"From Morocco to the U.S.: The Importance of Trust" by Gretchen Coleman
You can find more information about Community-Based Learning (CBL) in Morocco here, and check out a webinar from November, 2021 with Dr. Rachid Touhtouh, Dr. Mjriam Abu Samra, and Dr. Elena D. Corbett all about CBL.
The combination of my absolutely terrible sense of direction and the lack of Google Maps on my phone meant that I got hopelessly lost about half of the time getting to and from my Community Based Learning (CBL) placement. When I finally made it to the office through luck and the graciousness of some patient taxi drivers each day, however, my work gradually helped me see this helplessness differently. I came to understand not just these taxi rides but my entire experience in Morocco through a new lens – trust.
For the majority of my placement, I assisted with a comprehensive study on trust in Morocco conducted by the Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis (MIPA), a small, up-and-coming think tank in Rabat. They were working to put together the Trust in Institutions Index 2020: The Parliament and Beyond, which analyzes Moroccans’ confidence in social and political institutions across the country and suggests ways to begin to rebuild this trust. I was able to participate in several phases of the research process – I helped write the literature review, interpret some of the qualitative interviews, and even attend the presentation of their preliminary findings. I absolutely loved my time with MIPA. Fascinating scholars affiliated with the institute were always dropping by the office while I was there, and some of my most impactful conversations from the semester came from talking with the team.
More broadly, spending the semester studying trust gave me a critical framework to understand my time in Rabat. I was thrown into a new culture with no prior experience in Arabic – not to mention my nonexistent navigational skills – so getting around, I had no choice but to trust those around me. I learned that there’s immense trust required in not just the big things like the legitimacy of a government but also in bargaining at the souk, getting in a taxi, and eating at a restaurant. Being able to examine the theoretical implications of trust while I was acclimating to Moroccan life helped me see how foundational trust is to all human relationships. As I thought back to my everyday interactions in the United States, I began to see not only Moroccan culture through the lens of trust but my own culture as well.
I was so inspired by my work with MIPA that I ended up bringing this research interest home with me. I’m shaping my senior thesis around political trust, examining newly eligible voters’ confidence in the electoral process at my university. My experience in Morocco has been vital context for my current research – not just because of the literature I read and skills I honed but really because of the deeper cultural understanding I’ve gained. I’m so grateful for what I learned from the twice-weekly struggles of trying to point out Rue Figuig to taxi drivers among the tangle of streets in the Hassan neighborhood. My CBL placement helped me make sense of my place in the world in a really profound way, and I can’t recommend community-based learning highly enough.
Gretchen Coleman is an alumna of the Fall 2019 AMIDEAST Area and Arabic Language Studies Program in Rabat, Morocco.
