Colourism and indigeneity: the portrayal of Tuareg Amazighs in EFL textbooks in Algeria

Abstract

ABSTRACT There are quite a few studies that adopted a critical perspective to the analysis of the narrative of standardized school textbooks and their impact in the process of ‘the interpellation of individuals as subjects’. While these studies examined narratives on racial/ethnic identity in different national contexts, both the Global North and the Global South, they all address the way mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion play out to define ‘sense of belonging’ ersus ‘otherness’. In the Maghreb region, studies that depict the representation of Amazighs in school textbooks remain scarce. Therefore, guided by Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis conceptual framework, this study focuses on the textual and visual representation of Algerian Tuareg Amazighs in the textbooks that are currently used in Algerian Middle schools. The findings suggest that the portrayal of the Tuareg Amazigh Sahrawi ethnic group is characterized by the ‘markedness’ of their blackness. This visibility affirms their ‘local Otherness’ in three different ways: deagentialization, folklorization, and disempowerment. Some pedagogical recommendations are suggested to foster inclusive and equitable language learning materials and spaces.