On the road that follows the River Aghbal north, to the resort of Marsa Ben M'hidi, is a popular parking place where for much of the year the national border between Algeria and Morocco consists of a parched stream and a few bushes. The site is marked on either side of the riverbed by rows of patriotic flags facing one another, while its concrete banks are decorated with graffiti that tends to contradict any such dichotomy – messages convey greetings to friends and relatives; local football teams are tagged; Farid says ‘Yes’. Cars on the way to the twin beach resorts of Marsa and Saidia (on the Moroccan side) regularly stop so that people can wave, shout messages and, for the boldest, jump over the stream and shake hands with people on the other side.

This would not be a remarkable situation at many European borders, but this frontier has been officially closed since the early 1990s; the only legal way to travel from western Algeria to eastern Morocco is to fly from Oran to Casablanca (the opposite side of the country) then travel most of the way back again. Since the ‘closure’ of the border on security grounds during Algeria's long decade of self-destruction in the 1990s, cross-border black market traffic has thrived. Borders, after all, place a premium upon goods that are scarce on the other side, and so could be thought of as creating both the economic conditions for smuggling and the networks required to sustain such enterprises. Ironically, although this area of Algeria's national frontier is one of its most clearly defined, even here the flow of goods, people and ideas is filtered rather than interrupted by the border. This is largely because regional, ethnic and familial connections have retained their currency despite (or perhaps because of) uncertain frontiers. People speak the same way on both sides, are possibly members of the same Berber community and enjoy the same music.

This chapter explores the nature and significance of Algeria's internal borders, considering them as just one among several ways of imagining relations between ‘place’ and ‘community’. My case studies will focus upon musical means of constructing and contesting identity.