Building Modern Morocco One Woman At A Time

This ethnography is a study of the roles Moroccan women play in the country's current development policy. In 2005, Morocco launched a new development initiative that shifts focus from economic growth to human development, specifically changing individuals' attitudes and how they think about themselves as citizens. The government acknowledges women have been a "forgotten element" in Moroccan development since the country achieved independence from France in 1956, and now recognizes how crucial they are within the modernization process. However, women are mainly included through their reproductive bodies instead of their productive labor and are given the responsibility of controlling the fertility rate and population growth for the country. Given this situation, this ethnography seeks to answer three questions: What are the reproductive subjects Morocco is trying to create through development? What are the childbearing and childrearing practices associated with these subjects? And, how do women interpret these practices and how do they shape how they see their roles as citizens? Based upon eighteen months of ethnographic research in and around the capital city of Rabat, using participant-observation, formal and informal interviews, and a visual and textual analysis of various materials, I argue that my female participants appropriate modern reproductive practices - contraception, ultrasounds, and gynecological exams - to suit their everyday lifestyles. While the goals they hold concerning modernization overlap those of the government, development organizations, and medical providers (smaller families, educated children, a healthier population, and better employment opportunities), the processes to reach these objectives differ between the various parties. Here, drawing on information primarily collected in three health clinics that offered reproductive health services and selected female patients' homes, I explicate these overlaps and discrepancies to argue that Moroccan women see modern childbearing and childrearing practices as helping them become better Muslims and mothers (or future mothers), whereas the larger institutions see such practices as liberating women and aiding them take control over their lives and bodies. In reality, as they appropriate modern reproductive practices, Moroccan women are participating in the development agenda in a way that prescribes them as citizens through their ability to give birth and nurture children.