Historians are today making proposals to renew the understanding of the colonial fact in Algeria. The objective: to move away from a teleological and often exclusively political history examining the entire colonial period in the light of its warlike epilogue. And show how, as strong as the domination of the colonial state was, its subjects lived in spaces other than the one it wanted to impose.
It is unlikely that the numerous publications and commemorations marking the fiftieth anniversary of Algeria’s independence will allow, on both sides of the Mediterranean, to move away from a historiography largely dominated by the study of the national movement and violence of the War of Independence. However, historians today make a certain number of proposals to renew the understanding of the colonial fact in Algeria. With a new objective: to move away from a teleological and often exclusively political history or, in other words, to stop re-examining this entire colonial period in the light of its warlike epilogue.
Let us recall that recent work seeks to broaden the scope of investigations, well before the years 1954-1962, to restore the full depth of this “ long colonial moment “. Bet held by the History review of XIXe century which puts forward numerous avenues for understanding the XIXe Algerian century. The introduction by Hélène Blais, Claire Fredj and Emmanuelle Saada offers a particularly enlightening summary of the issues which have for some time guided the field of studies on Algeria in a colonial situation, while establishing an updated inventory of the latest works published on the period. Next come five in-depth articles which illustrate the multiplicity of possible angles of attack and renew research on particular points: a religious practice, a law, a migration policy or a profession in Algeria before 1870.
Julia Clancy-Smith’s work is in a completely different format. More synthetic, it explores a neighboring space – Tunisia –, before the establishment of the French Protectorate in 1881. Centering her study on the region of Tunis, the author never refrains from understanding the circulations which take place more widely in the Mediterranean corridor and beyond the border with Algeria. It then shows that this space is permanently transformed by plural social forces – migrants from Southern Europe, fishermen and smugglers, servants and missionaries – who influence Tunisian society but can sometimes also divert or even contradict the colonial project.
Rethinking chronological breaks, exploring the long term
Without erasing the violence or the specificity of the colonial fact, Julia Clancy-Smith intends not to wear only the glasses of the colonial historian. The risk is indeed too great to then be blind to other logics. Many migrants, who came from the Mediterranean islands to Tunisia even before the establishment of the Protectorate, carried with them the seeds of change, both in the host society and in the one of departure. There were already more than three thousand Europeans in 1830. The capture of Algiers then the year 1881, very often described as “ zero years » or founding moments, must therefore be widely re-evaluated.
The question of chronological breaks also arises for historians of Algeria from XIXe century: if the key dates promoted by the colonizing power are not always good to repeat, the caesuras of metropolitan political history (1830, 1848, 1870, 1914) can be problematic in explaining the transformations on Algerian soil (RH19p. 8). The special issue of the History review of XIXe century reminds us that the colonial experience in Algeria did not begin with the Third Republic and invites us not to take the period 1830-1870 as a “ All “. Thus Jennifer Sessions considers that in terms of emigration to Algeria, the date of 1838 marks the end of a “ period of uncertainty » and a “ major turning point » towards a more proactive policy (RH19p. 70-73). The fact remains that, for the moment, no recent work offers a picture of Algeria over the entire XIXe century, relying on renewed issues and including the eve of the Algiers expedition to question the – for the moment pivotal – date of 1830.
Colonial space, Mediterranean space
“ Do we really know where Europe begins and where it ends? XIXe century ; who and what was European » ? Julia Clancy-Smith dares the question, in a pre-colonial Tunisia marked by a great plasticity of borders – physical first, but also social, religious and sexual.
Certainly, the empire is first and foremost a “ geographical project “. Didier Guignard has this in mind when he analyzes and maps, on the Algerian scale and more locally, the land transformations initiated by the application of the senatus-consulte of 1863 ; Jennifer Sessions returns to the sending of emigrants from mainland France to populate Algeria under the July Monarchy. However, the face to face between mainland France and its colony is far from exhausting all the logics which structure the Mediterranean area in the XIXe century. Bertrand Taithe notably restores the mechanisms of international media coverage of the demographic crisis of 1866-1868.
Julia Clancy-Smith works on this spatial issue at all scales and describes the movements between Algeria and Tunisia, the migrations of European workers and the wanderings of missionaries, informal exchanges as well as relations with the Ottoman Empire. or the increased influence of the British, French and Italian consulates. Gradually, the east-west axis of trade gave way to the new north-south imperial axis (Mediterraneansp. 9) but other flows, precolonial or extra-colonial, confuse the Mediterranean situation.
Question of points of view ?
These recent publications make it possible to restore the “ complexity of the colonial phenomenon », which cannot be summarized by a political, cultural, economic or social perspective but, on the contrary, embraces all these dimensions at the same time. Hélène Blais, Claire Fredj and Emmanuelle Saada call for a “ decentration » (RH19p. 23) or rather, to a multiplication of perspectives, to escape from “ all political » without neglecting an in-depth reflection on the workings of the colonizing State. These authors emphasize that the hegemony of the latter, if not uncontested, is based as much on force as on law, which establishes a “ dull violence, ”structural” » (RH19p. 12). Judith Surkis’ article thus shows that the legal interpretation of polygamy is closely linked to the appropriation of land from colonized populations.
However, the domination exercised by the colonial power over society is very real, without ever being total and “ the historiographical challenge undoubtedly consists of understanding together the contacts and the confrontations, the encounters and the conflicts, in short, interactions marked above all by the asymmetry of rights » (RH19p. 14). Thus, and without denying the prevalence of a context of unequal relationships, Julia Clancy-Smith continues to describe the relationships between social groups which are far from being fixed. This is not her first attempt. In a previous work, Rebel and Saintit already made an important contribution to the knowledge of the populations of the pre-Sahara, straddling Tunisia and Algeria throughout the XIXe century, and to the question of meetings between the colonial authorities and two great brotherhoods, the Rahmaniyya and the Senoussiyya.
Particular attention paid to “ mediators » – like the interpreters described by Alain Messaoudi – and to the social spaces in between (ports and cafés, public baths or associations, for example) must also make it possible to overcome preconceived divisions. The opposition between settlers ” And “ colonized » is then enriched with other criteria of belonging: economic and social, religious, national, gender and generational. The Maltese, rarely civil servants or settlers, populated the small world of fishermen and smugglers along the Tunisian coasts. Julia Clancy-Smith constantly looks at the rankless – and voiceless –, at these “ Mediterraneans » missionaries, servants, sailors or tavern owners. Mouloud Haddad also takes up the challenge when he examines the connection between religious practices and forms of opposition to the colonial project.
A promising avenue for research that aims to give “ greater cultural depth to the practices of the Algerian populations » (RH19p. 13). This concern is also shared by Emmanuel Blanchard and Sylvie Thénault who recently called, in a special issue of Social movementhas “ a social history of colonized Algeria », backed by the tools and methods “ classics » of social history.
Multiplying the angles of approach requires multiplying the sources. If historians are often dependent on administrative archives, they can reread them without relying on imperial rhetoric and tirelessly track down other, more scattered traces of different social groups in a colonial situation. There History review of XIXe century thus shows another history of Algeria in the process of being written. Deployed over a long period and crossing perspectives, this story depicts, from all its angles, a complex colonial reality, without ever departing from “ a shared concern for reflexivity » (RH19p. 8). We are now impatiently awaiting, for Algeria XIXe century, a panorama as complete as that established by Julia Clancy-Smith for Tunisia. A synthesis which would integrate the point of view of “ those below » and would discuss categorizations, which would rework chronological breaks and the question of space, by allowing, for example, some incursions into rural areas.