Algeria's Impact on French Structuralism: Between Poststructuralist Theory and Colonial Practice

[Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida. Image from the University of Chicago Chronicle.]

Pal Ahuluwalia. Out of Africa: Post-Structuralism’s Colonial Roots. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Jane Goodman and Paul A. Silverstein (eds). Bourdieu in Algeria: Colonial Politics, Ethnographic Practices, Theoretical Developments. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Christopher Wise. Derrida, Africa and the Middle East. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

In the past few years, there appears to have been a falling out between Middle Eastern studies and post-structuralist theory. Edward Said’s Orientalism remains necessary reading for most graduate students, but the surrounding debates in post-colonial and post-structuralist theory have fallen decisively out of fashion. It would seem that the so-called “cultural turn” (often-mistakenly-taken to be synonymous with post-structuralism or postmodernism) was actually a dead-end. While there is a robust debate in critical theory as to the political implications of post-structuralism, in Middle Eastern studies the current refrain sometimes begins with: “just say No to Discourse.” […]