Abstract

In Governing the Commons, Elinor Ostrom shows that multiple ways of managing "natural resources" exist outside of "state or market" models. Yet the alternatives proposed are not entirely separate from the State and the market. This is precisely the case of the Aït M’hand, a village-tribe perched in the High Atlas: based on a series of igoulden – bans on harvesting fodder, vegetable or fruit resources –, the taqbilt nstitute a special assembly of collective guardians for the harvesting of nuts and almonds to be sold at the souk or market, with the support of the State or Maghzen. Insofar as the longstanding migratory movements of the Aït M’hand suggest that we should relativise the importance of "blood ties" in the formation and perpetuation of the taqbilt, and as its internal organisation is based on these series of bans that can be qualified as Commons, we posit that the maintenance of a relatively autonomous political order is in part owed to the perpetuation of these Commons.