PhD in History (2020)
About
My research deals with the urban environmental history of colonial and post-colonial Morocco. My dissertation explores the link between colonial concepts of urban crisis and the socio-technical work of remaking Morocco's urban housing and infrastructures by tracing the movements of building materials through different technical systems, ecological relationships, and regimes of value. By analyzing how experts, officials, and urban residents mobilized materials and arguments about materials to envision and enact political futures, I argue that "technological" solutions to colonial urban problems reconfigured forms of vulnerability and authority during Morocco's Protectorate period and post-colonial transition. As a key site of experimentation for planners and engineers and a transfer point between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Morocco also provides an ideal case for examining how knowledge about materials traveled transnationally—creating geographies of imperial power, technological exchange, and shared vulnerability
Field(s) of Study
- 20th Century North Africa and Europe
- Science and Technology Studies
- History of Technology
- Environmental History
