Mockery from outside and from within: A neocolonial approach for human rights non-profit organizations in Morocco

Neocolonialism in Morocco

Neocolonialism refers to the nature of relations after independence between European powers and their former colonies of the non-European world (Uzoigwe, 2019). Organizational research has long emphasized that domination operates not only through coercion but through symbolic and epistemic violence, parody, and the disciplining of marginalized voices (Nkomo, 2011; Prasad, 2003). This managerial recolonization of the Souths is not only a matter of impositions by arms and incentives of aid by actors from the Norths but also implicates local managerial elites who advance managerialism in different localities of the Souths (Yousfi, 2014).

In the Moroccan context, neocolonialism is best understood as the historical and contemporary reconfiguration of colonial power relations through economic, organizational, and epistemic means rather than direct political rule (Stenner, 2012). Following independence, relations with former colonial powers—most notably France and Spain—did not dissolve but were rearticulated through development aid, trade dependencies, and the diffusion of Western administrative and managerial rationalities (Uzoigwe, 2019; Yousfi, 2014). Organizational scholarship helps illuminate how these dynamics operate less through overt coercion than through symbolic domination, normalization, and the privileging of certain forms of knowledge and expertise (Nkomo, 2011; Prasad, 2003). In Morocco, this has entailed the persistent valorization of Western languages, educational credentials, and bureaucratic competencies as markers of legitimacy, while local and vernacular modes of organizing are rendered informal, inefficient, or invisible.

These neocolonial dynamics are particularly evident in the nonprofit sector of human rights and civil society. International NPOs (iNPOs), while providing crucial funding and visibility, play a central role in diffusing standardized organizational forms, reporting practices, and performance metrics that reflect Northern managerial ideologies (Fowler, 2000). Such practices can be read as a contemporary form of colonialism insofar as they erode locally embedded management practices and reproduce Western global hegemony (Yousfi, 2011, 2014). Moroccan NPOs are thus compelled to align with donor-driven templates to secure resources and recognition, even when these templates poorly fit local political realities or grassroots priorities (Banks et al., 2015; Mawdsley, 2017). This process mirrors earlier colonial strategies in Morocco, where European powers-maintained control through dual administrative systems, economic dependency, and social fragmentation between a Western-aligned urban elite and marginalized rural populations (Yousfi, 2014).

Crucially, these pressures unfold within a specific political configuration structured around the makhzen, the term commonly used to define the Moroccan regime. Originally signifying a “storehouse,” the makhzen has come to denote the apparatus of power organized as an unbroken chain extending from the sovereign—whose authority is divinely grounded—through ministers, governors, and local officials (Hamblin, 2015: 184). It represents the locus where power and resources are concentrated, encompassing the palace and its formal and informal clients who set the policy agenda and act as gatekeepers to political reform (Hamblin, 2015; Hill, 2019). Within this context, neocolonialism intersects with an authoritarian political order, rendering human rights NPOs particularly vulnerable. Organizations reporting on issues deemed sensitive by the makhzen—such as the Monarchy, Islam, or the Western Sahara—must navigate both donor-imposed reporting regimes and the risks of repression, surveillance, and discursive silencing by local authorities (Hill, 2019). Neocolonialism thus manifests as a layered condition in Morocco, produced through the entanglement of Western managerial domination and the enduring centralized power of the makhzen. To theorize how such layered forms of power are enacted and contested in everyday organizing, we build upon and expand traditional notions of mockery (Bhabha, 1994; Dobusch et al., 2021) and develop a neocolonial reading that captures both domination and resistance as relational and co-constitutive processes (Chowdhury, 2023).

Neocolonial mockery: From outside and from within

In Bhabha’s (1994) formulation, mockery emerges from the slippages, excesses, and exaggerations that accompany the repetition of dominant norms. As imported models are performed “almost the same, but not quite,” (Bhabha, 1994: 122) it produces ironic distortions that render these norms unstable and potentially absurd. Mockery thus operates through strategic misperformance: actors appear to comply with hegemonic expectations while subtly ridiculing, hollowing out, or exposing their authority, revealing the fragility of power that relies on imitation for its reproduction (Bhabha, 1994; Prasad, 2003).

Neocolonial mockery, we argue, operates along two interrelated dimensions, which capture the domination-subordination continuum across which irony, parody, and symbolic violence are performed, reproduced, and resisted. Externally, it takes the form of outer mockery, where dominant actors parody and police marginalized voices by enforcing rituals of compliance that emphasize their inferiority. Here, powerful actors compel marginalized groups to adopt the forms, discourses, and evaluative criteria of the powerful, only to strip them of meaning or portray them as inadequate. This mocking dynamic simultaneously included and excluded marginalized actors are, which become visible yet silenced, present yet misrepresented. Internally, mockery from within (Mbembe, 2021: 1268) captures how marginalized actors tactically comply and turn powerful actors’ symbols into sites of resistance by re-signifying-imposed norms and rituals. Such resistance is ambivalent and often complicit, as it emerges from within dominant structures and discursive struggle while simultaneously seeking to unsettle and transform them (Hall, 2011).

This dialectical process between outer and inner mockery underscores that neocolonial power is neither monolithic nor static but continually (re)constituted through rituals of compliance, parody, and subversion (Uzoigwe, 2019). Outer mockery captures the systemic and institutionalized dimensions of neocolonialism—those enacted by donors, bureaucracies, national elites, and local governments who impose standards that parody as well as police marginalized actors. Inner mockery, by contrast, illuminates the micropolitical resistance practices through which subaltern actors inhabit, distort, and resist these forms of domination from within. Together, these two dimensions foreground the relational and recursive character of neocolonial power: domination and resistance are not discrete moments, but interdependent processes that co-constitute one another within everyday organizational life (Banerjee, 2022; Chowdhury, 2017; Contu, 2008). In what follows, we identify three mechanisms—epistemic filtering, template imposition, and tactical compliance—that underlie neocolonial mockery in Morocco. Of course, these mechanisms are not exhaustive but rather context dependent. In Moroccan human rights nonprofit organizing each mechanism captures a distinct yet interlocking modality of how neocolonial domination and subaltern resistance unfold.

Data contextualization

The first author conducted fieldwork in Morocco over 2 years (2016–2018), using a multiple case study approach approved by the Independent Research Ethics Committee (L-09-2016). Data were collected across 12 NPO sites through interviews, participant observations, workshops, and document analysis. The research team’s approach to data collection, interpretation, and representation was shaped by an awareness of epistemic neocolonialism (Chowdhury, 2023) and the risks of ignorance and insensitivity —that is, the researcher’s failure to recognize contextual histories, emotional realities, and subtle forms of voice suppression that often accompany fieldwork in repressive settings.

Data collection

Three data sources were used: documentary data, interviews, and observations. Documentary data comprised 115 pages of textual outputs (i.e. mission reports, annual reports, website reports, and social media posts). 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with middle and lower, both temporary and full-time positions (advocacy officers, field researchers, volunteers, etc.) that were actively engaged in reporting the activities of their NPO to international audiences (i.e. writing reports, emails, press releases, etc.). The interviews provided insight into both the experiences and assumptions of participants. We recruited 12 informants working in Morocco and Western Sahara provinces through the snowball sampling technique (see Appendix).

Our range of interviews, even though relatively modest, enabled theoretical saturation given that our sample was homogenous, and our objectives were narrowly defined. We addressed selection bias and narrow sampling by continuously recruiting new informants through our RA and expanding the diversity of our sample. The respondents were interviewed face-to-face based on semi-structured interviews (lasting approx. 30–60 minutes) in various locations chosen by respondents based on safety considerations. The interviews were transcribed into 126 pages of single-spaced text. Observations were conducted by the first author at 2 team meetings, as well as at a 2-day training workshop organized by representatives from all levels (policy officers, managers, volunteers, etc.) from all participating NPOs. The goal of the workshop was that local NPOs’ workers would familiarize each other with writing reports, following reporting guidelines, and maintaining digital security.

This research design offered the distinct benefit of fostering social immersion and closeness between researchers and informants, which obviously comes with its own challenges and drawbacks (Rabinow, 2007), including potential risks to the safety of informants, the researcher, and the integrity of the data. Several precautions were taken to ensure sensitivity to participants’ needs, safety, and well-being. Among these measures was the establishment of a comprehensive digital security protocol for all communications with informants and data collection activities. Moreover, the fieldnotes and interview responses were subjected to local ethics reviews and participant involvement through a shared encrypted drive with all participants to ensure that we accurately represented the worldviews of the respondents.

Abductive thematic analysis

We employed an abductive phronetic analytical procedure (Tavory and Timmermans, 2014), emphasizing an iterative dialog between the empirical material and the researchers’ theoretical repertoire (Tracy and Hinrichs, 2017). Abduction allowed us to move back and forth between theory and data, constantly revising and expanding our understanding of neocolonial mockery as it unfolded in practice. While acknowledging the theory-laden nature of our interpretive process, we adopted elements of grounded theory to structure the early stages of analysis—particularly open coding and iterative categorization (Tracy and Hinrichs, 2017). This process encouraged theoretical sensitivity while maintaining empirical openness to what the data revealed about the lived manifestations of neocolonialism in Moroccan NPOs.

Outer mockery and epistemic filtering

Outer mockery in the Moroccan NPO field manifests through a form of authoritarian inclusion without voice, in which participation is tolerated only within state-sanctioned boundaries of discourse. This dynamic exemplifies epistemic filtering, the mechanism through which powerful actors define what can be said, by whom, and under what conditions. Through censorship, surveillance, and the criminalization of dissent, the Moroccan state constructs an epistemic order that simultaneously invites engagement and punishes expression, producing a public sphere marked by fear, self-censorship, and strategic silence. Participants consistently described this experience as one of conditional inclusion—being allowed to operate as human rights defenders only under the implicit threat of repression:

Moroccan prosecution procedures are a kind of revenge/settlement with those people who demand freedom, human dignity, and social justice. I can now get up to five years in prison because of what I share on social media platforms (interview, Respondent 8).

This statement encapsulates the logic of outer mockery: actors are formally included in public discourse, yet the very act of speaking becomes grounds for punishment. What appears as cooperation is, in practice, a form of subordination, where state authorities use legal and procedural mechanisms to parody the ideals of justice and human rights they publicly claim to uphold:

The government is also using illegal methods in their surveillance, like phone and mail surveillance, prosecutions, intimidation, bribing, and so on. Workers in Morocco are walking on a minefield: we never know when it will explode. (interview, Respondent 9)

Such accounts illustrate how epistemic filtering operates not only through censorship but also through the internalization of fear — a disciplinary chilling effect that ensures self-censorship long before external punishment occurs. Workers described constant uncertainty, heightened risk, and limited access to secure resources, which further constrained their ability to act:

How can they [iNPO] expect that one person should be good at reading laws, drafting policy and then knowing all the data security stuff when meeting contacts in the field to do the reporting? They [iNPO] don’t care at all. All their technology and human rights [division] sits in Geneva or London and will stay there. But we [human rights officers] work here [in Morocco] and we do not have any digital security resources, and we are endangering our sources. For instance, I have a Facebook account I setup to talk with a contact on the ground [in Morocco]. And now I realize that it is endangering us both since that [coordinating on Facebook] is not safe, and the repercussions can be really scary.” (Workshop fieldnotes, Respondent 6)

Local constraints such as arrests and prosecutions on defamation charges, which were common retaliation practices of the government, also contributed to NPOs orientation to engaging with western reporting. This reveals the interconnection between domestic epistemic filtering and external neocolonial dynamics. The state’s surveillance and censorship combine with epistemic domination from outside—international donors’ indifference to local risks—to entrench a non-cooperative environment. iNPOs’ insistence on standardized reporting and digital coordination reproduces outer mockery by exposing local workers to harm under the guise of efficiency:

I’ve been forcibly disappeared 1–2 years, detained without any rights for 2 years, and imprisoned without a trial for 2 years. [. . .] We have been blacklisted for 10 years [. . .] So, we hope we can be heard again. (Interview, Respondent 3, emphasis added)

The cumulative effect of these practices is the co-production of silence. State prosecution procedures function as a form of revenge against speech, while international reporting regimes compel self-surveillance and instrumental compliance. Both systems operate through epistemic filtering: powerful actors decide which forms of knowledge are legitimate, whose narratives are credible, and what risks are acceptable. As earlier studies note (Kreitmeyr, 2019), such conditions foster self-censorship and resignation, transforming participation into inauthentic cooperation. In this context, outer mockery becomes the everyday language of neocolonial power—one in which inclusion is inseparable from humiliation, and speaking against it always risks punishment.

Outer mockery and template imposition

Outer mockery also manifests through template imposition, the mechanism by which iNPOs and donors universalize Western managerial rationalities under the guise of transparency and accountability. In Morocco, local NPOs must adopt standardized reporting frameworks—templates, checklists, performance indicators, and prescribed “neutral” writing styles—to gain recognition within the global humanitarian field. This process constitutes a form of epistemic domination from without: international actors define what counts as credible evidence, legitimate speech, and professional competence, while relegating local modes of advocacy and knowledge to the margins. As such, legitimacy itself becomes a parody—an appearance of inclusion predicated on compliance rather than genuine dialog.

For NPOs operating under Morocco’s hybrid authoritarian regime, collaboration with iNPOs is both a survival strategy and a site of subordination. Participants described how compliance with donor reporting guidelines is a pragmatic necessity, enabling access to resources and protection in an otherwise repressive environment. This illustrates the parody of legitimacy: to be recognized as professional, local actors must translate their lived experiences of injustice into the technical grammar of donor reporting:

Doing the reporting work isn’t easy. You need to go and meet the people who were subject to abuses, often they don’t have time and do not react immediately, so you need to be flexible and spend all your time on it. Often people just go on and on about “oh in Morocco the police are just beating people and are so bad and so on” and I am actually interested in one specific case, so I ask them but tell me what the police did to you, but they keep on saying, ‘yes but you know in Morocco the police beat people and treats them bad’. So, you need a lot of stamina and perseverance to get people to talk about it, then write it objectively, and tick all the boxes on the reporting checklist (interview, Respondent 12).

Through such processes, outer mockery transforms participation into hollowed rituals. Reporting ceases to be a means of amplifying marginalized voices and becomes instead a practice that validates the authority of iNPOs. The power of the monarchy and that of iNPOs intersect here, producing a double bind: local NPOs must conform to Western templates to gain legitimacy, yet such compliance exposes them to state persecution for “collaboration with foreign powers” (OHCHR, 2021). One respondent emphasized how this paradox shapes their strategic engagement with international audiences. As indicated, a pragmatic orientation drove local NPOs to accept imposed templates and engage with Western reporting. Workers considered the monarchy’s preoccupation with how the western media depicts Morocco as “the only force that can give pause to the regime’s repressive tactics” (interview, Respondent 2). Engaging with international news media was an attempt to pressure the local government to reduce repressive tactics:

We are working mainly by writing reports and emails, but then we have the website and social media. We worked on this dissemination for a long time, and it helped to publicize the subject. The website has been working in four languages for a period in four languages Arabic, French, English, and Spanish. So even before using social media, we were active by sending photos and emails to international contacts and journalists. It’s our only way of being heard (interview, Respondent 3)

Here, the outer mockery lies in the selective solidarity of iNPOs: once the risks become tangible, the same actors that demanded compliance retreat into self-protection, leaving local organizations exposed. Western reporting templates, framed as universal tools for accountability, thus function as instruments of abandonment — they impose the esthetic of legitimacy without material support. As one participant recounted:

Several international and local NPOs’ reports formed the basis for the ICCPR report where Morocco is a signatory. iNPO4 was working to assist us, the local partner organizations in developing [reporting] capacities to investigate surveillance and advocate for strong privacy protections. It was important for us to be present there in those conversations, so we worked together. But the moment the authorities started to prosecute workers for collaboration with foreign powers, the iNPO in question switched their position and decided not to do anything in Morocco because you put people at risk. You put yourself at risk. You put your organization at risk. We understand it but we also feel let down and detached from whatever comes from them (interview, Respondent 9)

iNPOs frequently set the terms of legitimacy, favoring technocratic, “neutral” forms of knowledge production that exclude local idioms, grassroots practices, and experiential expertise. For many of our respondents, adopting imposed templates and reporting protocols involved personal risk, surveillance, and even incarceration. The illusion of empowerment through compliance quickly fractured when global recognition did not protect them on the ground:

Following these guidelines got me into prison. They [iNPOs representatives] told me ‘Ahmed, come to Geneva, speak about human rights and show how your organization does the reporting. We want to promote best practices.’ So, I went and told them, this is who I am and what we do, and then I started receiving threats. And then, when I returned home, I got into prison. It took them [iNPOs representatives] four months of campaigning to international contacts to get me out. So, I had to lay low for a while and change my approach to more unorthodox means of reporting. I use pseudonyms now even though [iNPOs] are not fond of them.” (Interview, Respondent 5)

This exemplifies the violent irony of outer mockery: the very reporting mechanisms that promise visibility render activists vulnerable (Rega and Medrado, 2023). Reporting becomes both the measure of legitimacy and the instrument of exposure. In this context, template imposition and epistemic filtering intertwine, generating a double bind and co-producing the contested non-cooperative space that defines Morocco’s human rights sector. Donor regimes and state repression converge to institutionalize participation as spectacle, inclusion as dependency, and cooperation as risk. Ultimately, outer mockery through template imposition transforms accountability into a mode of neocolonial power. It compels marginalized actors to perform “cooperation” in forms that affirm their inferiority, while punishing any deviation from the script. This dual process—recognition without protection, participation without voice—illustrates how neocolonial mockery sustains itself through procedural means. Within such double binds, cooperation becomes impossible, and resistance, if it endures, must take shape through the ironic and subversive tactics of mockery from within.

Inner mockery and tactical compliance

If outer mockery produces dominance through epistemic filtering and template imposition, inner mockery represents its dialectical counterpoint—a fragile but persistent form of agency enacted through tactical compliance. Under neocolonial and authoritarian constraints, NPO workers resist not through open defiance but through ironic participation, strategic misperformance, and hollowed compliance. These practices constitute what we identify as fragile resistance through parody, where actors appear to conform to imposed rituals while subtly subverting their meaning. In such contexts, mockery becomes a weapon of the weak: it allows critique without direct confrontation and survival without capitulation. Marginalized workers described compliance as a necessary façade, an obligatory performance enacted to satisfy donors and regulators while retaining a measure of control over meaning. As one respondent remarked with humor and irony: “It’s all for show. It’s tashkil (approx. trans. mere form-filling) added the respondent jokingly” (Fieldnote, Respondent 11).

Humor functions as epistemic subversion —a form of everyday theorizing that exposes the emptiness of donor-imposed rituals (Prasad, 2003). Re-labeling international reporting procedures as mere formality transforms compliance into parody. The ritual is performed, but its significance is redefined by those compelled to enact it. Through this strategic misperformance (Bhabha, 1994), workers transform imposed bureaucratic practices into symbols of their absurdity. Compliance becomes a stage where irony and critique coexist, revealing the fragility of neocolonial power. This performative resistance is also evident when international partners exercise epistemic control over reports, redacting content to maintain diplomatic acceptability. In recounting such experiences, one respondent deployed sarcasm to question the legitimacy of foreign authority:

We once organized a press release with our report at the embassy [. . .] They had printed the report, and it was full of red lines. The aide of the consul came to me and said: ‘this is not correct [. . .]’ I should have asked him ‘But are you Moroccan’? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (Interview, Respondent 1)

Inner mockery performs a dual function. It protects the speaker by cloaking critique in humor while simultaneously exposing the neocolonial power embedded in knowledge hierarchies. The respondent’s rhetorical question—“But are you Moroccan?”—is a pointed act of epistemic boundary-drawing: it mocks the authority of outsiders to determine the accuracy of local knowledge. This moment illustrates how inner mockery contests epistemic domination from within, converting ridicule into a subtle form of reclamation.

When formal avenues of advocacy were closed, local actors shifted toward solidaristic workarounds —sit-ins, social media campaigns, and symbolic performances—to sustain visibility and solidarity beyond the reach of international gatekeeping. One participant explained: “Most of the time we would do peaceful demonstrations and share them on Facebook after the ‘sit ins.’ But these did not fit with the desired [international reporting] rules.” (Interview, Respondent 3). These practices demonstrate how inner mockery and tactical compliance co-produce contested non-cooperative spaces. Even as the formal channels of cooperation (reporting, funding, etc.) are colonized by external expectations, NPOs generate informal circuits of resistance that circumvent these epistemic constraints. Tactical compliance thus becomes not a passive adaptation but an active reconfiguration of neocolonial scripts—a way of reclaiming agency within constrained conditions. Participants also described how the double bond intensified as repression escalated. One respondent noted how state restrictions on public gatherings intersected with donor-imposed reporting demands:

It was one year and a half ago that the problems started, when the ministry of interior declared that local NPOs, including ours, are not aligned with the vision of the authorities. What they [the authorities] want is to take us out of public and international spaces. For instance, we cannot rent any big facility like a hotel or a conference hall for any workshop to train our personnel on how to write reports based on iNPOs mechanisms. Whenever we try this, then that hotel receives a phone call to cancel our booking and to throw us out. The only place we can use is our premises here at the Lawyers Club (but it is rather small and often busy). That is all. Like this, they are trying to keep us from spreading our message out in the public space, and now and then they succeed because of apathy and censorship among our workers. But we have become better at working with iNPOs’ mechanisms, we do a lot of training of ‘best local practices’ where we have different volunteers sharing what reporting works there [in Geneva] but doesn’t work here. (Interview, Respondent 8)

This reflection captures the spatial politics of tactical compliance. The respondent’s distinction between “there” (the international sphere) and “here” (the local context) underscores how actors continuously recalibrate compliance in response to shifting power dynamics. Cooperation, in this setting, is performative and negotiated: it sustains access to international legitimacy (“there”) while resisting epistemic silencing “here.” The result is a simultaneously imitative and insurgent practice that both fulfills and frustrates the expectations of iNPOs governance. Other participants described similar skepticism toward international expertise, revealing how inner mockery serves as a protective mechanism:

I discovered that there was virtually no digital security in place. Sensitive information was being stored on insecure devices with no information back-up, no encryption, no secure communication channels, and no use of pseudonyms. So, we take whatever comes from international NPO with a grain of salt. There is double pressure on us, and we need to work harder and with our own resources since they do not offer any other help. We have to make sure that everyone is safe, their names hidden, and also report to international NPO. (Workshop fieldnotes, Respondent 7, emphasis added)

This comment reveals how mockery from within produces epistemic distance: local actors recognize the contradictions of donor prescriptions and reinterpret them through irony and skepticism. Their compliance is strategic, not submissive—it performs legitimacy while maintaining morale and operational autonomy. Ultimately, inner mockery and tactical compliance co-produce contested non-cooperative spaces by keeping the appearance of cooperation alive while hollowing out its substance. Through humor, irony, and strategic misperformance, Moroccan NPOs sustain fragile solidarities and reclaim limited autonomy within neocolonial regimes of power. Their actions reveal that in contexts of epistemic closure and repression, resistance persists not in open rebellion but in the reworking of domination’s rituals. Mockery from within becomes both a critique of neocolonial legitimacy and a lived strategy of survival—an act of fragile defiance that asserts local agency within the very structures that seek to silence it.

In fine, across the Moroccan NPO field, the three mechanisms— epistemic filtering, template imposition, and tactical compliance —interact to co-produce a contested non-cooperative space. These intertwined mechanisms render non-cooperation both systemic and performative. Epistemic filtering silences from above; template imposition disciplines from without; tactical compliance resists from within. The result is not the absence of cooperation, but its simulation: a façade sustained by humor, conviviality, and irony. The contested non-cooperative space is a terrain where visible compliance masks invisible refusal, where legitimacy operates as parody, and where the colonized must “speak” through forms that simultaneously expose and reproduce their subordination. The double bind thus becomes the lived condition of neocolonial power: cooperation is demanded yet punished, resistance persists yet remains precarious. Within this ambivalent space, mockery operates as both a symptom of domination and a resource for survival, illuminating how power and agency are continually negotiated through the uneasy interplay of imitation, irony, and refusal.

Epistemic filtering: Constructing the boundaries of inclusion

In the upper-left quadrant, outer mockery intersects with relatively cooperative settings, where engagement between powerful and marginalized actors remains possible but asymmetrical. Here, epistemic filtering operates through selective inclusion: marginalized actors are invited to “participate” but only within epistemic terms defined by the powerful (Prasad, 2003). In Morocco, these dynamics manifest when the state authorizes certain NPOs to operate under tight discursive constraints, allowing critiques that remain symbolically safe but excluding those that challenge monarchical or religious authority. Cooperation thus becomes conditional, and “dialogue” serves as a technology of containment. The mockery lies in this contradiction—marginalized voices are heard only insofar as they echo dominant frames (CPJ, 2025). This space, while outwardly cooperative, is already structured by non-cooperation at the epistemic level to sustain the illusion of inclusion while maintaining epistemic superiority (Chowdhury, 2023).

Template imposition: Institutionalizing procedural control

In the lower-left quadrant, outer mockery operates within overtly non-cooperative spaces. Template imposition translates epistemic hierarchies into procedural constraints, compelling marginalized actors to accept dominant organizational forms under coercive conditions. In the Moroccan NPO field, this is evident when iNPOs and donors enforce Western reporting templates and metrics that serve donor accountability rather than local empowerment. These templates embody the epistemic assumptions of managerial modernity: that legitimacy derives from quantification, standardization, and “evidence-based” evaluation (Yousfi, 2021a). When local actors comply, their knowledge is hollowed out and re-presented as data, effectively severing meaning from experience. Cooperation becomes impossible because the very mechanisms that demand participation also nullify its substance. Outer mockery here operates through the parody of accountability — a procedural theater where inclusion is ritualized, but voice is denied. This quadrant marks the consolidation of non-cooperation as a structural condition, underpinned by the co-production of epistemic hierarchies and the limited efficacy of institutional protocols for accountability that taint citizens’ hopes for change (Colin, 2024).

Tactical compliance: Resisting from within

The upper-right quadrant represents spaces where inner mockery coexists with cooperation. Tactical compliance emerges as marginalized actors’ creative response to epistemic and procedural domination. Here, Moroccan NPOs tactically adopt donor reporting guidelines while subtly re-signifying them—embedding local idioms, moral claims, or community priorities into bureaucratic forms. Cooperation persists, but it is ambivalent: actors engage strategically to sustain access to resources and visibility while quietly contesting imposed meanings. This quadrant captures the ambiguous potential of mockery from within (Bhabha, 1994; Mbembe, 2021)—the ability to inhabit domination’s language ironically, to comply outwardly yet refuse inwardly. Cooperation in such contexts is maintained through irony and adaptation, but its erosion begins when external templates tighten, and local meanings are progressively evacuated. The red dashed arrow in the framework (“Erosion of cooperation”) illustrates this drift toward the lower-right quadrant, where dominance intensifies and resistance becomes precarious.

Contested non-cooperative spaces

The lower-right quadrant (Q4)—the contested non-cooperative space—is the focal point of our findings. Non-cooperative spaces are “highly restrictive, disadvantageous, or even harmful” socio-organizational environments in which institutional arrangements deliberately curtail cooperation and block marginalized actors from meaningful participation, despite their capacities and skills (Chowdhury, 2021: 917; Derakhshan and Chowdhury, 2025). Neocolonialism functions as a structural driver of such spaces by embedding actors in regimes of dispossession, surveillance, and silence, where harm is normalized under the guise of order, productivity, and progress (Lobbedez et al., 2025). In Morocco, this produces a contested non-cooperative space shaped by the convergence of outer and inner mockery, generating a double bind: NPOs must perform compliance with both state and donor demands to survive, even as these performances reproduce the very structures that marginalize them.

This space is sustained by three interconnected mechanisms that mediate the dialectic between exclusion and agency. Epistemic filtering dictates which voices are admissible; template imposition constrains how those voices must speak; and tactical compliance transforms these impositions into tools of fragile resistance. However, this resistance remains precarious—visible compliance masks invisible refusal, and parody becomes both a mode of survival and a symptom of subordination. In this quadrant, cooperation is not simply absent; it is performed as if it existed. The space becomes non-cooperative precisely because actors must continuously enact the illusion of collaboration under coercive terms. Mockery here is not merely symbolic—it is spatial and affective, shaping how actors navigate the contradictions of dependency, recognition, and resistance. The contested non-cooperative space thus represents the culmination of neocolonial mockery: a social terrain where inclusion operates through ridicule, and agency persists only through ironic participation.

Conceptualizing the Moroccan nonprofit sector as a contested non-cooperative space offers a spatial understanding of neocolonial power. It shows how domination operates through symbolic inclusion and procedural coercion, while resistance persists through complicity, conviviality, and parody rather than open opposition. These everyday practices of inner mockery underscore that neocolonialism is never total: it depends on the participation, humor, and subversion of those it seeks to govern. NPO workers’ negotiations thus reveal how, even within spaces marked by repression and epistemic violence, agency endures through the subtle reworking of domination’s very rituals.

Our findings make a threefold contribution to understanding neocolonial compliance, resistance, and agency in the non-profit sector. First, by going beyond misrepresentation, we reconceptualize epistemic neocolonialism as a ritualized genre of mockery that diminishes participation, manufactures non-cooperation, and undermines resistance. Second, our two-dimensional approach to mockery—outer and inner—moves past the dominance/resistance binary by theorizing complicity, conviviality, and parody as co-present in organizational life, showing how refusal and compliance interpenetrate within hybrid authoritarian and donor-driven regimes in Morocco. Third, we spatialize neocolonial power by linking mockery to the creation of contested non-cooperative spaces, thus extending research on resistance, compliance, and agency in the Souths. Our framework illustrates how the three mechanisms—epistemic filtering, template imposition, and tactical compliance—interact to generate these spaces. Epistemic filtering constructs the boundaries of inclusion (Q1), template imposition enforces procedural control and non-cooperation (Q3), and tactical compliance sustains ironic, partial cooperation (Q2), while their convergence in Q4 produces the contested non-cooperative space where visible compliance masks invisible refusal. In this double bind, marginalized actors must speak through the idioms of their oppressors to survive, even as such mimicry becomes the very medium of critique. Thus, mockery emerges not only as a metaphor for domination but as a spatial and performative mechanism through which cooperation is undermined and resistance persists in fragile, parodic forms.

This study is not without limitations. First, although the multi-sited design provided rich qualitative insights, the sample of Moroccan NPOs remains relatively small and sector-specific, which may limit the transferability of our findings to other contexts or forms of activism in the Souths. Second, while we sought to minimize ignorance and insensitivity through oppositional reflexivity, our positionalities as researchers based in Northern institutions inevitably shaped what could be seen, translated, and theorized. Third, given the political sensitivity of the field, some accounts may have been self-censored, and our presence may have influenced participants’ willingness to express critique openly. Finally, by privileging mockery as an analytic lens, we may have downplayed other modalities of resistance or solidarity that fall outside irony and parody. These limitations underscore that our findings should be read as a situated interpretation rather than a comprehensive account of neocolonial dynamics in the Moroccan non-profit sector.