Publication Date
Spring 2025
Abstract
This project explores the contemporary role of Gnawa music in Morocco through an ethnographic study in the village of Khamlia in the Southeast region of Morocco. Gnawa people are known for their spiritual traditions, specifically their musical rituals. The Gnawa have used music as a tool for healing, remembrance, and expression. This research investigates how Gnawa music is practiced today and how it functions as a form of commodification and racialized tourism. The study draws from both field observations and heavy literature analysis in various fields including research in colonial trauma, Black identity in Morocco, and clinical applications of music therapy. This study finds that while daily performances are tailored to tourists and often reduce centuries of complex and painful histories, sacred ceremonies remain protected and continue to serve their original purpose of healing the community. This paper argues that Gnawa music exists at a point of tension in today’s world as the Gnawa must negotiate portions of their identity for survival due to pressures of the tourist economy in the Sahara Desert.
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Rodriguez, Isabel, "The Healing Power and Commodification of Gnawa Music and Black Identity in Southern Morocco" (2025). Morocco: Human Rights, Social Justice, and Cultural Transformation. 8.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/mor2/8