Jane E. Goodman

Reinterpreting the Berber Spring: From Rite of Reversal to Site of Convergence

This article proposes a new interpretation of the ‘Berber Spring’ – a period of state violence in the Kabyle region of Algeria that is now commemorated throughout Amazigh communities in North Africa and the diaspora as a foundational moment in the struggle for Berber or Amazigh identity. Whereas most accounts describe the Berber Spring in terms of an ‘explosion’ and situate it within a Fanonian narrative of liberation, I argue that the events of April 1980 were made possible by the convergence of four rapidly expanding institutional networks and dissemination pathways: the Arabisation programme implemented in the Algerian public schools; a small network of cultural collectives established in Paris in the decade following independence; the modes of student governance being practiced at Algerian universities; and the international press and human rights organisations. She holds a PhD in anthropology from Brandeis University. She is currently finishing a book manuscript entitled ‘From Village to Vinyl: Berber Culture in Circulation’, under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press. Her research focuses on Berber identity in Algeria, particularly as constructed through poetry, song and performance.

The man behind the curtain: theatrics of the state in Algeria

This article examines the construction of state and regime in Algeria through performance and narrative. It is ethnographically centred around a series of events surrounding the demolition, relocation, and reconstitution of a local theatre. I argue that even as Algerians position themselves discursively outside the political regime and deny that they can impact its decisions, they also find pragmatic ways of working with it in order to shape their own futures. I show how narratives of regime omnipotence and citizen impotence simultaneously haunt and fuel various creative means for engaging with the state.

Acting with One Voice: Producing Unanimism in Algerian Reformist Theater

Scholars of democracy from Tocqueville to Habermas have long considered the proliferation of so-called voluntary associations as a sign of a flourishing civil society and as central to the rise of democratic modernity. I contend that the Algerian theatrical and musical associations of the reformist period anticipate another kind of civic history: a history of displays of unanimism in public life. I am interested in how and why Algerians learned to produce public displays of agreement for particular audiences (including themselves) at particular historical moments. I emphasize three factors that contributed to the production of unanimity: the achievement of tawḥīd or unity in the Islamic reform movement, vernacular practices of consensus-based argumentation, and French colonial legal and surveillance mechanisms. The essay engages theories of civil society, colonialism, and performance. It draws primarily on material from the French colonial archives for the city of Constantine, Algeria.