Migration and culture at the heart of Gnaoua Festival's 12th Human Rights Forum
The Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival will organize the 12th edition of its Human Rights Forum on June 20-21, 2025, focusing on «Human Mobilities and Cultural Dynamics».
The two-day event, held in partnership with the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad (CCME), will bring together intellectuals, artists, and researchers to examine migration narratives and their cultural impact.
Professor Andrea Rea from the Free University of Brussels will deliver the opening lecture on new mobility geographies. Historian Pascal Blanchard will analyze social representations of migration, while political scientist Fatima Zibouh and digital sociology researcher Dana Diminescu will explore tensions between migration narratives and public policies.
The forum will feature prominent artistic voices, including filmmakers Faouzi Bensaïdi and Elia Suleiman, writer Véronique Tadjo, and artist Barthélémy Toguo. Literary contributors include authors Elgas, Rim Najmi, Taha Adnan, and Abdelkader Benali.
According to festival producer Neila Tazi, the forum extends the festival's mission by exploring how ideas circulate like musical rhythms. CCME president Driss El Yazami emphasized the forum's role in highlighting migration's creative contributions against narratives of closure.
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