A. George Bajalia is a sociocultural anthropologist concerned with borderlands, primarily in the Western Mediterranean region. His current book project, Waiting at the Border: Language, Labor, and Infrastructure in the Strait of Gibraltar, dwells on the political, social, and cultural forms that emerge during time spent waiting among cross-border workers and West and Central African immigrants living and working around the Moroccan-Spanish borderlands surrounding Tangier and Ceuta. He has held research fellowships from the Mellon Foundation-CAORC, Fulbright-Hays, Fulbright-IIE, and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Youmein Festival, a 48-hour contemporary art and performance festival and residency in Tangier, Morocco. Throughout his work, he is interested in questions of temporality, circulation and exchange, post-structural semiotics, regional formations, and the practices and politics of boundary-marking, belonging, and difference. His courses at Wesleyan explore the relationships between anthropology, performance, and curation; migration and borderlands; endurance and the otherwise; and theories of cultural and social change.
Representative Publications:
Refereed Articles
Bajalia, A. George. 2023. “Doing Barzakh, Making Boza: Betwixt and Between Migration and Immigration in Tangier.” The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 41 (1): 17–33. https://doi.org/10.3167/cja.2023.410103. (Open Access)
w/ Batmanghelichi, Kristin Soraya, and Sami Al-Daghistani. 2021. “Introduction to the Special Issue Pluralism in Emergenc(i)Es in the Middle East and North Africa.” Review of Middle East Studies 54 (2): 162–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/rms.2021.11.
Bajalia, A. George. 2020. “Dima Africa, Daily Darija: Im/Migrant Sociality, Settlement, and State Policy in Tangier, Morocco.” The Journal of North African Studies, July, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2020.1800212.
Online Media, Print Essays, and Talks:
2023. "In and Out of Place in Tangier." Makan Journal of Culture and Space. (Forthcoming)
2022. Documenta 15. Invited Panel Discussion. New Tribes: Revis(it)ing Historical Caravan Routes through Contemporary Territorial Perspectives of Cultural Initiatives.
2022. “What remains from al-Andalus?” CHERGUI, June 20, 2022. (https://www.academia.edu/98469311/What_Remains_From_al_Andalus)
2021. “Waiting and Working: Shared Difference and Labors of Belonging in Immigrant Tangier.” POMEPS Studies, 44 Racial Formations in Africa and the Middle East: A Transregional Approach (September 16, 2021). https://pomeps.org/waiting-and-working-shared-difference-and-labors-of-belonging-in-immigrant-tangier.
2021. “Borders/Breakdown.” In De La Dérive / On Drifting / ¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿, edited by Justine Daquin, Zoé Le Voyer, Sanaa Zaghoud, and Manon Bachelier. Vilnius, Lithuania: JSC KOPA. (https://calypso3621.com/archive/frontiere-repartition/)
Bajalia, A. George, and Aida Alami. “Podcast: Roots and Traces of Contemporary Cultural Life in Tangier.” Tangier American Legation Museum (blog), September 16, 2021. https://legation.org/podcast-roots-and-traces-of-contemporary-cultural-life-in-tangier/.
w/ Francesca Masoero. 2020. “QANAT and The Art of Digging Holes in Water in Marrakech.” CHERGUI, February 20, 2020. (pdf downloadable at https://www.academia.edu/43331081/Larte_di_fare_buchi_nellacqua_QANAT_Chergui_)
w/ Charlotte Malterre-Barthes. 2018. “Crossing into Ceuta.” Migrant Journal, no. 4, Dark Matters (June): 8–23. (pdf downloadable at https://www.academia.edu/43333630/Crossing_into_Ceuta)
Student Hours: Drop in hours are Tuesday 1:30 to 3:00pm. Appointment hours are Thursday 1:30 to 3:30pm, and you can make an appointment here: https://calendly.com/abajalia
