Highlighting Hidden Stories: Sahrawi Poets and Hassani Poetry in North Africa

Sahrawi Poets and Hassani Poetry in North Africa

In this lecture Dr. Deubel will explore the Hassani musical genre today, its political significance, and its influences from the oral poetic tradition in Hassaniya Arabic, classical Arabic poetry, and sub-Saharan cultures.

Dr. Tara Deubel is Assistant Professor and Graduate Director in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She is a sociocultural anthropologist with regional expertise in Africa and the Middle East. Her research interests include language and performance, gender and development, forced migration and refugee resettlement, and visual anthropology. She has conducted long-term fieldwork in Morocco, Mali, Mauritania, and Algeria. She is the co-editor of Saharan Crossroads: Exploring Historical, Cultural and Artistic Linkages between North and West Africa and several book chapters and articles, including “Poetics of Diaspora: Sahrawi Poets and Postcolonial Transformations of a Trans-Saharan Genre in Northwest Africa” in the Journal of North African Studies. Her current project examines the racialized and gendered experiences of sub-Saharan African migrants in southern Morocco. She is also planning a three-year summer field school in Agadir, Morocco funded by the National Science Foundation to study the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of edible and cosmetic argan oil produced by rural Amazigh women.

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