Problematizing Neoliberalism and Development: Creating Citizens (and Future Citizens) through Reproduction and Childrearing in Morocco

• Cortney Hughes Rinker ^[1]
  1. [1] George Mason University

     George Mason University

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Hesperis Tamuda, ISSN 0018-1005, Nº. 55, 4, 2020, págs. 151-172
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This article analyzes reproductive and childrearing practices among working-class women in Rabat, Morocco. Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork in reproductive health clinics and at an NGO, in combination with an examination of images and texts and the more recent literature, I problematize the concepts of development, neoliberalism, and the neoliberal citizen. My objective is to trace the reorientation of the development agenda in Morocco, from a focus on economic development to social development, with particular attention to the National Initiative for Human Development (2005-2010), and the subsequent impacts on reproduction and the rearing of the future generations among poorer urban segments of the Moroccan population. Even though the influence of neoliberalism on subjectivity has been widely researched, although there is less documentation when it comes to the Middle East and North Africa as compared to other world regions, I argue that it is unproductive to have a set conceptualization of neoliberalism, and rather while there are underlying defining characteristics, it is more productive to examine the varied practices, beliefs, and discourses that shape neoliberal reform and create neoliberal citizens and subjectivities. I show how the goals and hopes among my women participants for child bearing and childrearing and the ways in which particular reproductive practices were promoted to women in clinics in Rabat and the media are enmeshed within a neoliberal ideology and reform in Morocco. I provide a nuanced account of reproduction from multiple analytic levels that foregrounds Morocco’s global position and the effects of globalization on everyday lives.