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The Social Life of Memory pp 25–54Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

A Life of Waiting: Political Violence, Personal Memories, and Enforced Disappearances in Morocco

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict ((PSCHC))

Abstract

In this chapter Menin focuses on the story of the disappeared Moroccan activist Omar El Ouassouli (1955–?) and his family’s struggle with the state. She concentrates on the family’s enduring experience of waiting, as a multifaceted temporality entailing both passivity and proactive engagement of memory practices. As an imposed temporality that reiterates violence and traumatic memories, waiting illuminates pervasive dimensions of state violence during and after the Years of Lead. Public testimony and rituals of commemoration are some actions by which the El Ouassouli family has struggled to find a voice against institutional attempts to impose oblivion. Menin discusses how state violence has brought about novel political subjectivities and activism, whereby memory extends into modalities of social production.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Laura Menin

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  1. Laura Menin
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany

    Norman Saadi Nikro

  2. Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany

    Sonja Hegasy

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Menin, L. (2017). A Life of Waiting: Political Violence, Personal Memories, and Enforced Disappearances in Morocco. In: Nikro, N., Hegasy, S. (eds) The Social Life of Memory. Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66622-8_2

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