From April 7 to April 14, 2025, I had the privilege of serving as a Visiting Professor at the Université Hassan II de Casablanca, invited by the Laboratoire de recherche LADSIS at the Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines Ben M’Sik. This academic stay was both enriching and collaborative, combining pedagogical activities with field-based sociological research focused on the nighttime life of Casablanca.
During this visit, I co-led an intensive fieldwork-based project alongside Dr. Sana Benbelli, involving more than thirty students in sociology. Together, we explored the complex social dynamics that unfold after dark: how different populations inhabit, negotiate, and experience public space at night in a city as layered and vital as Casablanca. The project served both as an immersive training experience and as a contribution to expanding urban studies toward the temporal dimension of night.
It was a unique experience of knowledge exchange, cultural dialogue, and shared discovery — and I am especially grateful to the faculty, students, and institutional partners for their engagement and generosity. I am happy to share that our work has attracted attention in the national press. Below is the full English translation of the article published on April 16, 2025, in Assahraa Al Maghribiya.
Here you have a translation of the article:
📰 A New Sociological Project Explores Life in Casablanca at Night
Originally published in Assahraa Al Maghribiya by Aziza Ghulam – Wednesday, April 16, 2025 – 11:23
A group of university professors and sociology students has launched a field research initiative aimed at exploring aspects of social life in a major city like Casablanca during the night. The project seeks to offer a new reading of urban life during this time-space, moving beyond stereotypes that reduce the urban night to a social affliction associated with danger and deviance.
This research experience represents the foundation for a series of scientific publications and group presentations about the reality of nighttime in Casablanca. It is part of a scientific and educational fieldwork project coordinated by the Sociology Department at Hassan II University and the Research Laboratory on Socio-Anthropological Differences and Social Identities (LADSIS). The initiative emphasizes the importance of sociological research during nighttime hours in order to better understand the dynamics of a large city like Casablanca.
This project marks a first step toward producing new knowledge about nighttime in Morocco. It aims to strengthen a field-based academic culture that incorporates real-life experience into training, encouraging a reconsideration of how individuals relate to the city, time, and space. The project is supervised by Dr. Sana Benbelli, socio-anthropologist and professor at Hassan II University in Casablanca, and Dr. Manuel Garcia-Ruiz, visiting sociologist from Lisbon, Portugal. Garcia-Ruiz is in Casablanca as an international expert to share his knowledge with young Moroccan researchers, guiding them in exploring the nocturnal city. He specializes in urban cultural policies and the socio-spatial transformations related to nighttime uses. He is also a researcher at CIES-Iscte in Portugal and the founder of the International Night Studies Network.
“The night is a temporal space in which economic activities, social relations, inequalities, and forms of social resistance intersect. While some perceive it as a time of rest and sleep, it holds rich academic value and plays a central role in shaping urban policies, as seen in the European experience, where the night is increasingly recognized as integral to economic, cultural, and social life.”
— Dr. Manuel Garcia-RuizFor her part, Professor Benbelli states that the project aims to offer an academic sociological understanding and analysis, while breaking the habit of conducting social research only during daylight hours. This makes the initiative a challenge to the traditional “constraint” that limits research to daytime, and opens the door to uncovering other aspects of social life — including vulnerability, social resistance, and the innovative strategies people use to navigate daily challenges during the night.
Dr. Benbelli sees the research as a necessary opening in the Moroccan academic field, through which students learn how to face the complexities of real-life research directly and break the taboos surrounding the night. She notes that nighttime is an integral part of urban life and deserves sociological attention to better understand these gray zones of the city.
Accordingly, the project combines theoretical instruction with nighttime fieldwork conducted in small, supervised groups. The students observed social life in train stations, major streets, working-class neighborhoods, and areas considered marginal.
Their field observations highlighted numerous social practices, including women’s conditions and their access to public space at night, forms of informal economy and nighttime labor, as well as the use of public transport and leisure spaces during the night. Particular attention was given to observing and exploring various elements: lighting, soundscapes, the general atmosphere, and the feelings of fear or safety experienced at night in a city the size of Casablanca.
This experience enabled students to adopt a more reflective stance toward nighttime, moving beyond preconceived notions often associated with danger, exclusion, and forbidden practices. They discovered that many people live the night as part of their daily routine — whether as a livelihood or as a time for rest. According to Dr. Benbelli, this journey helped students develop a critical and thoughtful relationship with the city and the hidden dimensions that emerge after dusk.
Manuel Garcia-Ruiz 