Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This chapter explores France’s contributions to the study of Moroccan music repertoires, focusing primarily on cultural policies, research and education infrastructure, performance criteria, and racial discourses surrounding music. This analysis situates these significant interventions in music scholarship and education within the broader context of France’s racial policy and production of anthropological, historical, and archaeological knowledge about the populations of the Maghreb. The beginning of the French protectorate’s contribution to the study of Morocco’s musical repertoires can be dated around the time the establishment in 1920 of the Service des Arts Indigènes, directed by Prosper Ricard, with Alexis Chottin as head of the music subsection. A central aspect of France’s contribution to the study of Morocco’s music repertoires was its tight alignment with French ‘Berber’ policy, which subjected Arabs and Imazighen to two distinct linguistic and jurisdictional regimes in an attempt to divide and weaken them. Accordingly, French music scholarship portrayed Arabs and Imazighen as two contrasting musical cultures expressive of radically opposed sensitivities.</jats:p>