Tensions of nationalism: The mzabi student missions in tunis and the politics of anticolonialism

• Autores: Amal N. Ghazal
• Localización: International Journal of Middle East Studies, ISSN-e 1471-6380, Vol. 47, Nº. 1, 2015, págs. 47-63
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This article examines the significant yet largely overlooked role of the Mzabis, a community from the northern edges of the Algerian desert, in Algerian and Tunisian anticolonialism and nationalism. In so doing, it pursues two aims: first, to shed light on the importance of Tunis to the politicization of the Mzabis in the 1920s and to their induction into local and regional anticolonial and national movements; and second, to highlight the tensions of subsuming regional identities into overarching national identities by focusing on Mzabi political activists’ negotiation of the relationship between the Mzab and Algeria as a national project. The article also explores the spectrum of political possibilities and alternatives envisioned by Mzabis as they participated in religious reform, anticolonial, and nationalist movements. This spectrum, I argue, conveys the fluid relationship between local, national, and regional identities, thus undermining teleological readings of national identity formation.