Uprooting: The Crisis of Traditional Algriculture in Algeria

Pierre Bourdieu and Abdelmalek Sayad examined transformations in the fundamental structures of peasant economy and thought during the Algerian War, which resulted in the forcible resettlement of two million Algerian peasants. This destruction of the traditional way of life was exacerbated by the quasi-urban conditions of the resettlement shantytowns, leading to irreversible transformations in economic attitudes and plunging the uprooted individuals into a 'traditionalism of despair suited to daily survival in conditions of extreme uncertainty.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 250 pages
Publication date: 19 June 2020
Publisher: Polity Press

Between 1954 and 1960, during the Algerian War, over two million Algerian peasants, constituting a quarter of the population, were forcibly resettled. They were uprooted from their homes and villages and relocated in camps controlled by the French military, marking one of the largest and most brutal displacements of a rural population in history. In this context of colonial violence, Pierre Bourdieu and Abdelmalek Sayad embarked on a study to examine the transformations in the fundamental structures of peasant economy and thought. By disrupting the spatial and temporal frameworks of ordinary existence and reorganizing the lives of peasants, the process of uprooting completed the imperial policy of land confiscation and the spread of monetary exchange, leading to the 'depeasantization' of agrarian communities. This destruction of the traditional way of life was further exacerbated by the quasi-urban conditions of the resettlement shantytowns, which brought about irreversible transformations in economic attitudes while also accelerating the contagion of needs, plunging the uprooted individuals into a 'traditionalism of despair' suited to daily survival in conditions of extreme uncertainty. Bourdieu and Sayad's detailed analysis of these processes provides a powerful account of the destruction of a traditional way of life and the brutal effects of colonial power. This classic text, now published in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, anthropology, politics, migration studies, postcolonial studies, and the social sciences and humanities generally, as well as to anyone concerned with the impact of colonialism and its legacies.

Weight: 376g
Dimension: 154 x 228 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780745623542