How can we write the history of deserts? As "Desert Studies" are only beginning to attract the attention of scholarly communities across the English-speaking world, this conference examines the crucial issue of sources, and its articulation with key research questions relating to arid spaces around the world, with a particular interest in, but not limited to, the Sahara. Research engaging with the history of the Sahara Desert has taken new directions in recent years, notably around previously neglected issues such as mobility, networks, the emergence of new identities in Saharan countries following decolonization, or as part of new explorations of the relationships between colonised and colonisers. Drawing upon this growing historiography, ‘Writing the Desert’ aims to create a space for reflection around the fundamental material of all academic research: on the one hand, the archives which inform the work of the researcher, and on the other the questions around which their investigation is structured.

Argument

How can we write the history of deserts? As ‘Desert Studies’ are only beginning to attract the attention of scholarly communities across the English-speaking world, this conference examines the crucial issue of sources, and its articulation with key research questions relating to arid spaces around the world, with a particular interest in, but not limited to, the Sahara. Research engaging with the history of the Sahara Desert has taken new directions in recent years, notably around previously neglected issues such as mobility (McDougall & Scheele 2012; Rossi 2015), networks (Brachet 2009; Lydon 2015), the emergence of new identities in Saharan countries following decolonization (Lecoq 2010 & 2019), or as part of new explorations of the relationships between colonised and colonisers (Pandolfi 2018; Lefebvre 2021). Drawing upon this growing historiography, ‘Writing the Desert’ aims to create a space for reflection around the fundamental material of all academic research: on the one hand, the archives which inform the work of the researcher, and on the other the questions around which their investigation is structured. The reflection will be articulated not only around major chronological caesuras, some of which have notably marked the relationship between France and the Sahara (Frémeaux 2008) that was recently brought to light within the framework of the French competitive examination programme in history (Vermeren et al. 2023), but also fundamental themes which have marked the long-term history of desert spaces on Earth.

Conference objectives

At a time when the field of Desert Studies is regenerating and clearly extending beyond the borders of the French-speaking world (in which it had long remained confined), this conference offers a multilingual historiographical assessment of the field and, crucially, an exploration of new archival avenues, opening perspectives on longue durée approaches to the past of arid spaces, and towards the broader question of their place of arid spaces in world. The following questions will structure the discussions:

• Why and how is the history of desert territories written? What are its unique contributions to world history?
• How can Saharan Studies and Desert Studies more generally work together to better understand the history of humanity?
• Who should we listen to? Or the difficult question of sources and voices in spaces where written archives are often rare.
• What is the place of the environment in the history of desert spaces?
• What are the factors that have made desert regions, and in particular the Saharo-Sahelian zone, subject to repeated crises and conflicts since the end of the twentieth century?

Informations pratiques

Contacts

• Walter Bruyère-Ostells walter.bruyere-ostells@sciencespo-aix.fr
• Berny Sèbe b.c.sebe@bham.ac.uk

The conference will take place in hybrid mode.

Zoom link: bit.ly/4c4bUSU [Please note: CEST times/GMT+2]

Online abstracts

Internet Link – bit.ly/3TUw4aI

Programm

9 April 2024

9 h – Visit of the French Overseas archives

29, chemin du moulin de Testas 13182 Aix en Provence

10 h 15 – Conference Opening

Aix-Marseille Université | UFR ALLSH  | Salle de colloque 1 Bat T1 | 29 avenue Robert Schuman | 13090 Aix en Provence

10 h 30 – Opening Keynote

Chair – Gilles Teulié (Aix-Marseille Université)

• Jacques Frémeaux (Paris IV – Sorbonne Université)

11 h 15 – Desert Spaces in the Reading Room

Chair – Isabelle Dion (Archives nationales d’Outre-Mer)

• Isabelle Chiavassa (Archives nationales d’Outre-Mer) Synergies au Sahara : l’action de l’Etat, entre ministère et Organisation Commune des Régions Sahariennes (1957-1963)
• Emmanuelle Braud-Oppenheimer (Archives nationales d’Outre-Mer) La Sahara dans le fonds cinématographique des ANOM
• Frédéric Gilly (Archives nationales d’Outre-Mer) Les photographies relatives au Sahara de l’iconothèque des ANOM. Un espace : quels photographes ? (1892-1957)

12 h45 – Lunch break

14 h – Using Local Archives in the Desert I

Chair – François Hauchard (La Rahla)

• Dominique Casajus (CNRS) Les inscriptions libyques et touarègues comme source historique
• Paul Pandolfi (Université Paul-Valéry – Montpellier 3) Ecrire l’histoire du Sahara central : le nécessaire recours aux poésies touarègues
• Thierry Tillet (Université de Grenoble) Les zawiyyas perdues de l’Azawad et les Kunta al-Sheikh

15 h 30 – Tea break

16 h – Using Local Archives in the Desert II

Chair – Pierre Vermeren (Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne)

• François Dumasy (Sciences-Po Aix) Un Algérien entre plusieurs mondes. L’exploration du Sahara par Ismaïl Bouderbah en 1858
• Yuki Amano (Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) Une micro-région saharienne à la frontière coloniale : connectivité et dynamiques du Souf à la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle
• Anaël Poussier (Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne / SIRICE) Du Nil à la mer Rouge : le désert nubien et les archives de l’État mahdiste (1883-1898)

18 h – Thematic Plenary Day 1

Past and Present in Desert Spaces

Chair – Walter Bruyère-Ostells (Sciences-Po Aix)

Julien Brachet (Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne) & Judith Scheele (Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) Le Frolinat à travers ses archives : réflexion sur le rôle de la bureaucratie dans un mouvement rebelle (Tchad, 1968-1988)

10 April 2024

Sciences-Po Aix | Espace Philippe Séguin | Avenue Jean Dalmas 13090 Aix-en-Provence

9 h – Thematic Plenary Day 2

Deciding the Future of a Desert Territory

Chair – Berny Sèbe (University of Birmingham, professeur invité à Sciences-Po Aix)

• Frédéric Grasset (Fondation pour la mémoire de la Guerre d’Algérie, des Combats du Maroc et de Tunisie) Négocier l’avenir du Sahara occidental : perspectives d’un diplomate en poste

9 h 45 – The Power of Maps

Chair – Saliha Ben Messael (Université de Toulon)

• Matthew Graves (Aix-Marseille Université) Empty Heart: Speculative Cartographies of Colonial Australia and their Postcolonial Remanence
• Karim Chaïbi (Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne) Mapping the French Operations in the Hoggar Region, from Tit (1902) to Algerian Independence
• Christine Vandamme (Université Grenoble Alpes) Mapping Mobility in Australia: From the Bush to the Desert and the Ghostly Place

11 h 15 – Tea break

11 h 45 – Cultural Contacts and Conflicts in Desert Territories

Chair – Frédéric Grasset (Fondation pour la mémoire de la Guerre d’Algérie, des Combats du Maroc et de Tunisie)

• Berny Sèbe (Université de Birmingham, professeur invité à Sciences-Po Aix) L’architecture militaire au Sahara : bâtir pour nomadiser ?
• Julie d’Andurain (Université de Metz) L’économie de la connaissance du désert : L’affrontement entre la « Colo » et l’Armée d’Afrique au Sahara, 1910-1920
• Walter Bruyère Ostells (Sciences-Po Aix) Les OPEX françaises au Sahara

13 h – Lunch break

14 h – Representing Desert Spaces

Chair – Jill Jarvis (Yale)

• Amina Zarzi (University of Oxford) Imaginaire saharien : le dialogue de la fascination coloniale et le désert chimérique post-colonial
• Gilles Teulié (Aix-Marseille Université) The Camel in the Desert: The Picture Postcard Industry and the Writing of Colonial History in Arid Spaces
• Andrew Griffiths (Open University) The Sahara in the British Press, 1914-1918
• Brahim El Guabli (Williams College) Saharanism as an Extractive Practice

15 h 45 – Tea break

16 h – The Forensics of Mass Violence in North African and Saharo-Sahelian Spaces

Chair – Benoît Pouget (Sciences-Po Aix | Aix-Marseille Université | Mesopolhis)

• Pierre Perich (expert ONU / UN Expert) La preuve médicolégale devant la justice pénale africaine : le cas du procès Hissène Habré (2016)
• Morris Tidball-Binz (médecin légiste / Forensic Doctor) Development & Implementation of International Forensic Standards for the Investigation of Unlawful Deaths (the Minnesota Protocol) : The Case of Libya
• Pascal Adalian (Aix-Marseille Université – ADES) Les formations médico-légales aux situations de mortalité de masse/crise en Afrique du Nord et dans la région saharo-sahélienne

17 h 30 Closing keynote

Chair – Matthew Graves (Aix-Marseille Université)

• Pierre Vermeren (Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne)

18 h 15 – Conference ends