At Home with Shakespeare: The Presence, Performance and Display of Shakespeare in the Domestic Setting

The Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa and the only Spanish-speaking Territory in the Arab World. When in 1975 the agonising François! Spain abandoned hastily its colony, Morocco and Mauritania occupied the Territory, despite the protest of the UN and the resistance of a nascent Saharawi liberation movement, the Frente Polisario. During the first months, the conflict displaced thousands of Saharawis to the neighbouring Algerian region of Tindouf, where almost
200,000 Saharawis still live today in four large refugee camps. The war between Morocco (Mauritania renounced to its territorial claims in 1979) and the Saharawi nationalists lasted until 1991, when the UN managed to broker a ceasefire with the promise of organising a self-determination referendum. But 16 years later, the referendum has not yet been organised, the peace process seems irremediably stagnant despite some recent proposals to relaunch the negotiations, and the regional tension grows dangerously. Meanwhile, the Western Sahara remains divided by a 2.600 kilometre-long military wall, built by Rabat in the late 1980s. The Western Sahara wall is the largest military wall active nowadays and separates virtually every Saharawi family.
In these three decades of conflict, the refugee camps have become the centre of a state founded by the POLlSARlO in 1976: the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) now recognised by over 70 states worldwide and founding member of the African Union (AU). What makes this case of special interest is precisely the process of nation-building developed in the refugee camps over these 30 years of exile. The refugee camps are the base of the Saharawi state-in­ waiting. It was in the camps where the POLlSARlO implemented the communitarian ideas of the Saharawi nationalism forged during the 1970s, creating a new culture and society based on the articulation of elements from the Hispanic, Arab and African traditions. The past was inscribed in a new historical narrative, a new discourse about 'what is to be a Saharawi' emerged, new frontiers of inclusion/exclusion were constructed and a new way of representing and symbolising the Saharawi nation (and the idea of Saharawi citizenship) was developed, naturalised and reproduced through a whole array of practices, spaces and narratives.
This research project aimed to study the dynamic process of identity construction and nation-building developed in the refugee camps and the areas of the Western Sahara territory under POLlSARlO control, attending at how the contours of the Saharawi nation are delineated, represented and symbolised in the refugee camps through everyday life practices, social spaces, collective imaginaries and both 'popular' and 'high' culture (literature, painting