Capitalizing on its comparative political and social stability in the region, in recent years the Moroccan regime has been attracting global and regional investors with the promise of new ... Show moreCapitalizing on its comparative political and social stability in the region, in recent years the Moroccan regime has been attracting global and regional investors with the promise of new ‘megaprojects’ that aim to radically transform local natural, economic and social landscapes. Inaugurated in 2018, Morocco’s (and Africa’s) first high-speed rail line (LGV) is considered a flagship project within this landscape. Part of a wider ‘development corridor’, this 2-billion-euro infrastructure has become invested with political, ideological, and strongly affective meanings related to ideas of mobility and future prosperity, even as it violently displaced informal housing communities and created disruptions along the existing rail network. Drawing on the recent theoretical apparatus of anthropologies of infrastructure, this paper traces the ways in which the introduction of high-speed railway has thrown into stark relief the scaling of geographical and temporal relationships of belonging in Morocco. From this exploration scale emerges as a political process of spatiotemporal re-arrangement that contributes to the consolidation of particular power relations while also providing a conduit for their critique. Show less
