The Berber Agdal Institution: Indigenous Range Management in the Atlas Mountains

The A. examines the historical organization of the agdal institution and identifies its constraints and opportunities among Berbers of southeast Morocco. There are many types of agdals at different levels of Berber social organization and conflict is ever present. Analysis of the agdal arrangements for the communal use of pasture demonstrates how pastoral groups manipulate kinship and historical opportunities to negotiate order, grass, and subsistence in the highly variable environment of the High Atlas mountains. Technological innovation has exacerbated conflict among the users of pasture, but agdal management attests to its resilience. The persistence of conflict in the Ait Yaflman confederation over the use of agdals is rooted in the historical and environmental conjunctures of sixteenth-century Morocco, and the amplification of these historical forces by French colonial and postcolonial policies of resource management.