An imperial meantime

Abstract

On November 13, 2020, the Sahrawi movement for national liberation, known as the Polisario Front, resumed its armed struggle against Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara. With this decision, the movement put an end to a 29-year-long peace process throughout which the implementation of international law had been indefinitely deferred. During this cease-fire, the Polisario used humanitarian aid to strengthen its nation-state building in exile. This practice formed part of a larger historical narration that was inserted into the cease-fire's temporal parenthesis, or what I call an imperial meantime. As a result, a disjuncture arose between the movement's political forms and its goal of achieving state sovereignty over Western Sahara. During this imperial meantime, a generation of refugees came of age. Describing the contradictions experienced by young politicized refugees, and highlighting the role that the control over time plays in humanitarian governance, I show how the invisible violence of a humanitarian peace anticipated the return to armed struggle.