When Rabinow first arrives in Morocco, he stays in Sefrou, the site of his graduate advisor Clifford Geertz’s work. Sefrou lies in a fertile valley called the Sais Plain, between the Middle Atlas Mountains and Fez, the cultural capital of Morocco. The Sais has been agriculturally important for millennia, and its physical resemblance to European farmland made it particularly attractive to colonial interests. Rabinow describes the landscape along the highway from Fez to Sefrou: fenced, precisely planned, expensively irrigated fields next to huge farmhouses built by former colonists, now owned by the Moroccan government or wealthy people from Fez. These European-style estates lie side by side with the settlements of field laborers who work for them, small compounds of mud and brick dwellings ringed by cactus fences.

Rabinow begins his stay in Sefrou in a room at the Hotel de l’Oliveraie, a “decaying edifice” just outside the medina. The hotel has a robust past as the main residence for European visitors to Sefrou but was slowly abandoned in favor of newer hotels in the Ville Nouvelle. During Rabinow’s stay, the hotel is obviously in serious financial trouble. Rooms are rarely full, and the lobby bar is only frequented by a few local cab drivers.