In "Moroccan Households in the World Economy," David Crawford manages to analyze humanity as a whole by analyzing a small village that few people even know exists. Tadrar, Morocco, for all the challenges it faces, is a community that truly reflects what today's world needs from itself. Though Tadrar transcends its anonymity through Crawford's book, the village also finds safety in being unknown, as Crawford's evidence points to the fact that it would be far better for the world to learn from Tadrar than it would be for Tadrar to learn from the world.
To me, the crux of Crawford's argument is that Tadrar is so much more than its humble physical self; it is a microcosm not of society but of the global community to which the world should be aspiring. Tadrar is, in itself, a communal effort to not only survive, but to thrive -- imperative participation in community labor projects reflects a highly progressive understanding that human connections and interdependency are what give us the best chance of survival. Crawford does not avoid the fact that "farming in Tadrar is hard." The villagers' humility in their willingness to overcome this challenge can serve as inspiration for the rest of the world to reject any notion of "survival of the fittest" and embrace the need to depend on others for the success of every individual. This is undoubtedly the most important lesson found in the book.
Crawford's book is also unique in the way it elucidates the deeper meaning of our physical spaces and the way we occupy them and move within them. In describing how the tigemmi, the physical house, is warmed by the hearth into a home, Crawford makes us think about what truly inhabits and impacts our spaces, the most important of which is the planet on which we all live. He also establishes emotional and relatable consequences to the way we move within our physical spaces and how this changes the way we derive meaning from our space. It takes five minutes of research to find out that 58% of Moroccans live in urban areas and that this number is increasing. However, when Crawford relates the consequences of the villager Abdurrahman's two oldest sons moving to Marrakesh (consequences both economic, since good workers are lost, and emotional, since they elected to sever ties with their family), statistics like the one above take on a human significance, and readers are given pause to reflect on the significance of how they occupy their world.
Finally, Crawford subtly emphasizes that there are things Tadrar is doing better than the Western world. Imperative participation in communal labor projects improves the community measurably in its physical state and immeasurably in its sense of itself. One looks at Tadrar from a country in which many citizens are loathe to write a simple tax check, let alone physically improve the community, and realizes that we have a lot to learn from the villagers' incredible efforts toward prosperity.
Furthermore, Tadrar's openness toward visitors is almost unfathomable in this country; how many households in the United States would open their homes to a total stranger from another continent? While most Americans assume the worst in strangers they encounter in the public sphere, the people of Tadrar opened up their private homes to Crawford, innocently devoid of Western xenophobia. Crawford seems to possess the appropriate amount of culture-shock at this difference in customs: enough to emphasize that Westerners are generally not used to such strong community and hospitality, but not so much that he seemed surprised that this could exist at all. Rather, the book emphasizes that Tadrar--its community, internal interdependency, and hope--*does* exist, and that the Western world needs to stop looking for its own Tadrars and start creating them.
Physically, Tadrar is still a small village in the middle of the mountains. Crawford's book, however, allows it to transcend itself--or rather, reveals that it many ways, it already does.
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