Migration Experiences in Contemporary Algeria : Research from the Perspective of Abdelmalek Sayad

A specialist in the migratory phenomenon, Abdelmalek Sayad (1933–1998) experienced a contrasted fate after his death: in France, tributes, celebrations, and the management of his scientific legacy multiplied, along with its continuation through conferences and academic theses; in short, his presence became increasingly visible both in the academic and associative fields. On the other hand, one can only note his near absence on the Algerian side.

To somewhat “balance” this situation, the National Center for Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology (CRASC), the former French Cultural Center in Oran, the Association for the Preservation of the La Villette Site (Paris), and the Friends of Abdelmalek Sayad Association launched a series of conferences on Sayad. The objective of these scientific meetings was to introduce the sociologist and his work not only to the academic public, especially students, but also to the general public. In addition, training seminars were organized at CRASC to study Sayad’s sociology in its various aspects: thematic, methodological, and theoretical.

This research project stems from this series of seminars. Its goal is to conduct research on emigration following the sociology of Abdelmalek Sayad, that is, on the migratory phenomenon in the country of origin, here in Algeria. While this phenomenon has been extensively studied in France, as Sayad had already noted, it has not been similarly examined in Algeria by local researchers.

In this project, we focus on the “origin variables,” according to Sayad’s terminology, meaning “(...) the set of social characteristics, dispositions, and socially determined abilities that emigrants already carried before entering France (characteristics allowing the assessment of the emigrant’s position within their group of origin, such as geographical and/or social origin, economic and social characteristics of the group, of the subject with respect to the migratory phenomenon, as established by the local emigration tradition, etc.).”

We are particularly interested in this “local emigration tradition”: why does a tradition of emigration exist in some local societies and not in others? How is it formed and how does it evolve? In other words, we aim to understand the contradiction between the local society (stable by definition) and the migratory condition (which is neither stable nor temporary).