The Ait Ayash of the High Molouya Plain: Rural Social Organization in Morocco

Author John Chiapuris lived in Morocco for sixteen months while doing fieldwork with the Ait Ayash, a Berber-speaking community of irrigation agriculturalists occupying the Ansegmir Valley in the High Moulouya plain. In the first part of this study, Chiapuris explains the ethnohistorial background and sociopolitical organization of the Ait Ayash. In the second section, he focuses on the regional setting and the changes initiated by the French Protectorate in 1912. In the third, he analyzes domestic production, household organization, and marriage patterns in the contemporary period.