Mary Montgomery is a specialist in the anthropology of the Arab world. Her doctoral thesis explores how domestic service in Morocco is changing as community gives way to the market. Drawing on anthropological discussions of kinship and fosterage, she examines the fading tradition of ‘bringing up’ in which, according to a moral economy, a ‘known’ rural girl could properly be placed in the homes of wealthier Moroccans until marriage. This is giving way to new arrangements in which ‘unknown’ workers are paid a wage and may not stay long, but in which the ethics of charity, religious reward and gratitude still inform expectations from both sides. Geared to play out among neighbours, or at least well-known clients, over a lifetime, these ethics are being disrupted by the easy-come-easy-go of strangers.
Mary’s background is in language and literature; she gained a BA in Arabic and French before taking up anthropology. Mary received her DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2015. She went on to work with a British Embassy project introducing community policing to Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and is now returning to a theme in her doctoral research—that of changing marriage patterns for rural-urban migrants in Morocco.