Population Regrouping in Algeria: Traumatic Change and the Rural Settlement Pattern

Abstract

The Algerian rural settlement system has endured considerable upheaval recently: first, from the regrouping of at least 2 ooo ooo rural Algerians during the War of Independence; secondly, as part of the wider rural reorganization promoted since 1971 by an agrarian reform programme. The effects of the earlier resettlement are examined and then interpreted with the aid of concepts of stress and trauma. The ambivalent reaction of a traditional peasantry to the crisis of continuity which resettlement represents explains the continued existence in 1973 of centres considered temporary, 1955-61. A similar bipolar response to resettlement as part of the recent agrarian reform is postulated from the interim results of this recent restructuring of the rural settlement system. Les regroupements de population operes en Algerie par l'armee frangaise constituaient un objet d'6tude 6minent, ne ffit-ce que parce qu'il sera d6sormais impossible de comprendre la soci6t6 rurale algerienne sans consid6rer le bouleversement extraordinaire et irreversible qu'ils ont d6termin6.l