Book Translation : Le déracinement. The crisis of traditional agriculture in Algeria

Between 1955 and 1962, more than two and a half million Algerians—nearly a quarter of the population—were forcibly displaced by the French colonial army and grouped into over two thousand hastily constructed military camps, designed to isolate ALN fighters from civilian populations. These mass displacements intensified after the creation of “forbidden zones” and the enactment of Decree No. 56-274 on March 17, 1956, leading to the evacuation of rural populations to camps or colonial cities, where new shantytowns emerged.

These camps, marked by overcrowding and poor sanitation, caused collective trauma and deep social disruption. They had a lasting impact on Algerian society, shaping contemporary attitudes toward urban and rural life, labor, administration, the military, education, and health.

Within these camps, people were introduced to modern medicine and health services, schooling in makeshift classrooms, wage labor through “unemployment projects,” and new social and cultural practices, including the mixing of Arabic, Amazigh, and French, the adoption of Western clothing, and the use of cafés, all of which profoundly transformed traditional village structures and the rural ethos.

The book Le Déracinement analyzes these physical and symbolic sufferings with sociological rigor, based on unique empirical material. Since its publication in 1964 by Éditions de Minuit, it has become a major reference for historians and sociologists studying colonial violence and forced mobility, summarizing the socio-anthropological work of Pierre Bourdieu and Abdelmalek Sayad on Algeria’s struggle for independence. Its translation into Arabic is considered essential to make this analysis accessible to new generations in Algeria.