“Knowledge in the Service of the Cause”: Education and the Sahrawi Struggle for Self-Determination

Authors

  • Randa Farah University of Western Ontario

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.34720

Keywords:

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR, Algeria, Sahrawi refugees, education strategy, citizenship, self-determination

Abstract

This article examines the education strategy of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the state-in-exile with partial sovereignty on “borrowed territory” in Algeria. The article, which opens with a historical glance at the conflict, argues that SADR’s education program not only succeeded in fostering self-reliance by developing skilled human resources, but was forward looking, using education as a vehicle to instill “new traditions of citizenship” and a new imagined national community, in preparation for future repatriation. In managing refugee camps as provinces of a state, the boundaries between the “refugee” as status and the “citizen” as a political identity were blurred. However,the stalled decolonization process and prolonged exile produced new challenges and consequences. Rather than using the skilled human resources in an independent stat eof Western Sahara, the state-in-limbo forced SADR andthe refugees to adapt to a deadlocked conflict, but not necessarily with negative outcomes to the national project.

Metrics

PDF views
963
Jan 2012Jul 2012Jan 2013Jul 2013Jan 2014Jul 2014Jan 2015Jul 2015Jan 2016Jul 2016Jan 2017Jul 2017Jan 2018Jul 2018Jan 2019Jul 2019Jan 2020Jul 2020Jan 2021Jul 2021Jan 2022Jul 2022Jan 2023Jul 2023Jan 2024Jul 2024Jan 2025Jul 2025Jan 202630
|

Published

2012-01-18

How to Cite

Farah, R. (2012). “Knowledge in the Service of the Cause”: Education and the Sahrawi Struggle for Self-Determination. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 27(2), 30–41. https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.34720

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.