Between nostalgia and desire: l'Ecole d'Alger's transnational identifications and the case for a Mediterranean relation

Abstract

This article examines the transnational forms of cultural affiliation andMediterranean margin-to-margin circuits of production with which l'Ecole d'Alger (here, Audisio and Camus) experimented in the 1930s, and highlights new theoretical perspectives appropriate to these practices. The authors' use of a mythicized Mediterranean as a unifying trope downplays national and religious differences to the benefit of a common utopian identity both cosmopolitan in nature and generative of a regional awareness which runs counter to dominant colonial segregationist discourses. Descendants of immigrants from throughout the Mediterranean, these writers occupy a unique positionality which enables them to open new spaces for identification and articulate anti-fascist stances as well as a limited critique of colonial practices. These writers' imaginative affiliations spell out a transnational position, which calls for regional areas of study to be considered autonomously. Attention to regional spaces would constructively displace analytical models where the theoretical existence of marginal spaces is but a by-product of their necessary relation to the metropole. The recognition of margin-to-margin relations leaves room for théories de la Relation in keeping with Glissant's paradigm, thereby showing how, in a global decentred paradigm, relational theories from the margins can provide viable alternative frameworks. Résumé Cet article examine les formes alternatives d'affiliations culturelles développées par l'Ecole d'Alger (ici, Audisio et Camus) dans les années 1930. Le recours à une Méditerranée mythique et transnationale qui transcenderait les clivages nationaux et religieux met l'accent sur une identité commune pour tousles Méditerranéens, une identité cosmopolite génératrice d'une appartenance régionale qui va à l'encontre des discours ségrégationnistes coloniaux. Descendants d'immigrés originaires de diverses régions méditerranéennes, ces auteurs occupent une position unique au-delà des polarités colonisateur/colonisé qui leur permet de concevoir de nouveaux espaces identitaires et d'articuler des positions antifascistes ainsi qu'une critique limitée des pratiques coloniales. Les affiliations imaginaires de ces auteurs développent une conception transnationale de la Méditerranée qui préconise un modèle d'études postcoloniales qui n'aurait pas pour seule perspective l'inéluctable relation que l'ex-colonie entretient avec son ex-metropole. Une telle méthode pourrait fournir une alternative fructueuse à des

The Mediterranean alternative

“…genealogies of Mediterranean studies. Inspired by a number of utopian thinkers and strongly influenced by the ideas of Saint-Simon (for a synthesis, see Heffernan, 1999; see also Temine, 2002), this tradition becomes first consolidated within the so-called 'Algiers school' (Talbayev, 2007), subsequently intersecting with the experience of the Cahiers du Sud (in particular those published in 1943), the journal founded by Jean Ballard and published in Marseilles between 1925 and 1969 (Freixe, 2002;Paire, 1993). The conceptualization of the Mediterranean suggested by this literature is explicitly opposed to understandings popularized in European totalitarian and authoritarian circles during the 1930s that specified the Mediterranean as the space of the latinita`: a vision strongly supported by the Italian Fascist regime (Fogu, 2008;Nelis, 2007;Rodogno, 2003) but also many of its French sympathizers such as Louis Bertrand and Charles Maurras (Fabre, 2000a;Lindenberg, 2000).…”