Mohamed Oubenal is a tenured researcher in sociology at Institut Royal de la Culture Amazighe (IRCAM) in Morocco. He has a PhD in sociology from Paris-Dauphine University that he has published as book in the area of sociology of finance. During his doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships he studied the process of legitimizing institutions and markets using qualitative methods and social network analysis (see his articles published in: Ecology and Society ; Journal of International Relations and Development ; Gérer et comprendre). His research interests include economic sociology, sociology of culture and social network analysis. He is now studying the transformations of amazigh society (article in the journal ⴰⵙⵉⵏⴰⴳ / Asinag, Chapter in a book edited by IRCAM) as well as economic elites (articles in: Revue Française de Sociologie, Revue de la Régulation, Middle East Development Journal, Mondes en développement, Critique internationale ; ⴰⵙⵉⵏⴰⴳ / Asinag ; Revue Marocaine des Sciences Politiques et Sociales). He is member of the editorial board of the academic journals Asinag, Critical Sociology and RMSPS and teaches many courses.

Besides his research activities, Mohamed Oubenal also works at the intersection between art and research (Houdoud residency and L’atelier de l’Observatoire’s program) as he translates his research work on Amazigh music in Casablanca into artistic formats (in Documenta 15), from exhibition (in Ritz coffee) to storytelling performance (in Meteorite museum for the amazigh new year). He also initiated the introduction of teaching the traditional Amazigh instrument, the Ribab, at Zefzaf's Conservatoire of Music in Casablanca.