Synopses & Reviews
Recalling how they lived in a single house that was occupied by several Jewish and Muslim families, in the generation before Algerian independence, Joelle Bahloul's informants build up a multi-voice microhistory of a way of life that came to an end in the early l960s. Uprooted and dispersed, these former neighbors constantly refer back to the architecture of the home itself, which, with its internal boundaries and shared spaces, structures their memories. Here, in miniature, is a domestic history of North African Muslims, Jews and Christians living under French colonial rule.
Synopsis
Recalling life in a single house occupied by several Jewish and Muslim families, in the generation before Algerian independence, Joelle Bahloulâs informants build up a micro-history of a period which came to an end in the early 1960s. Uprooted and dispersed, these former neighbours constantly refer back to the architecture of the house itself, which, with its internal boundaries and shared spaces, structures their memories. The book will appeal to anthropologists and anyone interested in the history of the colonial Middle East.
Table of Contents
Introduction; l. Foundations; 2. Telling places: the house as social architecture; 3. Telling people: the house and the world; 4. Domestic time; 5. The poetics of remembrance.