Western Sahara: The Refugee Nation (Iberian and Latin American Studies) - Hardcover

San Martín, Pablo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0708322050 ISBN 13: 9780708322055

Publisher: University of Wales Press, 2011

Synopsis

In 1975, after Francoist Spain abandoned Western Sahara, Morocco and Mauritania hastily moved in to occupy the territory, despite protests by the United Nations and resistance from a nascent Saharawi liberation movement known as the Frente Polisario. During the conflict’s first few months, thousands of Saharawis were displaced to the neighboring Algerian region of Tindouf, where almost 200,000 Saharawis still live today in four large refugee camps. But now these camps are more than refugee settlements: they have become the center of a state founded by the Saharawi nationalists, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. This book examines how a new Saharawi identity, culture, and society has emerged in these refugee camps over the past few decades and highlights the impact that  the Hispanic, Arab, and African worlds have had in shaping the contours of this nation.

About this title

About the Author:

Pablo San Martín works as a freelance writer and consultant who specializes in conflict, security and nationalism in Spanish-speaking Africa. Until 2009, he was lecturer in Spanish studies at the University of Leeds.

Review:

“A credible history and analysis of the ways in which the Sahrawis, from Spanish colonial times to the present, have come to see themselves and have coped with the often-wrenching changes to their environment. . . . [T]hose already conversant with Western Sahara will find this book a useful addition to their collections, as it contains material of many types not readily accessible elsewhere in English.”
(allAfrica)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0708322050
• ISBN 13: 9780708322055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 226