The Colonial Identity of Wine

The Leakey Affair and the Franco-Algerian Order of Things

Bibliographic Data

ID12970625
AuthorsJohn Strachan (0000-0003-1301-5386, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume21
Issue2
Pages118-137
Publication date2007-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Social History of Alcohol Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0887-2783 • E-ISSN: 2640-7329
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/shad21020118
PMID20063499
OpenAlexW1634159231
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited7

This article focuses on the 1905 crisis of French and Algerian viticulture that came to be known as the "Leakey Affair." It explains why metropolitan French observers reacted so strongly to Leakey's contract and subsequent advertising of Algerian wine on the British market, first from a socio-economic perspective, and second by reference to the importance of wine in French culture and identity. The final section of the article explains the response of Algeria's colonists to their metropolitan critics. Throughout, wine is used as a prism through which to explore the nature of identity in modern France and the complex colonial relationship in which the wine industry played such a major role. The Leakey Affair revealed the fragility of colonial cultural formations and the importance of wine as a conduit of ideas, and a symbol for fierce wrangling over identity, belonging, and the nature of empire. What was at stake was no less than the intellectual ownership of a mainstay of France's cultural mythology -- wine -- and the relationship between an imperial power and its colonial world

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Colonialism · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Identity (music · Order (exchange · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Symbol (formal · Wine · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies · Wine Industry and Tourism

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