Languages of Memory: Toward Complementarity of the Mnemonic Spheres of the Algerian War

The Algerian War (1954–1962) has elicited much scholarly attention in recent years. From the unearthing of the silenced 17 October 1961 events in Paris to the study the Algerian War’s transformation of France, scholars have investigated different aspects of the war. However, scholarship has mainly placed agency with France. This was a result of the focus on French and francophone production at the expense of cultural production in local, non-colonial languages, which articulated local versions of the memories of the Algerian War. I argue that the ongoing debates about the complementarity of languages in the Maghreb provide a fitting framework to theorize how what I call intra-French, Franco-Algerian, and intra-Algerian mnemonic spheres of war complement each other. In emphasizing the centrality of language in my conceptualization of mnemonic spheres and their complementarity, I bring attention to the ethical necessity of juxtaposing cultural production in Amazigh, Arabic, Darija (colloquial Arabic of the Maghreb), and French for the study of memories of this transformative war. Not only does this approach reveal the complexity of war and its memories, but it also demonstrates that Algerians have portrayed their memories of war through their local languages, thus turning them into sites of their mnemonic agency.