Decolonizing the Race Debate about North Africa

Abstract This essay discusses the discourse of race and racism as a “new zone” of theory grounded in orientalist claims about discovery and saving. It shows how this discourse centers slavery as an ultimate lens through which to understand the race question in the North Africa. The essay asks these questions: why have race and migration in North Africa and the Middle East become such an active zone of theory? Which concepts and frameworks dominate the scholarly debates, and with what political effects? These are consequential questions that the Moroccan case can help answer. A decolonial ethics should begin with the vibrant debates already taking place in Morocco. Moroccans’ engagement with the question of race preceded its discovery as a new field for generating expertise by Western-based scholars and journalists.