Javier Fernández-Galeano, “An Oasis of Debauchery: Sexuality, Scandal, and Moral Ambiguity in the Late-Francoist Spanish Sahara”

Part of the CHIA seminar programme, 2025-2026

Javier Fernández-Galeano, “An Oasis of Debauchery: Sexuality, Scandal, and Moral Ambiguity in the Late-Francoist Spanish Sahara”

This paper examines the relation between colonial spaces and sexual and moral deviance, using the Spanish Sahara during the late Franco regime as a case study. The work argues that “sacrifice zones” –nodes of asymmetric geopolitical relations and resource extraction– also become areas of moral permissiveness. It does so by analysing judicial cases from the era, related to corruption at a state-run hotel, prostitution at a cabaret in El Aaiún, and maricas or queer men supposedly involved in pimping. The paper makes a significant historiographical contribution by interrogating the queer archive through the lens of legal documents. It demonstrates that official records, such as police reports and court files, while primarily concerned with prosecuting “immoral” acts, inadvertently serve as an invaluable source for understanding the lived experiences of sexual dissidents. The study’s theoretical framework connects metropolitan moralities with colonial and frontier contexts, proposing that the state’s investment in economic development (the “second colonization”) was paralleled by a strategic relaxation of social control. This dynamic created a duality where official discourses of progress and “hispanization” coexisted with clandestine economies of pleasure. By examining these legal scandals, the paper unveils the moral hypocrisy of the regime and its administrative apparatus, showing how corruption and illicit behaviours were tolerated, and even facilitated, in the pursuit of colonial interests. In essence, the work utilizes seemingly mundane legal cases to deconstruct the official narrative of colonial modernity and uncover the hidden social and sexual histories of the Spanish Sahara.

Please note: all seminars are online via Teams and the link will be circulated beforehand. If outside the University of Leeds, please email the Director of CHIA, Richard Cleminson, for more details. Booking details will be circulated online beforehand and can be obtained from r.m.cleminson@leeds.ac.uk.