Unravelling histories: researching uneasy heritage associations in Oran, Algeria

ABSTRACT

The proliferation of heritage associations is a relatively new phenomenon in Algeria. In this article, an ethnographic study of a heritage association in Oran (2016/17) serves as a means to explore how shifting social relations shaped the way heritage is thought about, talked about and done within and beyond the associative sector in this country. The fieldwork was not always easy, partly due to diverse understandings about what heritage and research looked like. Reflecting on these tensions, this study is situated within the broader context of the international political economy of heritage and knowledge-making around the Mediterranean basin.

KEYWORDS:

• Algeria
• oran
• mediterranean
• heritage associations
• ethnography
• reflexivity

Acknowledgments

I am immensely grateful to all those who gave up their time to answer my questions and to show me around Oran and sometimes into their homes in the course of this study. This research was carried out as a part of a post-doctoral fellowship awarded by the LabexMed/Gerda Henkel Foundation, in partnership with Aix-Marseille University, during which time I was based at the research institute, Institut d’ethnographie méditerranéenne, européenne et comparative (IDEMEC, CNRS-UMR 7307). A draft of this article was first presented at a workshop co-hosted with Cyril Isnart at the Maison Méditerranéenen des Sciences de l’Homme in 2017. My thinking on heritage-making around the Mediterranean in conversations with colleagues as part of the research programme CAMU (Circulation and adaptation of models of urban planning around the western Mediterranean in the 20^th and 21^st centuries) (LabexMed, programme APRIMED). Special thanks are due to Cyril Isnart and Othmane Djebbar for their careful reading and thoughtful comments on previous versions of this article. Thanks too to the anonymous reviewers, particularly one, for some excellent references and useful ideas for how to strengthen my arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The notion of ‘relative location’ is borrowed from the ERC research project, ‘Crosslocations: Rethinking relative location in the Mediterranean’, www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/crosslocations.

2. The idea of ‘uneasy’ heritage associations in the Mediterranean is the focus of this thematic section. See Bullen and Isnart’s Introduction.

3. For overviews of the debates about the pertinence of the Mediterranean as a socio-spatial concept see Albera and Tozy (2005).

4. Law 87-15 of 21 July 1987 relative to associations.

5. Law 90-31 of 4 December 1990 relative to associations.

6. Law 98-04 of 15 June 1998 relating to the protection of cultural heritage.

7. Although, as Khilani (1997), shows, there was a difference in the treatment of Berber cultures and peoples, seen as more ‘civilised’ than the Arabic Muslims.

8. I don’t have the figures for the 1990s. In 2012, only four percent of the population had profiles that matched those of SDH’s members (Lakjaa 2012).

9. SDH 25^th anniversary brochure, ‘Une école de la citoyenneté’. N.d.

10. http://sdhoran.asso.dz. Last accessed 3 July 2019. My translation.

11. This section draws on interviews with former AECID personnel in July 2017 and September 2019.

12. Including an Oran-Bordeaux city twinning programme and a EU-funded project to develop historic city-centres around the Mediterranean.

13. ‘Le Courrier de SDH, ‘Protéger le patrimoine’, March-April 2005.

14. The other cities were Algiers, Annaba and Constantine.

15. Law 12-06 of 12 January 2012 on associations.

16. These narratives were present in local and national newspaper articles. See also Madani (2016).

17. I was also asked for a summary of my research objectives and hypotheses, a CV and examples of previous academic articles.

18. Consequently, I had very little interaction with the young apprentices or trainees of the restoration school.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Aix Marseille Univ, Gerda Henkel Stiftung, CNRS, IDEMEC, LabexMed [0].

Notes on contributors

Claire Bullen

Claire Bullen is an anthropologist, currently based at the University of Tübingen as a post-doctoral researcher. Her research interests include cultural policies and social relations in and of cities, questions of power and ethnographic comparison. She is an associated researcher at INAMA (ENSA Marseille) and IDEMEC (CNRS-UMR 7307, Aix-Marseille University). She carries out fieldwork in Algeria, France and the UK.