Overview

Algerian migration to France began at the end of the 19th century, but in recent years France's Algerian community has been the focus of a shifting public debate encompassing issues of unemployment, multiculturalism, Islam, and terrorism. In this finely crafted historical and anthropological study, Paul A. Silverstein examines a wide range of social and cultural forms—from immigration policy, colonial governance, and urban planning to corporate advertising, sports, literary narratives, and songs—for what they reveal about postcolonial Algerian subjectivities. Investigating the connection between anti-immigrant racism and the rise of Islamist and Berberist ideologies among the ""second generation"" (""Beurs""), he argues that the appropriation of these cultural-political projects by Algerians in France represents a critique of notions of European or Mediterranean unity and elucidates the mechanisms by which the Algerian civil war has been transferred onto French soil.

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9780253344519

Table of Contents

Reviews

[A] richly nuanced and informative [analysis] of France at the beginning of the twenty-first century. -- Tyler Stovall * University of California, Berkeley * . . admirably broad study. . . . * Times Literary Supplement * [Silverstein] has elaborated an incisive inquiry into the complex configurations of state power and minority agency that marks a central contribution to the academic study of transnationalism and globalization.Vol. 6, No. 2 Spring 2010 -- Ruth Mas * University of Colorado at Boulder * . . . this is an important call that diaspora should become as important a theme in North African history as it has been in that of sub-Saharan Africa. * H-Africa * [Silverstein] approaches his subjects through the medium of everyday life, following the random individuals encountered during his field work in the 1990s, applying an ethnographical methodology with a highly critical and self-reflexive awareness of the environment he shared with them.... [This] is a critical work in opening up a broader consideration of the complex set of identifications running between France, Algeria, and the wider Arab and Muslim world.April, 2011 * H-Levant * This informative and sophisticated work . . . examines Algerian immigration to France . . . [Silverstein] deftly summarizes the history of Franco-Algerian relations.March/April 2005 * Foreign Affairs *

. . . this is an important call that diaspora should become as important a theme in North African history as it has been in that of sub-Saharan Africa. * H-Africa * [A] richly nuanced and informative [analysis] of France at the beginning of the twenty-first century. -- Tyler Stovall * University of California, Berkeley * This informative and sophisticated work . . . examines Algerian immigration to France . . . [Silverstein] deftly summarizes the history of Franco-Algerian relations.March/April 2005 * Foreign Affairs * [Silverstein] has elaborated an incisive inquiry into the complex configurations of state power and minority agency that marks a central contribution to the academic study of transnationalism and globalization.Vol. 6, No. 2 Spring 2010 -- Ruth Mas * University of Colorado at Boulder * . . admirably broad study. . . . * Times Literary Supplement * [Silverstein] approaches his subjects through the medium of everyday life, following the random individuals encountered during his field work in the 1990s, applying an ethnographical methodology with a highly critical and self-reflexive awareness of the environment he shared with them.... [This] is a critical work in opening up a broader consideration of the complex set of identifications running between France, Algeria, and the wider Arab and Muslim world.April, 2011 * H-Levant *

...[in] Silverstein's admirably broad study, Algeria in France ... A vast range of sociocultural forms are tackled with equal confidence... Silverstein offers excellent and factually dense summaries of the key topics and presents much new research, eticulously undertaken... As well as breadth, Algeria in France enjoys great depth, thanks to Silverstein's historicization ot the two countries' contemporary imbrications. --Times Literary Supplement, September 2, 2005 This is work of impressive erudition which is richly documented, theoretically sophisticated, and epistemologically provocative in that it situates itself firmly on a trans-national axis linking France and Algeria across the Mediterranean. --Susan Terrio

[A] richly nuanced and informative [analysis] of France at the beginning of the twenty-first century. -- Tyler Stovall * University of California, Berkeley * . . admirably broad study. . . . * Times Literary Supplement * [Silverstein] has elaborated an incisive inquiry into the complex configurations of state power and minority agency that marks a central contribution to the academic study of transnationalism and globalization.Vol. 6, No. 2 Spring 2010 -- Ruth Mas * University of Colorado at Boulder * [Silverstein] approaches his subjects through the medium of everyday life, following the random individuals encountered during his field work in the 1990s, applying an ethnographical methodology with a highly critical and self-reflexive awareness of the environment he shared with them.... [This] is a critical work in opening up a broader consideration of the complex set of identifications running between France, Algeria, and the wider Arab and Muslim world.April, 2011 * H-Levant * . . . this is an important call that diaspora should become as important a theme in North African history as it has been in that of sub-Saharan Africa. * H-Africa * This informative and sophisticated work . . . examines Algerian immigration to France . . . [Silverstein] deftly summarizes the history of Franco-Algerian relations.March/April 2005 * Foreign Affairs *

Author Information

Paul A. Silverstein is Professor of Anthropology at Reed College.

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