Refracting custom in Western Sahara's quest for statehood

This article argues that distinctions made by local actors between different legal and normative orders within a broad field of custom should receive greater analytical attention. Local distinctions within custom have sometimes been overlooked in scholarly emphasis on other distinctions, such as between custom and state law, or between custom and religious law. The significance of local distinctions within custom comes to the fore in the case of the liberation movement from Western Sahara, a disputed territory partially annexed by Morocco in 1975. In exile in Algeria, Western Sahara's liberation movement has set up a state-like government that seeks international recognition as a state. In support of its efforts at state-making, the liberation movement has drawn on a longstanding local distinction within custom to produce a distinction between a‘rāf, construed as tribal laws to be erased, and ‘ādāt, construed as customary cultural heritage to be elevated

Ambivalences of mobility: rival state authorities and mobile strategies in a Saharan conflict

How do ongoing histories of mobility in economic and political life affect rival state authorities’ claims over a disputed territory? In the conflict over Western Sahara, wide-ranging strategies of mobility pose a challenge to familiar tropes of states constraining movement while subjects seek to escape such control. Morocco and its rival, the liberation movement Polisario Front, both curb mobility while their mobile Sahrawi subjects evade the authority of a state; simultaneously, however, each state authority invests in the circulation of persons to support claims over territory while Sahrawis exercise mobility to enhance their position vis-à-vis a state authority. Mobility emerges as an ambivalent means of mediating and transforming power relations, especially between governing authorities and governed constituencies. [mobility, Morocco, Polisario Front, sovereignty, the state, territory, Western Sahara

Natural resource exploitation in Western Sahara: new research directions

The authors wish to thank the Leverhulme Trust (through their Early Career scheme) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity, (CSO2017-86986-P, AEI/FEDER, UE) for funding this research. We would also like to thank Patricia Lalonde for her translations and editorial work, as well as all participants of the 'Analysis of the Management and Exploitation of Natural Resources in Situations of Conflict: The Case of Western Sahara' project (funded by the aforementioned ministry), for their constructive comments on earlier iterations of this paper.This review article provides an overview of research to date with an explicit focus on natural resource exploitation in Western Sahara. It integrates findings from various perspectives and disciplines, and synthesises the research done with a view to revealing gaps and, therefore, potential new research directions. As the issue of natural resource exploitation in Western Sahara has been conceptualised in very different ways and from the perspectives of a variety of disciplines, the authors have opted for a semi-systematic review of the work done encompassing academic, non-academic, and activist backgrounds.Leverhulme TrustSpanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity (AEI/FEDER, UE) CSO2017-86986-