Markets of Civilization: Islam and Racial Capitalism in Algeria

by Muriam Haleh Davis

Overview

In Markets of Civilization Muriam Haleh Davis provides a history of racial capitalism, showing how Islam became a racial category that shaped economic development in colonial and postcolonial Algeria. French officials in Paris and Algiers introduced what Davis terms “a racial regime of religion” that subjected Algerian Muslims to discriminatory political and economic structures. These experts believed that introducing a market economy would modernize society and discourage anticolonial nationalism. Planners, politicians, and economists implemented reforms that both sought to transform Algerians into modern economic subjects and drew on racial assumptions despite the formally color-blind policies of the French state. Following independence, convictions about the inherent link between religious beliefs and economic behavior continued to influence development policies. Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella embraced a specifically Algerian socialism founded on Islamic principles, while French technocrats saw Algeria as a testing ground for development projects elsewhere in the Global South. Highlighting the entanglements of race and religion, Davis demonstrates that economic orthodoxies helped fashion understandings of national identity on both sides of the Mediterranean during decolonization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478015871
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	09/16/2022
Series:	Theory in Forms
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Muriam Haleh Davis is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and coeditor of North Africa and the Making of Europe: Governance, Institutions, and Culture.

Table of Contents

Acronyms  ix
Transliteration Note  xi
Acknowledgments  xiii
Introduction  1
1. Settling the Colony  19
2. A New Algeria Rising  43
3. Decolonization and the Constantine Plan  69
4. Fellahs into Peasants  96
5. Communism in a White Burnous  119
6. Today's Utopia Is Tomorrow's Reality  144
Epilogue  167
Notes  177
Bibliography  227
Index  259

What People are Saying About This

The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt - Omnia El Shakry

“Markets of Civilization provides a masterly genealogy of the twin figures of homo economicus and homo islamicus within French colonial thought and post-independence Algeria. With characteristic analytical rigor and historical nuance, Muriam Haleh Davis explores technologies of human difference alongside the place of Algeria, and of Muslims more broadly, within racial capitalism. A tour-de-force analysis, the book is a must-read for all historians concerned with race, religion, and the history of economic development.”

Dread: Facing Futureless Futures - David Theo Goldberg

“In Markets of Civilization, Muriam Haleh Davis maps the colonizing commitment of French occupiers to transform the Algerian landscape of political economy and subjectivity from homo islamicus to homo economicus, from a ‘traditional’ religiously and racially driven subject to a ‘modern’ economic subject. Weaving a critical understanding of this transforming drive, Davis provides a fascinatingly detailed analysis of the archive in ways highlighting both the colonizing efforts to ‘Euro-modernize’ and the creative resistances with all their complications. A marvelously nuanced, insightful, and revealing read.”

Editorial Reviews

Davis’s intervention brings our attention to an underappreciated historiographical domain of racial capitalism’s inception, evolution and contestation (i.e., the late French empire). . . . Davis subtly adds the dimension of religion to a conversation that has been dominated by ethnic- and colour-based understandings of racial capitalism’s historical origins and contemporary realities.

Ethnic and Racial Studies - Jacob Mundy

"Markets of Civilization makes a significant contribution to the field of Algerian history through its explication of the entanglements of racial, economic, and colonial imperatives. . . . I recommend the book to scholars and students interested in the study’s widely-ranging themes, including racial capitalism in the Middle East, the connections between economic and intellectual histories, the enduring nature of colonial, racial thinking, and how post-independence Arab regimes negotiated and remade older colonial ideas and policies."

International Journal of Middle East Studies - Sara Rahnama

“Markets of Civilization is a much needed scholarly intervention into the connections between race, capital and economics, and enables us to think about racial capitalism outside of, but very much connected to, a Euro-American framework. An essential read for anyone interested in the story of capitalism as others experienced it.

Middle East Monitor - Usman Butt

"Davis’s book fruitfully applies the framework of racial capitalism to illustrate how economic planning and development enduringly structured Arab and Muslim difference from white Christian Europeans."

H-Africa, H-Net Reviews - Brooke Durham

"A grounded and challenging effort to revive an older Third-Worldist scholarly tradition on Algeria. ... Davis’s Markets of Civilization is a must-read for those interested in Algerian history, colonialism, and contemporary debates on Islam and Islamophobia, as well as scholars examining the twin social theories of race and political economy."

SAW Reviews - Mohammed Salih

Markets of Civilization makes for a fascinating addition both to the literature on Algeria and also to the broader literature on racial formations and racialization. . . . Well worth the read.”

Marc Lynch

"Markets of Civilization combines skillful research with a creative revival of racial capitalism. It should be of great interest to scholars of French empire and the intersections of cultural and economic history."

L'Esprit Créateur - Burleigh Hendrickson

"A grounded and challenging effort to revive an older Third-Worldist scholarly tradition on Algeria. ... Davis's Markets of Civilization is a must-read for those interested in Algerian history, colonialism, and contemporary debates on Islam and Islamophobia, as well as scholars examining the twin social theories of race and political economy."

--Mohammed Salih "SAW Reviews" (11/23/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"Markets of Civilization makes a significant contribution to the field of Algerian history through its explication of the entanglements of racial, economic, and colonial imperatives. . . . I recommend the book to scholars and students interested in the study's widely-ranging themes, including racial capitalism in the Middle East, the connections between economic and intellectual histories, the enduring nature of colonial, racial thinking, and how post-independence Arab regimes negotiated and remade older colonial ideas and policies."--Sara Rahnama "International Journal of Middle East Studies" (6/1/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"Markets of Civilization is a much needed scholarly intervention into the connections between race, capital and economics, and enables us to think about racial capitalism outside of, but very much connected to, a Euro-American framework. An essential read for anyone interested in the story of capitalism as others experienced it."--Usman Butt "Middle East Monitor" (11/24/2022 12:00:00 AM)

"Davis's intervention brings our attention to an underappreciated historiographical domain of racial capitalism's inception, evolution and contestation (i.e., the late French empire). . . . Davis subtly adds the dimension of religion to a conversation that has been dominated by ethnic- and colour-based understandings of racial capitalism's historical origins and contemporary realities."--Jacob Mundy "Ethnic and Racial Studies" (1/12/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"Markets of Civilization makes for a fascinating addition both to the literature on Algeria and also to the broader literature on racial formations and racialization. . . . Well worth the read."

--Marc Lynch "Marc Lynch" (11/1/2022 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher