Contentious Spectacle: Negotiated Authenticity within Morocco’s Gnawa Ritual

Recent changes to the gnawa ritual’s musical practices in Morocco leave many in the community nostalgic for the previous generation’s aesthetic and ideological tastes. Nostalgia in this case emanates from a confluence of performance practice and audience expectation, resulting in different potential “experiences of authenticity.” The wide range of nostalgic authenticities available to the gnawa community are due, in part, to a set of overlapping conceptions of authenticity itself. Questions of lineage, piety, and commercial success orient debates about the appropriateness of contemporary musical and ritual practices, exposing the diversity of ideologies that pepper the community.