Final Report Summary - EUROMOROCCANSCIENCE (Circulating modernity: the role of student missions sent to Europe in the scientific and social modernization of pre-colonial Morocco (1873-1912))
This project’s main objective consisted of assessing the hypothesis that students sent abroad had a major role in the project for modernizing science, technology and medicine in pre-colonial Morocco, as well as in the political and social modernization of Moroccan society at large. It was my guess that such role, though it did not prevent European occupation of the country, contributed to disrupt and trouble French and Spanish rule to a significant extent during the whole duration of the Protectorate regimes (1912-1956). For that purpose, I gathered a large mass of archive documents and primary bibliography from institutions in several European countries. In France, from the Archives Nationales, the Service Historique de la Defense, the Académie Nationale de Médecine, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Archives de l’Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Archives d’Architecture du XXème siècle, all of them in Paris and from the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques in Nantes. In Belgium, from the Archive Historique du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères and the Archives Générales du Royaume in Brussels. In Great Britain, from the National Archives in London. In Spain, from the Archivo Histórico Militar in Segovia and the Archivo General de la Marina in Viso del Marqués. In Portugal, from the Arquivo do Ministério dos Negocios Estrangeiros in Lisbon. I also made personal oral interviews in Ceuta and Tangier to old Spanish and Moroccan health personnel that worked in northern Morocco in the 1950s. Finally, with a view at being able to read secondary bibliography and documents in Moroccan archives, I undertook courses of Arabic language, intermediate level, in the Espace des Cultures et Langues d’Ailleurs of the École Normale Supérieure of Paris both in my first and second year of project.
With all those sources and with other I had already gathered in previous projects, I managed to present the first results of our research in international congresses and conferences, to discuss them with colleagues in academic seminars and to put them in circulation through journal articles and book chapters. During the two years of our Marie Curie project and in the forthcoming two years, I will have prepared 19 international congress presentations, made 4 academic seminars and published 8 peer-reviewed and 3 non peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 scientific monographs, 5 sections in edited books and 1 paper in the proceedings of a conference. A third of them are in direct relation to my Marie Curie research, with special relevance of the paper presented at the international conference I organized in our host institution together with my supervisor Prof. Pascal Crozet in June 2015 and whose contributions I will edit in 2016 as a collective volume with the title “Modernizers. Changing science and society in the Middle East and North Africa (1870s-1930s)”. Another third of the presentations and publications are related to relevant collaboration activities I have developed in the course of the Marie Curie project. The logic behind them has been to expand my initial research topic to a larger consideration of processes of scientific modernization in Morocco, especially in relation with public health institutions and administrations.
On the one hand, the contact with Kmar ben Nefissa, an associate researcher at my host institution, resulted in the organization of the international conference “Les Instituts Pasteur du Maghreb: des origines aux indépendances nationales” in Paris in November 2014, for which I managed to obtain the financial support of the Institut des Humanités de Paris in its call for projects of 2014. A selection of papers from that conference will be published in 2016 in a monographic dossier I am editing for the journal Dynamis. Another similar meeting is already under way with the title “Cultures et sociétés autour des Instituts Pasteur du Maghreb et de l’Iran (1890-1960)” that will gather around ten researchers from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, France and the United Kingdom in Tangier in January 2016. On the other hand, contacts made with John Chircop, director of the Mediterranean Institute in the University of Malta, resulted in the set-up of the so-called “Quarantine Studies Network”, which presently groups over 30 researchers from all over the world. A first international conference with the title “Mediterranean under Quarantine” was organized in Malta in November 2014, for which a website was put in operation. A collective volume edited by me and Prof. Chircop is currently under preparation for publication in 2016 in Routledge’s series “Studies on the Social History of Medicine” with the title “Quarantines. Space, identity and power in the Mediterranean, 1780-1914”. Finally, another third of presentations and publications resulted from previous and new lines of research with no direct connection with my Marie Curie project and its attached collaborations.
The processing of data for their presentation and publication has helped me draw a preliminary picture of the community of Moroccan students trained in modern science, technology and medicine in the late 19th century. A more complete image would have been possible if I had managed to visit some archives in Italy and Morocco, but the second year of my project has been affected by the birth of my daughter and the resulting suspension of my Marie Curie contract between January and March 2015. Nevertheless, I have managed to identify 46 students and I expect the total number will be close to around 75. I have collected enough data to elaborate a basic profile of them that includes their social origins, dates of birth and death, secondary education, professional training in Europe or in European-style institutions in Morocco and subsequent scientific and non-scientific activities in their country. Pictures or any other highly valuable iconographic material is scarce and has been very difficult to find, only for less than 5 of them.
On this basis, I would put as first main conclusion of my research that the circulation of Moroccan students in Europe and in local-based European-style institutions had a real effect in Morocco’s social, political and scientific modernization. The European takeover of the country would have been much less troubled and more typically colonial if modernization initiatives had not been launched by Moroccan authorities and other actors of society. As second relevant conclusion, I believe that it was more beneficial for Moroccan interests to train students locally, in European-style institutions set up in collaboration with second-rank European powers (Italy, Spain), than send them to Europe, especially to more advanced countries (Great Britain, France) that only offered them incomplete or low-quality training. Finally, my research indicated that a good part of those modern Moroccan scientists engaged in political activities or were given government responsibilities. Some would be recruited by French and Spanish authorities for their respective Protectorate administrations but others showed a lifelong commitment against European imperialism and in favor of a more liberal regime for independent Morocco.
I think these conclusions drawn from historical research can be of use for governmental and non-governmental actors involved in the conception and development of current policies of scientific cooperation between the UE and individual UE states and the Maghreb and of promotion of democratic changes in the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
With all those sources and with other I had already gathered in previous projects, I managed to present the first results of our research in international congresses and conferences, to discuss them with colleagues in academic seminars and to put them in circulation through journal articles and book chapters. During the two years of our Marie Curie project and in the forthcoming two years, I will have prepared 19 international congress presentations, made 4 academic seminars and published 8 peer-reviewed and 3 non peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 scientific monographs, 5 sections in edited books and 1 paper in the proceedings of a conference. A third of them are in direct relation to my Marie Curie research, with special relevance of the paper presented at the international conference I organized in our host institution together with my supervisor Prof. Pascal Crozet in June 2015 and whose contributions I will edit in 2016 as a collective volume with the title “Modernizers. Changing science and society in the Middle East and North Africa (1870s-1930s)”. Another third of the presentations and publications are related to relevant collaboration activities I have developed in the course of the Marie Curie project. The logic behind them has been to expand my initial research topic to a larger consideration of processes of scientific modernization in Morocco, especially in relation with public health institutions and administrations.
On the one hand, the contact with Kmar ben Nefissa, an associate researcher at my host institution, resulted in the organization of the international conference “Les Instituts Pasteur du Maghreb: des origines aux indépendances nationales” in Paris in November 2014, for which I managed to obtain the financial support of the Institut des Humanités de Paris in its call for projects of 2014. A selection of papers from that conference will be published in 2016 in a monographic dossier I am editing for the journal Dynamis. Another similar meeting is already under way with the title “Cultures et sociétés autour des Instituts Pasteur du Maghreb et de l’Iran (1890-1960)” that will gather around ten researchers from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, France and the United Kingdom in Tangier in January 2016. On the other hand, contacts made with John Chircop, director of the Mediterranean Institute in the University of Malta, resulted in the set-up of the so-called “Quarantine Studies Network”, which presently groups over 30 researchers from all over the world. A first international conference with the title “Mediterranean under Quarantine” was organized in Malta in November 2014, for which a website was put in operation. A collective volume edited by me and Prof. Chircop is currently under preparation for publication in 2016 in Routledge’s series “Studies on the Social History of Medicine” with the title “Quarantines. Space, identity and power in the Mediterranean, 1780-1914”. Finally, another third of presentations and publications resulted from previous and new lines of research with no direct connection with my Marie Curie project and its attached collaborations.
The processing of data for their presentation and publication has helped me draw a preliminary picture of the community of Moroccan students trained in modern science, technology and medicine in the late 19th century. A more complete image would have been possible if I had managed to visit some archives in Italy and Morocco, but the second year of my project has been affected by the birth of my daughter and the resulting suspension of my Marie Curie contract between January and March 2015. Nevertheless, I have managed to identify 46 students and I expect the total number will be close to around 75. I have collected enough data to elaborate a basic profile of them that includes their social origins, dates of birth and death, secondary education, professional training in Europe or in European-style institutions in Morocco and subsequent scientific and non-scientific activities in their country. Pictures or any other highly valuable iconographic material is scarce and has been very difficult to find, only for less than 5 of them.
On this basis, I would put as first main conclusion of my research that the circulation of Moroccan students in Europe and in local-based European-style institutions had a real effect in Morocco’s social, political and scientific modernization. The European takeover of the country would have been much less troubled and more typically colonial if modernization initiatives had not been launched by Moroccan authorities and other actors of society. As second relevant conclusion, I believe that it was more beneficial for Moroccan interests to train students locally, in European-style institutions set up in collaboration with second-rank European powers (Italy, Spain), than send them to Europe, especially to more advanced countries (Great Britain, France) that only offered them incomplete or low-quality training. Finally, my research indicated that a good part of those modern Moroccan scientists engaged in political activities or were given government responsibilities. Some would be recruited by French and Spanish authorities for their respective Protectorate administrations but others showed a lifelong commitment against European imperialism and in favor of a more liberal regime for independent Morocco.
I think these conclusions drawn from historical research can be of use for governmental and non-governmental actors involved in the conception and development of current policies of scientific cooperation between the UE and individual UE states and the Maghreb and of promotion of democratic changes in the southern shore of the Mediterranean.