This dissertation aims to put forward a thorough reflection on contemporary processes of identity constructions, both individual and collective, which are criss-crossed by experiences of migration inscribed within the Mediterranean space, which I consider in its heterogeneity. Through two specific case studies, approached from a comparative and gender perspective, I look at subjects who understand themselves as tied to (physical and symbolic) experiences of displacement claim fluid subjectivities. The works by Najat El Hachmi (Beni Sidel, 1979) and Dalila Kerchouche (Bias, 1973) present different factual dimensions and textual fabrics and are of a polyphonic nature. Because they pay attention to the multi-layered consequences that enfold from population movements, their nuanced considerations represent a precious guideline of sorts in understanding the syncretic fabric that shapes our world. I use the literary texts produced by these two authors of Maghrebi origin who grew up in Europe in order to filter my analyses, for I believe that the attentive regard that literature enables is of great value when it comes to problematizing rigid understandings of identity. Both El Hachmi and Kerchouche inherited an experience of migration, initiated by their fathers, that led them to embody and undertake different interstitial positions in Catalonia and France, where they respectively live. In their works, they dwell on all these “inbetween” positions that they, as writers, and the characters that they portray occupy. To do so, they use autobiographical essays first and, later on, fiction in order to delve into inherited cultural traditions, to contest clear-cut identity labels, and to explore the languages and experiences that have shaped their subjectivities. I thus read these texts as the tools that the authors use to enter into a dialogical relationship with their European societies, societies that, I argue, perceive them as an immigrant (in El Hachmi’s case) and as a harki (in the case of Kerchouche). As such, I critically consider El Hachmi’s and Kerchouche’s works as literary products and also as political artefacts that bespeak the authors’s agency. The thesis is divided into two sections, “In Between Labels” and “In Between Languages, Memories and Spaces” –each containing two chapters–, which account for the different elements playing a part in the construction of their individual and collective identities –a concept, that of identity, that I approach using epistemological cues borrowed from several disciplines, mainly those of postcolonial studies and the decolonial school, as I explain in the Introduction. In Catalonia and in France, El Hachmi and Kerchouche, and their characters, are encouraged to identify themselves as part of the societal tissue of these spaces. However, their belonging is hampered by the fact that they are perceived through the aforementioned “labels” of immigrant and harki, categorizations that place them in the terrain of alterity. At the same time, the familial communities of the authors and their characters want them to understand themselves in connection with their Maghrebi origins, which are differently nuanced in each of the cases. El Hachmi and Kerchouche have found in the literary space a mode of dwelling and a felicitous way to conflate the languages, cultural traditions and memories with which they interact. They use the written page to inscribe the imaginaries that conform them, which have to do with experiences that are traversed by manifold silences –connected with the Franco-Algerian war and its aftermath, in the context epitomised by Kerchouche. In such gestures of inscription the authors not only create ties of belonging within the communities they identify with but also put forward historical rewritings and countermemories that aim at contesting the hegemonic historical discourses that, in Europe, disavow the subjects conceived as immigrants or harkis. Ultimately, the intricate works by El Hachmi and Kerchouche studied in this thesis, whose rich intertextuality I put in dialogue with the theorizations of authors such as Gloria Anzaldua, Homi K. Bhabha or Helene Cixous, galvanize us to understand subjectivities as hybrid and fluid; always in process of translation, always “wounded” and hence open to the incorporation of enriching difference.

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Writing the In-Between: Transmediterranean Identity Constructions in the Works of Najat El Hachmi and Dalila Kerchouche

En France, aujourd’hui, cohabitent des protagonistes de l’histoire franco-algerienne qui ont pu occuper des positions antagonistes, ainsi que leurs descendants ; ils sont communement appeles « algerien », « harki » et « pied-noir ». Cette these presente l’etude croisee des processus de construction memorielle apres la guerre d’independance algerienne dans ces trois groupes socio-historiques. Les recits des histoires de famille ont ete confrontes a l’Histoire ecrite par les historiens. Le corpus se compose de personnes nees pendant la periode coloniale, ayant vecu la guerre et la migration vers la France hexagonale, ainsi que des personnes de la generation de leurs enfants et de leurs petits-enfants.A partir de la constitution des familles, y compris dans leur dimension transnationale, nous proposons d’interroger les processus de transmission des souvenirs et leurs reappropriations par les individus de ces trois generations. A travers le croisement de ces memoires, la pertinence de la categorisation socio-historique est questionnee, qu’il s’agisse de constructions memorielles ou d’appartenance. Ces memoires, souvent opposees dans leur regard sur les evenements, s’inscrivent sur un territoire au recit national commun, mais dans lequel elles ne se retrouvent pas toujours. Nous nous interessons egalement aux representations de soi et de l’Autre, construites a partir de cette histoire franco-algerienne et a leurs consequences sur la cohesion sociale aujourd’hui.

https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01871444/document

Mémoires croisées. Retour sur l'expérience coloniale et la guerre d'indépendance à travers trois générations d' "Algériens", "Harkis", et "Pieds-Noirs"

Rethinking France's "Memory Wars": Harki and Pied-Noir Collective Memories in Fifth Republic France

Resume L'histoire imperiale est partie prenante de l'histoire francaise dans son ensemble, mais peu d'historiens de la France acceptent cette idee. Depuis le debut des annees 2000, l'histoire, la memoire et le politique se sont a ce propos enchevetres de facon passionnelle: ainsi l'idee lancee par le president Sarkozy d'une "identite nationale" reduite a l'Hexagone ou celle d'un musee de l'histoire de France. Or, contrairement a une idee recue, la colonisation n'a pas ete pour les Francais une parenthese qui se serait refermee. Le "colonialisme" a la francaise est enracine car il a ete faconne tout au long des derniers siecles par une ideologie imperiale dominante dont les Francais ont d'autant plus de mal a se degager qu'elle fait desormais partie de la culture postcoloniale heritee. Une grande partie de l'immigration recente etant d'origine coloniale, les Francais "beurs" ou "noirs" qui en sont les descendants pâtissent de ce passe mal integre qui se traduit aujourd'hui par un racisme postcolonial, demo...

Colonisation, racisme et roman national en France

Using the case study of Montpellier, this article explores the relationship between local political actors and postcolonial minorities since the end of the Algerian War – particularly, the city's pied-noir, harki, Moroccan and Jewish populations. It examines the discourses used to secure the electoral allegiances of these groups and the myriad ways in which they laid claim to certain civic and political spaces. It employs diverse oral, archival and audio-visual sources to demonstrate how postcolonial minorities have gained important concessions from local authorities and how identity politics has developed under the Fifth Republic, despite France's strong republican tradition.

Managing the Postcolony: Minority Politics in Montpellier, c.1960–c.2010

Les harkis dans la colonisation et ses suites [Préface de Jean Lacouture. Paris, Les éditions de l'atelier, 2008]: Préface de Jean Lacouture. Paris, Les éditions de l'atelier, 2008

Fatima Besnaci-Lancou

Papers

Les harkis dans la colonisation et ses suites [Préface de Jean Lacouture. Paris, Les éditions de l'atelier, 2008]: Préface de Jean Lacouture. Paris, Les éditions de l'atelier, 2008

Les harkis, histoire, mémoire et transmission