies 27: 6(2022): 1093–1100. doi:10.1080/13629387.2022.2114234 and Brahim El Guabli, “Amazigh Indigenous Post-Coloniality and Maghreb/North African Studies,” The Journal of North African Studies 30:2 (2025): 163–75. doi:10.1080/13629387.2024.2436701.

[2] El Guabli, “Amazigh Indigenous Post-Coloniality and Maghreb/North African Studies.”