Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930

Judith Surkis

Description

This is a masterful study of the ways in which sex and law were inextricably intertwined in the elaboration of French rule in Algeria. Its great virtue is to demonstrate in careful detail, with an impressive range of material (from court records to novels), exactly how the conquest of Algeria repeatedly challenged the very ideals of the secular universalism in whose name colonization was carried out. Joan Wallach Scott, author of Sex and SecularismDuring more than a century of colonial rule over Algeria, the French state shaped and reshaped the meaning and practice of Muslim law by regulating it and circumscribing it to the domain of family law, while applying the French Civil Code to appropriate the property of Algerians. In Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 18301930, Judith Surkis traces how colonial authorities constructed Muslim legal difference and used it to deny Algerian Muslims full citizenship. In disconnecting Muslim law from property rights, French officials increasingly attached it to the bodies, beliefs, and personhood.Surkis argues that powerful affective attachments to the intimate life of the family and fantasies about Algerian women and the sexual prerogatives of Muslim men, supposedly codified in the practices of polygamy and child marriage, shaped French theories and regulatory practices of Muslim law in fundamental and lasting ways. Women's legal status in particular came to represent the dense relationship between sex and sovereignty in the colony. This book also highlights the ways in which Algerians interacted with and responded to colonial law. Ultimately, this sweeping legal genealogy of French Algeria elucidates how "the Muslim question" in France becameand remainsa question of sex.

Sujets

• History of Africa
• History of Europe
• Algeria
• Algérie
• Gender studies
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501739514
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

SEX, LAW, AND SOVEREIGNTY IN FRENCH ALGERIA, 1830–1930

Serîesedîtor:ElîzabethS.Anker,CornellUnîversîty

CORPUS JURIS:THE HUMANITIES IN POLITICS AND LAWBOOKS AT THE PUBLISHES INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN LAW, POLITICS, AND THE HUMANITIES—INCLUDING HIS- TORY, LITERARY CRITICISM, ANTHROPOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGIOUS STUDIES, AND

POLITICAL THEORY. BOOKS IN THIS SERIES TACKLE NEW OR UNDER-ANALYZED ISSUES

IN POLITICS AND LAW AND DEVELOP INNOVATIVE METHODS TO UNDERTAKE THOSE INQUIRIES. THE GOAL OF THE SERIES IS TO MULTIPLY THE INTERDISCIPLINARY JUNC- TURES AND CONVERSATIONS THAT SHAPE THE STUDY OF LAW.

SEX, LAW, AND SOVEREIGNTY IN FRENCH ALGERIA, 1830–1930

JudithSurkis

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2019 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2019 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Surkis, Judith, author. Title: Sex, law, and sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830–1930 /  Judith Surkis. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2019. | Series:  Corpus juris | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019006301 (print) | LCCN 2019011011  (ebook) | ISBN 9781501739514 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501739521  (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501739491 | ISBN 9781501739491  (cloth) | ISBN 9781501739507 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Islamic law—Algeria—History. | Domestic  relations (Islamic law)—Algeria—History. | Muslims—Legal  status, laws, etc.—Algeria—History. | Women—Legal status,  laws, etc.—Algeria—History. | Algeria—History—1830–1962. Classification: LCC KQG469 (ebook) | LCC KQG469 .S87 2019  (print) | DDC 349.6509/034—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019006301 Cover image: Hayv Kahraman,The Triangle, 2012. © Hayv Kahraman. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

For Leïla

CONTENTS

ListofIllustrations Acknowledgments NoteonTranslationandTransliteration MapoftheexRegencyofAlger(1834)

Introduction

ChapterONE Bodies of French Algerian Law

TWO Polygamy, Public Order, and Property

THREE Making the “Muslim Family”

FOUR Civilization, the Civil Code, and “Child Marriage”

FIVE SpecialMœursand Military Exceptions

SIX Conversion, Mixed Marriage, and the Corporealization of Law

SEVEN The Sexual Politics of Legal Reform

EIGHT Colonial Literature and Customary Law

îx xî xv xvî

1

27

55

90

119

152

181

217

250

vii

viii CONTENTS

EPILOGUE Sex and the Centenary

Bibliography Index

282

295 325

ILLUSTRATIONS

Fîgure 1

2

3

4

5

6

 7

8

9

10

11

Map of the exRegency of Alger (1834) EugèneHippolyte Forest,Le Sérail en émoi, lithograph, 1830 Antoine Adolphe Fonrouge,JeanJean au sérail d’Alger, lithograph, 1830 Cornille (Victor Auguste Laurent),Une infidèle, lithograph, 1830 FélixJacquesAntoine Moulin,Midjeles, Tribunal supérieur musulman (Tlemcen), fromL’Algérie photographiée: Province d’Oran(1856–1857) FélixJacquesAntoine Moulin,Mauresques en visite, costume de l’intérieur (Alger), fromColonisation française de l’Algérie et voyage de Napoléon III en 1865 Map of official colonization, Sidi Bel Abbès and environs (detail), 1902 Official model of genealogical tree, 1873 Taleb Abdesselem,L’Afrique du nord illustrée, 1928 Max Radiguet, “Polygamie,” fromLe Journal Amusant, 1923 PEM, “Le Centenaire à Montmartre,” fromLe Sourire, 1930

xvî

2

3

29

70

84

105

111

220

248

286

ix