Population Resettlement — Traumatic Upheavals and the Algerian Experience
The study of settlement geography in Africa has not only to consider rural–urban and traditional–modern contrasts, but also to place on the appropriate continuum the various communities which have been relocated since World War II. However, the lack of a general theory in this field has led to much wasted effort on the ground, and to the frequent replication of studies in the literature. Some recent contributions endeavour to draw meaningful generalisations from the disparate literature on settlement and resettlement schemes.1 Perhaps because the subject constitutes ‘an academic no man's land’ wherein ‘no single science or study has yet established its claims and each has its limitations’,2 attempts at an overview have inevitably focused on the individual author's specialist orientation. Whatever the methodological paradigm of these overviews, or of the numerous case-studies, they frequently, if regretfully, arrive at a critical conclusion vis-à-vis the limited results of settlement schemes.