• 1 The Zenets (ethnic group) are one of the Berber branches. Ibadism, a minority branch of Islam belon (...)
• 2 Ksar (Ksour), a Saharan village often fortified and/or clustered. In Berber, aghrem means both city (...)
• 3 Mahé Alain, Histoire de la Grande Kabylie XIX^e-XX^e siècles, anthropologie historique du lien social (...)

3Abstract: The geographical framework of this thesis is the M’Zab valley located in the Algerian Sahara, 600 km south of Algiers. Initially occupied by the Mozabites (Imzabiyen), Zenet Berbers religiously belonging to Ibadism.1 The region is known for its historic ksour with an exceptional architectural and landscape character, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.2 As well as its own institutions, promoting centuries-old self-organisation and strong social solidarity, which have played a key role in the survival of the group and in the creation of “new ksour”.
The new ksour –extensions named in analogy with the historical ksour since they are inspired by them– are urban extensions whose construction was undertaken from the 1990s onwards. The idea was born within the community itself, promoted and supported by the community notables and then by the State. It was a question of finding a solution to the housing crisis, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The particularity of these projects lies in the role played by social solidarity –the practices of which I have detailed in my thesis– from the birth of the idea, the choice of the population, the design of the projects, the management of the building site, the financial arrangements, to the management of the project after its occupation. My research focused on the permanence and changes that affected the different forms of social solidarity that led to the success of the “new ksour”.
The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore the role that social solidarity has had in the creation of the new ksour. A set of questions is necessary: What is solidarity in the M’Zab and for the Mozabites? How is the relationship between social practices related to “solidarity” and the construction of a ksar expressed? Finally, how, concretely, has social solidarity influenced the process of creating the new ksour?
It is through the study of the six new ksour –essentially considered in a monographic way– that I have tried to answer these questions. This work is based both on a technical survey conducted as an architect and on anthropological observations and interviews with various people: notables, administrators, architects, promoters, association presidents, or simple inhabitants of the ksour and the new ksour, in the framework of a field survey that took place over three years, between 2014 and 2016. This research was conducted on two locations: the main one, centred on the old and new ksour in M’Zab, and a secondary one, carried out in the Mozabite community of Bordj Bou Arreridj, a city in Eastern Algeria.
The work was divided into three parts, corresponding to three main lines of thought. The first part –made up of three chapters– reconstructed a blueprint of the organization of the M’Zab and Mozabite society, presenting its different physical, urban, human and institutional components as they can be observed today. In doing so, I have sometimes given historical depth to certain aspects so as to highlight adaptations and prospects for change augured by the expectations of contemporary Mozabites. This first part was in a way the indispensable framework for understanding the context of the appearance and realization of the new ksour –the main objective of this thesis. In order to do this, I began by examining the notion and practices of solidarity in the M’Zab, by deploying the various semantic registers in which it is expressed –in Tamzabt as well as in Arabic– and then modelling its various practical forms. I was thus able to detail the various forms of organization and social practices related to solidarity, starting with interpersonal solidarity promoted by morality and faith, up to institutional solidarity framed by the various institutions of the community, through various forms of exchange such as twiza and its variants in different fields –weaving practices, agricultural activities, twizas for the palm grove and dams, for construction, etc. –and then modelling its different practical forms. These are inseparably linked to functional cooperation or interdependence and to a moral register in the strict sense of the word.
Through this study of solidarity in M’Zab, I have identified five major aspects characterizing the bonds of social solidarity in M’Zab. Its rigorously organized and instituted aspect is obviously what strikes most in the solidarity practices of the M’Zab. The spontaneous civic-mindedness of the Mozabites is no less remarkable, as long as the traditional institutional network properly fulfils its functions. The extent of the financial aspect of this solidarity is also to be underlined and I have been able to precisely evaluate the value of the contributions of the many anonymous patrons without whom those in need would never have been able to benefit from housing within the framework of these new ksour. The organization that made it possible for these projects to be self-financed also held me back for a long time. I was then able to measure the importance of the Mozabite system for the training and education of its children, both in the transmission of traditional know-how –both in terms of organization and civic and moral rules– and in the learning of modern techniques –both on a managerial and administrative level and in terms of civil engineering and architecture. It is important for me to stress here the decisive role of these organizational skills in overcoming the countless obstacles and difficulties inherent in the Algerian political system and administration. Few regions of Algeria have elites that are so capable of the various adjustments and mediations that are indispensable with official bodies, both because of their skills and knowledge and because of their pragmatic political dispositions. This part devoted to solidarity also enabled me to underline the distinction that Mozabites make between mutual aid, lm’awna (charity/caritas/agapé) that is unorganised, individual, punctual and disinterested, and solidarity as a stable, codified, reciprocal and highly institutionalised system.
The social doctrine of Ibadism also has its part in the maintenance and vigour of the solidarity practices specific to the M’Zab. Ibadism is also walâya and barâ’a, which directly express solidarity and disolidarization towards a member of the community. But Mozabite Ibadism is above all a set of religious institutions organized at the city, confederation and national levels. The fundamental role of this organization in leadership, mobilization, financing and education for solidarity was detailed.
I then devoted myself to a meticulous description of this organization at the local level, of the fractions, but also of the notables and jma’as of each town in M’Zab, who ensure the political, social and economic management of the city. This system is special in that it closely articulates the lineage organisation of the ksar and the new forms of organisation of society: associations, neighbourhood committees, professional committees (doctors, shopkeepers, teachers, craftsmen, etc.). In other words, this system makes it possible to cover all the social and professional categories of the city and thus to identify all the needs of civil society. In fact, this process of modernization of the jma’as is essential to ensure the effectiveness of an institution that remains traditional, at least in its rules of operation and its modes of representation, if not in its prerogatives since it has been possible to detail their interventions in the elections at the local level. Indeed, we have seen how the jma’as put together an electoral programme and drew up a list of “independents” which they then proposed to the people’s vote in a republican framework.
Nonetheless, those I have designated as “notables” share collective power with the azzabas –the supreme religious institution at the city level. While the azzabas exercise the spiritual and moral authority of the Mozabites, they also concurrently provide the notables with a social and economic role, mainly through the gifts they make, the waqf (blocked Goods) that they manage collectively, and the zakats (legal alms in Islam) that they redistribute to the needy in the community. It is important here to underline the particularity of the Mozabite system in which each institution (notable and azzabas) has representatives in the confederal institutions. The Council of ‘Ammi Saïd, which brings together the azzabas of the seven cities of M’Zab and the Ibadites of Ouargla, is, in fact, the spokesman of the Algerian Ibadites and their religious reference. The Council of Ba Abdarahman el Korti, which brings together the notabilities of the seven cities of the M’Zab, is in charge of the political, economic and social life of the Mozabites. These two confederal institutions, although they do not have direct contact with the inhabitants, produce the community consensus, which is so important in relations with the outside world –essentially the Algerian administration.
Each stratum of this system is marked by specialization, autonomy and decentralization of interventions, so as to respond effectively to problems raised in the field and at local scales. These institutions are self-financing in principle. It is in fact the community that is responsible for ensuring the financing of its institutions. The contribution of public aid from the Algerian administration comes only at the margin. This is, moreover, the best way for the community to keep control of its affairs and guard against the “irredentism” of the Algerian administration. The analysis of the nature of the links between traditional institutions and the Algerian administration led us to underline the surprising pragmatism of the Mozabite “notables” who excel in compromises, transactions and circumventions. In this regard, the Mozabites exercise real expertise in assessing how far to go without risking compromising the interests of the community or exposing their representatives to sanctions or even more. All this implies both a very detailed knowledge of the workings of the Algerian administration and the personalities of its leaders, as well as of the subtleties of administrative law and the means of circumventing its embarrassing or... aberrant provisions. However, relations between local authorities and the Algerian administration are also regulated by a sense of interest that is well understood on both sides. For Algerian senior officials are quite happy not to have to solve or take charge of all the community’s problems –which the traditional assemblies are only asking to solve themselves with their own means and methods. On the other hand, local authorities do not disdain the help they can get from the Algerian administration. In the end, the Algerian administration can only be satisfied that things, as best they can, manage to function even if, in doing so, the traditional assemblies manage to achieve their objectives. This is quite different from solidarity practices as such, which involve an exchange of good practices or, sometimes, a game of trickery, which suits everyone. In any case, this is how the legal constraints involved in the implementation of a project –such as the new ksour– are reduced on the basis of agreements, adjustments –but also of complicit silence on irregularities on both sides!– within the limits drawn by the balance of power. And this is indeed how the community’s initiatives come to fruition.
The second part of this thesis is an articulation between the first one –the context of the appearance of new ksour– and the last one made up of monographs of each case of a new ksar. It is for this reason that I wanted to begin it by detailing the presentation of the ancient Mozabite ksar; its orf, its genesis; the stages of its conception and its urban and architectural analysis. This return to the old ksar was essential in order to understand the foundations on which the actors of the new ksour based themselves to justify their approaches and choices –urban and architectural– but above all in order to properly unfold the system of representation that informs and accompanies the projects of the new ksour. In this way I was able to better describe the contemporary situation in which the projects of the new ksour emerged and the objectives aimed at by their creation. In addition to satisfying a demand for housing –a housing crisis that has left its mark both on the quality of life of the inhabitants, but also through the establishment of new interpersonal and social relationships– these initiatives have given new hope to the underprivileged classes to have access to home ownership at a time when the real estate market was experiencing unbridled speculation. But these projects were also the only way to preserve the Ksourian ecosystem –the palm groves were threatened by rapid human degradation–, to enhance the value of the Mozabite built heritage –of which all Mozabites are legitimately proud– and to pass on local know-how while taking care to reconcile tradition and modernity. Here again, to achieve all these objectives, concessions and compromises have been necessary both to adapt to administrative and regulatory constraints, but also to take into account the needs other than those of the ancient ksour. In the end, these new ksour can also be seen in terms of the community’s reaction to the forms and standards adopted by the State in its urban policy to ensure openness in the community. While Mozabites do not reject this idea of openness –especially in the perspective of solving the housing crisis and modernizing their housing and facilitie– they intend to collectively control these changes that affect their destiny as a community.
Moreover, the name “new ksour” has been the subject of controversy in M’Zab, including among project beneficiaries. The debate and ambiguity over the terminology of the ksar and the new ksar led me to conclude that despite their commonalities, the two typologies include fundamental differences in their essence, objectives, genesis, means, context of appearance and rationale. The traditional ksar is the result of a lineage logic, in some cases that of a conflict between clans, where the loser leaves the ksar to create another. Thus, the creation of the ksar has a political basis aiming at a total autonomy with the old one. This automatically implies the creation of a new social system (new fractions and alliances, new institutions). This is not the case of the new ksour which were created by the inhabitants of the old ksar in order to meet a social demand for housing, without having political, ideological or autonomy aims with regard to the old core. This also explains why the new ksour are in social continuity with the historical core. Moreover, the long process that led to the old historical ksour cannot be compared to the voluntarist and ex nihilo approach that presided over the construction of the new ksour. In short, it does not matter whether or not the new ksour satisfy the canonical definition of ksour that could be found in the work of historians or architects. One thing is certain, these projects have tried to respond to the problems that the M’Zab valley is currently experiencing. Moreover, it is no less obvious that the expectations of the Mozabites –especially in terms of comfort and facilities– could not have been met by constructions identical to those built in the tenth century of the Christian era.
The third part is a monograph of the six case studies organized in three chapters: 1) successful projects; Tafilelt and Tinemmirine; 2) those in progress; Tinaâm and Tawenza; and 3) those that are inactive; Ioumed and Hamrayat. The objective was to understand how the forms of solidarity had affected the implementation and management process of each project. Thus, all the cases studied are similar in certain aspects –or in similarities that may explain their success or failure:
The origin of the idea: Successful projects are those that have been the result of reflection by the interested parties themselves within the framework of their institutions. It was the inhabitants who carried out the projects while the resources of the community were made available and mobilized in case of problems.
The status of the proponent: The nature of the community’s relationship with the project proponent was critical to the success or failure of the project. The promoters had various statuses: private promoter, limited liability company, promoter under associative cover and foundation. However, a common feature of all these forms was the existence of a social committee made up of representatives of the fractions and the presidents/sponsors, all of whom were recognized notables in their city. The appointment of a promoter from outside the community was one of the reasons for the difficult collaboration with the beneficiaries and was unquestionably one of the reasons for the failure of the projects. In this case, the promoter did not have this community aspect and therefore did not have access to community networks and resources. Moreover, in dealing with a promoter who was a government official, the inhabitants were suspicious and were not in a position to make compromises and arrangements, let alone concessions.
The financial package: The nature and terms of the financing also provide important clues as to the degree of collaboration of the various project actors. Indeed, the financing system directly testifies to the promoters’ ability to mobilise the resources of the State and those of the community in order to carry out the projects properly –thus reducing the price per m² as much as possible, but also to the ability to take care of the vulnerable sections of society. In fact, without community support, the project and/or the promoter would have had far fewer resources to finance it or, more simply, to cope with the inevitable hazards of worksites of this scale. In addition to the public aid that is part of housing programmes throughout Algeria, we have seen the participation of the achiras in solving the financial problems of the projects.
At the end of this part I concluded with the different aspects of mobilized social solidarity. Thus establishing the link between the previous parts and the analysis of the cases:
-The first is organizational: it is due to the close and remarkably efficient networking of the Mozabite traditional institutions. I have indeed been able to underline the complexity of this organization and its extremely coordinated character between: traditional assemblies, free schools, neighbourhood committees (tiskriwin), and modern stopover associations, without forgetting that each organizational level has branches in the diaspora of northern cities and abroad. In addition to the way in which this whole self-management system is coordinated and prioritised –in the literal sense of the word!– I have also described at length its capacity to generate new modes of organization to deal with new situations and new community needs. The case of the Foundations/promoters of the new ksour are an exemplary illustration of this capacity to create institutions. It is important to stress here that this organisational aspect does not depend solely on the solidarity of the community’s authorities, but also on the collective intelligence of those who take charge of this system, to ensure that it works and gets going despite a meticulous administration. Through the multiple cases described along this section, I have shown that it is indeed collective intelligence that constitutes the cement of social solidarity.
-The second aspect is of a strictly civic nature: it concerns the community’s commitment to ensure the success of all its initiatives, either through supervision and participation in the functioning of the community’s institutions, or through support for the activities it proposes. I have also been careful to point out that all community bodies operate on the principle of volunteerism without calling into question the quality of the services offered. We have also seen the titanic work carried out by the promoters of the new ksour. The community’s civic engagement does not have only utilitarian aims –although these should not be neglected!– but also explicitly aims at ensuring the inseparable civic and moral learning of the community’s youth. What other proof can be produced if not that this organization has been in existence for several centuries?
Self-financing is the major economic aspect of this solidarity: it is one of the essential principles of the community which enables it to ensure the realization of its projects, the sustainability of its institutions and its very existence as a group. In fact, the financial contributions of the achiras; the donations of the notabilities; the contribution of the azzabas via the management of the waqf and the zakats, for the financing of the free schools and the Mozabite jma’as throughout the Algerian territory has kept me for a long time in this work. The way in which this system made up for the lack of resources of the indigent beneficiaries of a lot in the new ksour is undoubtedly a model of social policy. Still with regard to this principle of self-financing, I was able to detail the ingenuity –and stubbornness!– of the promoters to cope with the difficulties and hazards of the new ksour construction sites.
Training in solidarity: Training in solidarity is provided at M’Zab mainly in the Ibadite schools; in the mosques and through the religious institution that provides moral education and ensures the spiritual magisterium of the Mozabites. But in fact it is an everyday education that I have been able to describe and observe within the various institutions: neighbourhood committees, associations, periodic meetings of achiras and notables and jma’as mozabite outside M’Zab. We saw how this system was reproduced in the neighbourhood associations that were created in the new ksour.
A final factor in the success of these new ksour is worth mentioning. This is not peculiar to Mozabite society, but is directly related to Algerian citizenship. It concerns all the public resources that the Mozabite community has been able to mobilize to bring its projects to fruition. For if the public policies of the Algerian State have a social component, the fact remains that many Algerians do not benefit from them because they do not have the Algerian administration’s instructions for use and the indispensable know-how. All the reports on the social policies of developed countries have underlined the extent of this problem! This is precisely an aspect that I have documented at length by analysing the relations maintained between official and community bodies, the representation of the Ammi Said Council in the Algerian High Islamic Council and the State’s support for new ksour projects. Without this know-how and skills –not forgetting the particularly attentive dispositions of the Mozabite notables– these projects would not have seen the light of day. With regard to the country’s law, however, I have analysed at length the wealth of ingenuity deployed to make local building standards compatible with national law. As we have seen, the urban planning code at the national level is far from being adequate to the local standards of traditional Mozabite construction. Here again, the project actors have had to adjust or, failing that, resort to subtle circumventions of the law, even if it means eventually regularising the situation by paying a fine.
Finally, this thesis is an opportunity to better understand the concrete modalities of control and mastery that Algerian populations –in this case the Mozabites– are capable of collectively exercising over their destiny in all fields: social, economic, institutional and urban. It has also made it possible to establish certain little-known, even controversial, historical facts about the region, and on the other hand has shed some light on social developments specific to the M’Zab, particularly with regard to the adaptation of traditional Mozabite institutions to an extremely changing context.
Finally, I would like to conclude that this thesis opens the discussion on the question of post-colonial studies. Indeed, the history of the Maghreb, and in particular that of Algeria, has for too long focused on the destructive effects of the colonial phenomenon without bothering to bear witness to situations where communities had managed to absorb the colonial shock and adapt to it without denying themselves. While studies of the colonial phenomenon certainly bear witness to armed resistance to colonial conquest, they have too long neglected other forms of resistance, adaptation and redeployment of colonized societies. As a result, almost everything remains to be done to bear witness to the dignity of the societies that underwent colonisation and to analyse the unequal resources at their disposal to cope with the colonial phenomenon, to adapt to it and to build a future for themselves. Hence the interest in the Mozabite case. Another shortcoming of most of these studies is to have validated from the outset the national scale to consider and study the colonial phenomenon. One can only note the extreme rarity of works that consider the history of Algeria on a regional scale –Alain Mahé’s work on Kabylia is an exception3. As if it was not relevant to consider the study of the effects of colonisation at the scale of regions that have their own coherence or identity. How can we consider that colonization has affected in the same way the city-dweller of the big cities, the ksourian of the great South, the farmer of the mountains, the semi-nomadic Aurès or and the nomadic Touareg? All the more so as colonisation was not implemented in the same way everywhere in Algeria. In fact, the “flattening” of colonial history in Algeria does not take into account these heterogeneous situations. This is also the interest of this work, which bears witness to the way in which in M’Zab the institutions specific to the region gave –and still give– Mozabites the means to control their collective destiny.