Amazigh Sisterhood in Poetry and Songs During the Algerian War

Episode 164: Amazigh Sisterhood in Poetry and Songs During the Algerian War

In this podcast, Fazia Aitel, Associate professor of Francophone and African Studies, Claremont McKenna College in California provides an overview of an ongoing work on Amazigh women from Kabylia, Algeria. Her initial interest was to assess the way women managed while being principally targeted by the French propaganda machine during the Algerian war of independence. Fanon summarized the French colonial mindset on women in one line: “let’s win over the women, and the rest will follow” (Dying colonialism, 1989). The colonial administration failed to win over Algerian women. However, this attempt to divide women from men to weaken the Algerian movement led Fazia to research whether Kabyle women ever created women’s groups or organizations during the war. She thus tracks here the first instance of sisterhood among Amazigh women of Kabylia until the first Amazigh women’s movement in Kabylia in 2001. This is a work in progress about the emergence, significance, and complexities of feminism within an oppressed indigenous group.

We thank our friend Ignacio Villalón, AIMS contemporary art follow for his guitar performance of A vava Inouva of Idir for the introduction and conclusion of this podcast. 

Realization and Editing by: Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).