Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony largely occupied by Morocco since 1975. In this context, complex identity constructions strongly linked to the role of the Spanish language have developed.
According to Manuel Castells’ theory (Suarez, 2017), identity can be analyzed on three levels: legitimizing identity, resistance identity and projective identity (Campos-Serrano & Rodriguez-Esteban, 2017). In Western Sahara, these three forms of identity construction have played a central role.
The legitimizing identity was implemented by Morocco in an attempt to consolidate its control over the territory. Spanish played a subordinate role here, while Arabic and French were the dominant languages (Kremnitz, n.d.). On the contrary, a strong identity of resistance against the Moroccan occupation developed among the Saharawi population. Within this resistance identity, Spanish played an important role as an identity-forming language (Hodges, 1983). The emphasis on the practice of Spanish was a means of emphasizing one’s own cultural proximity to Spain and questioning the legitimacy of the Moroccan claim (Daadaoui, 2008).
Finally, a projective identity can also be identified, which aims to build a new Saharawi identity beyond occupation and foreign domination. Spanish also plays an important role here by acting as a lingua franca and thus favoring the cohesion of the Sahrawi community (Buono, 2018; Daadaoui, 2008; Martín, 2005; Hodges, 1983).