“Pour préserver la mémoire”

Author(s):  
Christopher Orr

This chapter examines the documentary film El Gusto through an expanded definition of music repatriation. The film captures the reunion of Jewish and Muslim sha‘bī musicians who perform together for the first time since the Algerian War of Independence. Using theories of collective memory, the author explores how the film’s director, Safinez Bousbia, presents this reunion both as a repatriation of individual culture-bearers who embody a tradition and as a reconstitution of their shared memories. The film’s subsequent publicity and Bousbia’s ongoing initiatives have enabled the musicians to advocate for their music and their shared oral history as intangible cultural heritage. Using Bousbia’s project as a model, the author argues for an approach to ethnographic representation that empowers subjects of repatriation to become agents in cultural preservation.

2017 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Marisa Fois

Arab nationalism is not a monolithic construct. In the case of Algeria, the nationalist period undoubtedly played a significant role in determining the nature of its nationalist movement, its foundational principles and the nature of the future independent country. It was during the nationalist period that disputes regarding the colonial order, autonomy versus independence and the definition of Algerian identity emerged. The anti-colonial revolution occurred after a long period of gestation, the result of a combination of people’s spontaneous initiative, the action of forces fed by new or existing ideas and the influence of the international context. This article provides an overview of Algerian nationalism—including both Arab and Berber nationalisms—from the 1920s to the 1950s, identifying parties, leaders and currents of thought.


Author(s):  
Laura Jeanne Sims

This chapter examines how the French state created a crisis through its management of the arrival and installation of the Harkis in 1962. The Harkis, Algerians of North African origin who supported the French army during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), faced reprisal violence in Algeria at the end of the war and many were forced to migrate with their families to France. In response, French officials attempted to prevent the Harkis from escaping to France and placed some of those who succeeded in internment camps. Comparing the treatment of the Harkis with that of the Pieds-Noirs, the descendants of European settlers in Algeria who likewise fled to France in 1962, highlights the structural racism underlying French perceptions of and reactions to Harki migration. This chapter also explores the ways in which second-generation Harkis have constructed collective memories of the crisis and their attempts to hold the state responsible for its actions.


Author(s):  
Robert J. C. Young

‘Hybridity’ explains that cultural hybridity can be seen as an expansion of W. E. B. Du Bois’ concept of ‘double consciousness’: a painful incompatibility between how people see themselves and how society sees them only in terms of their race. Nevertheless, this has also formed the basis of the extraordinary cultural creativity of African-Americans. Drawing on cultural memory of their African roots, African-Americans have adapted and transformed aspects of European culture encountered in the US, particularly noticeable in the realm of African-American music. A comparable development of a hybridized culture is considered by tracing the emergence of raï music in 1970s Algeria, following the traumatic experiences of the Algerian War of Independence.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Alexandra Binnenkade

French history textbooks occupy a pivotal position in the colonial fracture. They impart difficult knowledge about the Algerian War of Independence, knowledge that impacts the relationships between the communities of memory in France today. Textbook analysis has focused on their verbal content and, recently, in the work of Jo McCormack, on corresponding teaching practices. This article highlights graphic design as one layer of visual knowledge production and primarily contributes to the methodology of textbook analysis with an exemplary multimodal analysis. It reveals a hidden narrative about the postcolonial relationship that is not expressed in words.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 531-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginie Bonnot ◽  
Silvia Krauth-Gruber ◽  
Ewa Drozda-Senkowska ◽  
Diniz Lopes

Fifty years after the end of the Algerian war of independence, French colonization in Algeria (1830–1962) is still a very controversial topic when sporadically brought to the forefront of the public sphere. One way to better understand current intergroup relationships between French of French origin and French with Algerian origins is to investigate how the past influences the present. This study explores French students’ emotional reactions to this historical period, their ideological underpinnings and their relationship with the willingness to compensate for past misdeeds, and with prejudice. Results show that French students with French ascendants endorse a no-remorse norm when thinking about past colonization of Algeria and express very low levels of collective guilt and moral-outrage related emotions, especially those students with a right-wing political orientation and a national identification in the form of glorification of the country. These group-based emotions are significantly related to pro-social behavioral intentions (i.e. the willingness to compensate) and to prejudice toward the outgroup.


2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darcie Fontaine

AbstractThis article explores the role that Christianity played in the decolonization of Algeria and in particular how the complex relationship between Christianity and colonialism under French rule shaped the rhetoric and actions of Christians during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62). Using the case of a 1957 trial in the military tribunal of Algiers in which twelve Europeans were charged with crimes ranging from distributing propaganda for the National Liberation Front to sheltering suspected communist and nationalist militants, I demonstrate how “Christian” rhetoric became one of the major means through which the conduct of the war and the defense of French Algeria were debated. While conservative defenders of French Algeria claimed that actions such as those of the Christians on trial led to the erasure of Christianity in North Africa, I argue that such actions and moral positions allowed for the continued presence of Christianity in Algeria after independence.


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