TY - JOUR

T1 - From Poverty to Wretchedness

T2 - Albert Camus and the Psychology of the Pieds-noirs

AU - Strachan, John

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - This article uses the pieds-noirs (European settlers) of Algeria as a case study of how ‘poor whites’ have been constructed, and have constructed themselves, in colonial historiography. Beginning with a re-examination of terminology, and of the socio-economic status of the pieds-noirs, I argue that the poverty of this community is more often and more usefully understood as a form of psychological impoverishment. The work of Albert Camus represents a salient example of these discourses and offers the historian a productive means of re-thinking the conceptually liminal space of ‘poor whites’ between colony and metropole.

AB - This article uses the pieds-noirs (European settlers) of Algeria as a case study of how ‘poor whites’ have been constructed, and have constructed themselves, in colonial historiography. Beginning with a re-examination of terminology, and of the socio-economic status of the pieds-noirs, I argue that the poverty of this community is more often and more usefully understood as a form of psychological impoverishment. The work of Albert Camus represents a salient example of these discourses and offers the historian a productive means of re-thinking the conceptually liminal space of ‘poor whites’ between colony and metropole.

U2 - 10.1353/cch.2013.0027

DO - 10.1353/cch.2013.0027

M3 - Journal article

VL - 14

JO - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

JF - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

IS - 2

M1 - 4

ER -