A. George Bajalia is a sociocultural anthropologist concerned with borderlands, primarily in the Western Mediterranean region. His current book project, Waiting at the Border: Language, Labor, and Infrastructure in the Strait of Gibraltar, dwells on the political, social, and cultural forms that emerge during time spent waiting among cross-border workers and West and Central African immigrants living and working around the Moroccan-Spanish borderlands surrounding Tangier and Ceuta. He has held research fellowships from the Mellon Foundation-CAORC, Fulbright-Hays, Fulbright-IIE, and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Youmein Festival, a 48-hour contemporary art and performance festival and residency in Tangier, Morocco. Throughout his work, he is interested in questions of temporality, circulation and exchange, post-structural semiotics, regional formations, and the practices and politics of boundary-marking, belonging, and difference. His courses at Wesleyan explore the relationships between anthropology, performance, and curation; migration and borderlands; endurance and the otherwise; and theories of cultural and social change.

Representative Publications:

Refereed Publications

Bajalia, A. George. 2023. “Doing Barzakh, Making Boza: Betwixt and Between Migration and Immigration in Tangier.” The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 41 (1): 17–33. https://doi.org/10.3167/cja.2023.410103.

Bajalia, A. George. 2021. “Waiting and Working: Shared Difference and Labors of Belonging in Immigrant Tangier.” POMEPS Studies, 44 Racial Formations in Africa and the Middle East: A Transregional Approach (September). https://pomeps.org/waiting-and-working-shared-difference-and-labors-of-belonging-in-immigrant-tangier.

Bajalia, A. George. 2021. “Dima Africa, Daily Darija: Im/Migrant Sociality, Settlement, and State Policy in Tangier, Morocco.” The Journal of North African Studies 26 (5): 973–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2020.1800212.

Batmanghelichi, Kristin Soraya, A. George Bajalia, and Sami Al-Daghistani. 2020. “Introduction to the Special Issue Pluralism in Emergenc(i)Es in the Middle East and North Africa.” Review of Middle East Studies 54 (2): 162–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/rms.2021.11. (Co-Editor of Special Issue)

Book Reviews:

Public Scholarship

Bajalia, A. George. 2024. "In Between Silence." Hot Spots, Fieldsights, October 15. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/in-between-silence (Editor Reviewed)

Bajalia, A. George. 2023. “In and Out of Place in Tangier.” Makan Journal of Culture and Space 2 (Manufacturing Narratives). Rabat: KULTE Publishing. (Editor Reviewed)

Bajalia, A. George. 2022. “Basta with Al-Andalus.” CHERGUI. Marrakech: LE18. (https://www.academia.edu/98469311/What_Remains_From_al_Andalus) 

Bajalia, A. George. 2022. "Review: Pièces Détachèes, The work of Nassim Azarzar" K-oh-llective Reviews. https://kohllective.com/Pieces-Detachees (in Arabic here: https://kohllective.com/Pieces-Detachees_AR)

Bajalia, A. George, and Aida Alami. 2021. “Podcast: Roots and Traces of Contemporary Cultural Life in Tangier.” Tangier American Legation Museum (blog). September 16, 2021. https://legation.org/podcast-roots-and-traces-of-contemporary-cultural-life-in-tangier/.

Bajalia, A. George. 2021. “Borders/Breakdown.” In De La Dérive / On Drifting / عن الانجراف, edited by Justine Daquin, Zoé Le Voyer, Sanaa Zaghoud, and Manon Bachelier. Vilnius, Lithuania: JSC KOPA. https://calypso3621.com/archive/frontiere-repartition/)

Bajalia, A. George, and Francesca Masoero. 2020. “QANAT and The Art of Digging Holes in Water in Marrakech.” CHERGUI. Marrakech: LE18.

Malterre-Barthes, Charlotte, and A. George Bajalia. 2018. “Crossing into Ceuta.” Migrant Journal, no. 4, Dark Matters (June): 8–23. (Editor Reviewed) https://www.academia.edu/43333630/Crossing_into_Ceuta)

Bajalia, A. George. 2014. “Language Arts in Morocco: Reflections on the New Mohammed VI Modern and Contemporary Art Museum and a Conversation with Translator Zakaria Alilech – KALIMAT Art + Design.” November 19, 2014. http://www.kalimatmagazine.com/artdesign/14092337.

———. 2015 “Language, Theatre & Morocco’s February 20th Movement.” Muftah. http://muftah.org/language-theatre-moroccos-february-20th-movement/.