Game without Game: Children’s Activism and the Politics of the Everyday

The atmosphere of contestation in Moroccan streets post-2011 has offered children the unique opportunity to participate in mounting social critiques and political protests. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on children and social movements in MENA by examining the role children play as social and political activists. We relate a number of examples from the post-2011 events in which children display a mastery of the protocols of protest, glaring back at power and reversing the stereotypes that have long since labeled them pre-political. By exhibiting flexibility at travelling through different (a)geographies and hetero-horologic spheres, children foreground a compelling and pressing plea to see their movements, serious and playful, within the spheres of socio-political action as deserving the system’s recognition as well as its academic attention.