'Traitors to the nation': Algerian Harkis between discourses of loyalty, belonging and lived experiences in the post-colonial context (1962-2023/4)

As many European powers did in many colonial wars, the French army recruited Algerian men on a
massive scale to fight in its ranks during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62). Since 1962, these
men ("harkis") and their descendants have been subject to highly politicised discourses on both sides of
the Mediterranean. In France, harkis are often held up as loyalists, abandoned by the French state in
1962. In Algeria, harkis are presented as traitors to the nation. Academic work thus far has
overwhelmingly focused on post-colonial France, and despite some recent scholarly attempts, public
understanding of harkis remains locked in the loyalist/traitor dichotomy. Focusing specifically on postcolonial
Algeria, this project both analyses the political, economic and social functions of discourses
about harkis, and steps beyond these discourses to uncover the lived experiences of harkis and their
families after independence. For too long, harkis have been understood uniquely in terms of their
relationship to France (and by extension, the new Algerian nation), and not within longer-standing
networks of family ties and local and regional contexts, as well as the dynamics of mobility of all kinds
(geographic, social) after independence. This project will tease out and analyse the intersecting factors
which determined how and why (or why not) harkis and their families found their place in postindependence
Algeria. In doing so, it will contribute to enhancing a wider literature on war "exits" and
the return to peace (or begrudging truces), beyond more familiar frameworks of peace and reconciliation
processes.