Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences

by Brahim El Guabli

Desert Imaginations traces the cultural and intellectual histories that have informed the prevalent ideas of deserts across the globe. The book argues that Saharanism—a globalizing imaginary that perceives desert spaces as empty, exploitable, and dangerous—has been at the center of all desert-focused enterprises. Encompassing spiritual practices, military thinking, sexual fantasies, experiential quests, extractive economies, and experimental schemes, among other projects, Saharanism has shaped the way deserts are not only constructed intellectually but are acted upon. From nuclear testing to border walls, and much more, Brahim El Guabli articulates some of Saharanism's consequential manifestations across different deserts. Desert Imaginations draws on the abundant historical literature and cultural output in multiple languages and across disciplines to delineate the parameters of Saharanism. Against Saharanism's powerful and reductive vision of deserts, the book also articulates a tradition of desert eco-care that has been at work in desert Indigenous people's literary, artistic, scholarly, and ritualistic practices.

 

330 pages, Paperback

Published November 4, 2025

About the author

I am Black, Amazigh Indigenous scholar from Morocco, but I live and teach in the United States. I am the author of Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship after State Violence, which received L. Carol Brown AIMS Best Book Award in 2024. I am also the author of the forthcoming Desert Imaginations: A History of History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences, which explains why deserts are dismissed and mistreated globally. My third book is entitled Amazighitude: Essays on Living Amazigh Indigeneity in the World, and it is an essay about being Amazigh and navigating life from that perspective.
I have also coedited the two volumes of Lamalif: A Critical Anthology of Societal Debates in Morocco During the “Years of Lead” and Remembering Jews in Maghrebi and Middle Eastern Media.