Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium

13. A Place to Belong: Colonial Pasts, Modern Discourses, and Contraceptive Practices in Morocco

239 13. a Place to belong: colonial Pasts, Modern discourses, and contracePtive Practices in Morocco Cortney L. Hughes The Middle East and North Africa (mena) has often been portrayed in popular and scholarly discourses as a homogenous entity comprised of countries linked together through culture, ethnicity, and religion. Places as far west as Morocco and as far east as southwest Asia have been included in or excluded from the region in its various definitions. Charles Lindholm points out that “in terms of square miles, the Middle East is the largest ‘culture area’ of any of those that generally are included in the anthropological division of the world” (1995, 805). How is the mena conceptualized as a theoretical construct and a geographical place? How do individuals living in the region see themselves as belonging to a nation-state and to the larger region? My ethnographic fieldwork in Rabat, Morocco on reproductive healthcare challenges the idea in some popular and scholarly discourses that the mena is a seamless body of nation-states. For example, my interactions with Salima, a lower-middle class Moroccan woman living in Rabat, and with an Imam at a mosque in the Mid-Atlas Mountains, contest this generalized notion of the Middle East and North Africa.1 One afternoon Salima and I walked from a health clinic tucked away in a working-class neighborhood in Rabat that is run 240 Anthropology of Religion and Secularism in the mena by a non-governmental organization (ngo) with close ties to the London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation (ippf).We made our way through a very busy open-air market where people buzzed about buying fruit, vegetables, and other household items. Salima was dressed in a long black coat and donned a matching black hijab on this chilly day in February 2008. She had come to the health clinic to see the gynecologist for a contrôle, or follow-up visit, for her intra-uterine device (iud). On our walk I asked Salima if she had children, but she responded with “pas encore” or “not yet.” Salima was twenty-six years old at the time of our conversation and had been married for only a short period. I then inquired if she and her husband wanted to have children in the future, to which she responded“inschallah,”or“God willing,”a phrase I had become accustomed to hearing in Morocco on a regular basis from nearly everyone: practicing Muslims, non-practicing Muslims, Americans, and other foreign residents alike. During our walk, Salima asked me where I lived and what I thought of the people in Morocco. I told her that I lived in a nearby quarter and that I had met some amazing and interesting individuals while in the country. Salima gave me a warm smile and said, “Bien sûr,” meaning “of course”; it was almost as if she anticipated my response. She then said that she loved Morocco even though she had family living abroad. I asked Salima why she liked living in the country so much. She explained in a mixture of French and Moroccan Arabic, “Because it’s not France. It’s not Europe, but it’s not Saudi Arabia. It’s islamique.” She continued,“It’s Islamic, but we can do these things here. It’s not haram.” Haram means “forbidden” in Arabic, and in her response the word “things” referred to contraception. Salima’s comments about Morocco, Islam, and contraception resonated with views held by Imam Khaloub. During a conversation in his office tacked onto the back of the mosque, I asked him about the relationship between modernity and Islam in Morocco,specifically how he thinks they pertain to women’s lives. He answered that,“People in Saudi Arabia don’t know Islam.” I asked him to elaborate on this point.“Sh f ” (look), he explained,“women can’t drive there. That is not Islam. They don’t know Islam or modernity [al-hdatha].” Women’s social status and what they can and cannot do freely are central to Imam Khaloub’s judgment of what is considered to be Islamic and what is considered to be modern. Toward the end of our conversation, and in the midst of children’s voices singing in the mosque, the Imam spoke about his wife’s experiences at the doctor ’s office. This served as an example of how the convergence of Islam and A Place to...