Village Matters: Knowledge, Politics and Community in Kabylia, Algeria

Author:   Judith Scheele
Publisher:   James Currey
ISBN:  

9781847012050


Pages:   191
Publication Date:   19 March 2009
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Village Matters: Knowledge, Politics and Community in Kabylia, Algeria


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Overview

Traces Kabylia's history through French occupation, the Algerian war of independence, and the political turmoil that followed. Kabylia is a Berber-speaking, densely populated mountainous region east of Algiers, that has played an important part in Algerian pre- and post-independence politics, and continues to be troublesome to central government. But 'Kabylia' is also an ideal, shaped and shared by a variety of intellectual trends both in Algeria and in France. Kabylia was seen by sociologically minded nineteenth-century French authors as a model of primitive democracy and became central to their debates about good government, the nature of 'race', nationhood, and the social bond. These qualities have by now largely been appropriated by Kabyles themselves, and have become central to Kabyle self-images discussed on numerous websites run by Kabyle emigrants in France as much as by local parties and associations in Kabylia itself. Central to this image is the Kabyles' attachment to their home villages. But what exactly makes a village a village? And how can this emphasis on communal autonomy be articulated within a modern nation-state? These are the questions this book tries to answer through an in-depth case study of one particular village, analysing the contemporary debates that animate it, and tracing its history through the French conquest and occupation, the Algerian war of independence, and the political turmoil, including the challenge of Islamist politics, that followed independence. The 'village', as much as Kabylia as a whole, emerges as a place made by its internal contradictions, and that can only be understood with reference to the position it occupies within the various intellectual, political, economic and cultural 'world-systems' of which it is part. Judith Scheele is a Research Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford

Full Product Details

Author:   Judith Scheele
Publisher:   James Currey
Imprint:   James Currey
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.001kg
ISBN:  

9781847012050


ISBN 10:   1847012051
Pages:   191
Publication Date:   19 March 2009
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Introduction Massinissah's children The republic of martyrs Shifting centres The theft of history The centres of the world Speaking in the name of the village Conclusion

Reviews

A very fine study (and) a nuanced history and critique of the colonial sources, archival and published, so critical to her principal argument. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORICAL STUDIES An utterly compelling political ethnography of Algeria. (...) Village Matters is social anthropology at its very best, successfully deploying ethnographic and archival methodologies to present a complex picture of a local social world, while questioning fundamental assumptions that have for too long hamstrung the discipline into the mere description of the local. Beyond its contribution to the study of Algeria, Scheele provides a compelling model for understanding the politics of community writ large. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE (An) outstanding ethnography. (...) This compelling ethnography is as critical to understanding modern Algeria as Alistair Horne's historical A Savage War of Peace. CHOICE


A very fine study [and] a nuanced history and critique of the colonial sources, archival and published, so critical to her principal argument. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORICAL STUDIES An utterly compelling political ethnography of Algeria. [...] Village Matters is social anthropology at its very best, successfully deploying ethnographic and archival methodologies to present a complex picture of a local social world, while questioning fundamental assumptions that have for too long hamstrung the discipline into the mere description of the local. Beyond its contribution to the study of Algeria, Scheele provides a compelling model for understanding the politics of community writ large. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE [An] outstanding ethnography. [...] This compelling ethnography is as critical to understanding modern Algeria as Alistair Horne's historical A Savage War of Peace. CHOICE


A very fine study [and] a nuanced history and critique of the colonial sources, archival and published, so critical to her principal argument. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORICAL STUDIES An utterly compelling political ethnography of Algeria. [...] Village Matters is social anthropology at its very best, successfully deploying ethnographic and archival methodologies to present a complex picture of a local social world, while questioning fundamental assumptions that have for too long hamstrung the discipline into the mere description of the local. Beyond its contribution to the study of Algeria, Scheele provides a compelling model for understanding the politics of community writ large. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE [An] outstanding ethnography. [...] This compelling ethnography is as critical to understanding modern Algeria as Alistair Horne's historical A Savage War of Peace. CHOICE


Author Information

Judith Scheele is a research fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford

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