Culture, Society & Diaspora
Culture, Society & Diaspora
Algerian society is shaped by a history of conquest and resistance, independence and reinvention. Understanding Algeria means understanding the forces—colonial, religious, economic, and social—that have moulded its people.
Here we explore the figures who defined the nation, the institutions that govern, and the questions of identity that Algerians continue to navigate.
Watch Algerian politicians or senior business figures speaking French and you will often hear it: a particular rolling quality to the r, the tongue tip vibrating against the ridge behind the upper teeth rather than retreating to the back of…
For more than two millennia, outsiders have been writing about the peoples and polities of present-day Algeria. Greek writers classified them among distant “Libyan” peoples. Roman authors foregrounded cavalry, kingdoms and imperial utility. Early modern Christian European writers reduced Algiers…
The relationship between Algeria and China is older than many people realise. It predates Algerian independence itself: Beijing recognised the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic in 1958, during the war of liberation, becoming the first non-Arab country to recognise…
In the 1790s, the United States did not defeat Algiers. It paid Algiers — handsomely, repeatedly, and with a warship added to the bargain. Long before America became a global power, it was a cash-strapped young republic negotiating from weakness…
In Algeria, navigating employment, healthcare or administrative procedures can sometimes involve a familiar question: ʿandek maârifa? — “Do you have connections?” The concept that captures this reality is maârifa (also rendered el-maârifa), loosely translated as “knowing someone,” and it is…
There is a particular kind of writer who becomes inseparable from the history that made them, and Kateb Yacine is one of Algeria’s clearest examples. Best known for his 1956 novel Nedjma, he spent four decades moving between poetry, prose,…