From Poverty to Wretchedness

Albert Camus and the psychology of the pieds-noirs

Bibliographic Data

ID4549564
AuthorsJohn Strachan (0000-0003-1301-5386, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume14
Issue2
Publication date2013-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Colonialism and Colonial History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1532-5768 • E-ISSN: 1532-5768
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/cch.2013.0027
OpenAlexW2080740805
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited21

This article uses the pieds-noirs (European settlers) of Algeria as a case study of how "poor whites" have been constructed, and have constructed themselves, in colonial historiography. Beginning with a reexamination of terminology, and of the socioeconomic status of the pieds-noirs , I argue that the poverty of this community is more often and more usefully understood as a form of psychological impoverishment. The work of Albert Camus represents a salient example of these discourses and offers the historian a productive means of rethinking the conceptually liminal space of "poor whites" between colony and metropole

Archaeology · Colonialism · Liminality · Linguistics · Political science · Poverty · Salient · Sociology · Terminology · African history and culture studies · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · History · Law · North African History and Literature · Philosophy