The Amazigh Cultural Movement (ACM) has produced a rich body of literature and thought which has played a crucial role in changing states and societies in North Africa. In tandem with advocacy for linguistic and cultural rights, the ACM activists remapped African geography by inventing and deploying the neologism of Tamazgha. Extending from the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the oasis of Siwa in West Egypt and encompassing vast areas of the Sahel, Tamazgha, or the Amazigh homeland, has challenged all the traditional ways in which the Sahara has been conceptualized and discussed in scholarship, opening space for a different understanding of Islamization and cultural and demographic continuities between North and sub-Saharan Africa. This talk will address ACM activists’ construction of the Amazigh homeland and reveal Tamazgha’s transformative potential for scholarship.

Sponsored by the Africana Studies Program.

Campus community only, please.