The Colonization of Names: Symbolic Violence and France’s Occupation of Algeria - Couverture souple

Brower, Benjamin

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0231216017 ISBN 13 : 9780231216012

Editeur : Columbia University Press, 2025

Synopsis

French colonization dismantled Algerian names. Under the occupation that began in 1830, not only were Algerian towns and streets renamed in honor of French figures, but personal names were forced to follow French conventions and norms. Colonial authorities simplified and transformed Algerian names to suit their administrative and legal purposes, crudely transcribing and transliterating Arabic and Berber. They imposed a two-part name and surname model that stripped away the extended family ties and social context inherent to precolonial naming practices.

This groundbreaking history of personal names in nineteenth-century Algeria sheds new light on the symbolic violence of renaming and the relationship between language and colonialism. Benjamin Claude Brower traces the changes Algerians' personal names suffered during the colonial era and the consequences for individuals and society. France's imposition of new names, he argues, destabilized Algerians' sense of self and place in the community, distorted local identities, and compromised institutions such as the family. Drawing on previously unstudied records, Brower examines different northwestern African naming traditions and how colonialism changed them. With the aid of literary and critical theory, he develops new insights into the name and its relationship to power and subjectivity. A rigorous theoretical and historical account of symbolic violence, The Colonization of Names unveils many unseen forms of harm under colonial rule.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Benjamin Claude Brower is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902 (Columbia, 2009).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Columbia University Press
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0231216017
• ISBN 13: 9780231216012
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 360
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Columbia University Press; https://cup.columbia.edu/; ; OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL 412 LOW MEMORIAL LIBRARY 535 W. 116THSTR; NEW YORK; NY; 10027; Etats-Unis
• Personne responsable: non disponible