Claire Eldridge. From Empire to Exile: History and Memory Within the Pied-Noir and Harki Communities

In this meticulous and much welcome study, University of Leeds historian Claire Eldridge challenges the prevailing claims about a resurgent memory of Algeria to uncover a much more complex story behind the perceived silence of France’s colonial past. Tracing the two entwined trajectories of popular memories that emerged out of the pied noir and harki communities between 1962 and 2012, Eldridge argues that the apparent surge in the outflow of first-hand narratives from the two communities alongside growing public interest in the Algerian past follows on the heels of a long and active engagement with memory making that took off in earnest after 1999 when France finally recognized the Algerian War. Without belittling their meaningfulness to the members of each community, Eldridge decolonizes pied noir and harki popular memories by identifying the processes through which activist members of each group tailored particular accounts about their respective pasts in order to maintain the integrity and survival of their communities and their unique identities.