A Socio-anthropological approach to discreet action

Find out more about the winning 2024 project ‘A Socio-anthropological approach to discreet action. Women's invisibility and (infra)political commitment in Kabylia (Algeria)' from the Louis Dumont Fund, which supports research in social anthropology.

Since the 1980s, Kabylia, a Mediterranean and Berber-speaking region of Algeria, has been affected by socio-cultural movements that have led to a process of identity reconstruction. So-called traditional socio-political bodies and value systems are being reactivated by social actors. On the one hand, village institutions such as the tajmaεt (male gerontocratic assemblies) and the tribal referent (aârch) are revitalised and form the organisational framework of the movement; on the other hand, the universe of political meaning in which the actors are embedded is that of honour and taqbaylit (kabylity), which shapes the re-semantisation and politicisation of identity belonging. These cornerstones that structure the social and symbolic dimensions of politics are based on a gendered distribution of roles and spaces. At the same time, the dynamism inherent in the process of rebuilding identity is characterised by constant shifts in the issues and meanings attached to honour. While the movement's organisational framework prolongs the exclusion of women from the political sphere, myths such as the freedom of Berber women and the original matriarchy are mobilised by activists as a source of pride in their identity.

This research focuses on women's involvement in the process of reconstructing identity in Kabylia by studying the conditions under which it is possible, its multiple forms and its consequences. The analysis focuses on the effects that the presence of women in the political sphere imposes on the gendered forms and norms that frame not only the movements studied but, more generally, the symbolic and social system. By linking the context of domination to (infra)political action in the villages, we examine the tension that runs through women's involvement between appropriation and contestation of the normative frame of reference. The study of these commitments - encompassing forms of adaptation and subversion of gender norms - corresponds to an understanding of the invisible grammar of female political action and, consequently, of the affirmations and renegotiations that the latter imposes on the process of identity reconstruction.