North Africa nomadic indigenous knowledge: Ayt khabach nomads urban challenges in southeastern Morocco

Abstract

Ayt Khabach, nomads of Asamer, southeastern regions of Morocco, have struggled for many decades to preserve their language and cultural identity as well as their Tussna, Indigenous ancestral knowledge. Early French colonial policies of sedentarization, the politics of proximity to the Algerian borders and the harsher desert climate forced these Irehalen, desert dwellers, to settle in villages and cities round Tafilalet which affected not only their world but also the way they understood it. In this chapter, we examine these developments as part of a larger process of displacement and sedentarization that proved too costly for these Indigenous nomadic peoples who still have economic and cultural ties to the desert. How have their Azdugh d Tussna, settlement and ways of knowing and learning, changed as they continue move between the Sahara and new urban spaces? Now these communities are facing many challenges in re-creating structures and methods to teach their stories (anthologies) and ways of knowing (epistemologies) to younger generations who are becoming less interested in nomadic knowledge now that they live in towns.