Lecture by Cristiana Strava: Disturbing Poses: Policing Youth on Casablanca’s Margins

In the spring of 2014, a large wave of police raids swept every working class, sha`abi neighbourhood in Casablanca, Morocco. Official statements described the raids as part of a campaign to reduce delinquency and urban crime, but the media soon labelled them the “Tcharmila affair”. Made visible by the growing online circulation of selfie photographs that depicted young lower class males sporting allegedly stolen goods, dressed in track-suits, and handling butcher knives, Tcharmila could have been a mere passing fad. Instead it provoked a national moral panic at the time.

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