Histoire Contemporaine du Moyen-Orient

Coordonnées anne.clement@utoronto.ca

Actuellement :

Doctorante (Ph.D. candidate) au département des civilisations proche- et moyen-orientales de l’Université de Toronto

Graduate Student Representative of the Canadian Committee of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (CANMES)

Domaines et perspectives de recherche Histoire et Mémoire, Paysannerie, Culture populaire, Colonial Studies, Subaltern Studies, Anthropologie historique, « History from Below », microstoria

Ph.D. Thesis (work in progress) (under the supervision of Profs. James Reilly and Amir Hassanpour – University of Toronto)

Neither brigands, nor heroes : The Minūfiyya Peasants’ Perceptions and Practices of Colonial Legality and Illegality (1881-1919)
On June 13th 1906, the village of Dinshawāy in the Nile Delta witnessed a dramatic confrontation between peasants (fallāhīn) and five British officers who were pigeon hunting. In addition to directly threatening one of the fallāhīn’s sources of revenues, the British accidentally set a threshing-floor on fire and wounded a woman, which angered the villagers. In the uprising that followed, three other peasants were injured, as well as three officers among whom one subsequently died from sunstroke while trying to seek reinforcements. The response of the British administration to this episode was extremely swift and severe. For four days, fifty-two peasants accused of “premeditated murder” faced ten prominent British and Egyptian judges and lawyers and around four hundred local and foreign journalists. Twenty-one of these fallāhīn were eventually found guilty. Four of them (including Muhammad Darwīsh Zahrān and Hassan ‘Alī Mahfūz) were sentenced to death by hanging, the others to various punishments of penal servitude and flogging. The hangings and floggings were done on June 28th in the village itself.

Two diametrically opposed interpretations of the events emerged as early as the first days of the trial. The official colonial version, zealously developed by the prosecutor and shared by a few Egyptian journalists, depicted the fallāhīn as a band of brigands who had planned a savage attack against the officers with the intention of robbing and killing them. The fact that two of the accused peasants had previous brushes with the law was particularly convenient, allowing the British authorities to interpret the event within the broader framework of the then highly publicized phenomenon of “rural criminality.” In contrast to this interpretation and in order to denounce the barbarity of the judgment, the nationalist leader Mustafā Kāmil and his followers chose to emphasize the innocence of the peasants, who, unaware of the true nature of the British occupation, had merely treated the soldiers as poachers. The myth of the ignorant and apathetic peasant in need of enlightenment from Kāmil’s Watanī Party was born, built around the “heroized” figure of the martyr Hassan ‘Alī Mahfūz.

In the first decades following the affair, orientalist and nationalist historians took up the two interpretations of the event that had been developed at the time, thus respectively contributing to the strengthening of complex and evolving processes of criminalization and heroization of the Dinshawāy fallāhīn. But while for the nationalist historian ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Rāfi‘ī (1889-1966), the peasants had reached the status of heroes somehow accidentally, the Egyptian historians of the post-1952 generation began to question the myth of the ignorant and apathetic fallāhīn by drawing on Gabriel Baer’s work (Baer 1969) and by shedding some light on a number of peasant uprisings and altercations with the army of occupation that had taken place before 1906 (Al-Masaddī 1974). From this perspective, the emphasis was placed on the political and above all social grievances of the fallāhīn under the British occupation, symbolized by the mythical figure of Muhammad Darwīsh Zahrān, lionized first by the peasants themselves, then by the historians, as the local social bandit who defended the poor and the oppressed with an acute sense of honor. More recently, further attention has been granted to the deterioration of the working and living conditions of the Egyptian peasants caused by the implementation of the new colonial economy. The adoption of this approach has led to a reconsideration of “rural criminality” as a form of resistance to colonization, and a reinterpretation of the Dinshaway incident as one episode in the development of a peasant movement that began in 1882 and culminated in the 1919 Revolution (Barakāt 2008).

• Intellectual objectives :

This study challenges both the colonial and the nationalist historical narratives on the Dinshawāy affair and more broadly reexamines the question of the meaning to be given to the phenomenon labeled as “rural criminality” by the British authorities at the time. In order to escape the crude alternative between interpreting these actions as “crime” – following the categorization of the judicial archives – or considering them as “resistance” – by analyzing the sources merely as a sort of “prose of counter-insurgency” (Guha 1988) –, this work proposes to de-construct more radically the very concept of “rural criminality” by investigating the peasants’ evolving perceptions and practices of this phenomenon during the first forty years of the British occupation.

Based on the theoretical assumption that the perceptions and practices of colonial illegality (i.e. what the British authorities and the Egyptian state then defined as illegal) by the peasants should be conceived of in their dialectical relationship with the latter’s perceptions and practices of colonial legality, this work examines the following hypotheses :

 After the first decade of British occupation marked by the blind repression carried out within the framework of the “Commissions on Brigandage,” the Minūfiyya peasants did not apprehend colonial law as a superior abstract principle or an immutable metaphysical rule by which they should abide, but rather as a highly contested and hence extremely flexible field.
 From this perspective, both colonial legality and illegality were perceived and practiced as two complementary (rather than contradictory) tools allowing the peasants (poor landless peasants, small or larger landowners) to contest and negotiate the “colonial situation” at the local level, in multiple and creative ways, in the three intimately linked domains of property and prosperity, authority and power, and morality and honor.
 Within this context, the rise in serious crime which characterized the evolution of the Delta countryside following the Dinshawāy incident can be explained by the fact that the further criminalization and sudden repression of the above-mentioned practices of negotiation by the British authorities provoked both a rigidification of the “colonial situation” and a strengthening of the exploitative and oppressive power of the local notables. This movement consequently led to a greater bipolarization of the fallāhīn’s attitudes.
 Finally, the importance of the war as an explanatory factor for the participation of the Delta fallāhīn in the 1919 uprisings is reevaluated. Most of the turmoil being caused by the “vagabond” and “suspicious” peasants who had already been ostracized in the period preceding the conflict and who had then been forcibly sent to the battlefield, this study suggests that the First World War merely played the role of an “accelerator of history.”

• Theoretical and methodological issues :
The originality of this work mainly lies in the combination of a theoretical framework which opens the way to a radical deconstruction of law as a political and social process of categorization, and a methodological approach which allows to reintroduce peasants as performers within this process. In order to retrieve these peasants’ performances, I have explored the avenues of research promoted by the 1990s “critical turn” of the Annales School. I have thus adopted a combination of both a perspective inspired by the social microstoria and an approach to the sources drawn from ethnomethodology. The former offers me an invaluable insight into the “colonial situation” at the level of the province (Balandier 1951). The latter allows me to apprehend the complex manners in which the Minūfiyya peasants made sense of their practices of legality and illegality, through a focus on the shifting categories used by the performers themselves “in action”, and a close contextualization of the performances “from below.” Following this approach, I am currently in the process of analyzing dozens of trials that implicated the Minūfiyya peasants between 1881 and 1919, conceiving of them not only as the loci in which the practices of adaptation and resistance to the “colonial situation” developed by the fallāhīn were being partially revealed, but also and more importantly as the sites in which the multiple and often contradictory meanings given to these practices were being shaped by the different performers through complex processes of criminalization and heroization.

To conclude, this doctoral work will not only contribute to a better understanding of the complex dialectical relationships that link law-makers’ and law-breakers’ perceptions and practices of legality and illegality in times of occupation, but will also shed light on an original manner of conceiving of subaltern agency that allows to retrieve the peasants’ deep creativity.

Parcours
 Depuis Septembre 2004 : Programme doctoral, Département des Civilisations Proche- et Moyen-Orientales, Université de Toronto

 Novembre 2002 - Octobre 2003 : Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies (D.E.A.), Programme d’Etudes Méditerranéennes et Moyen-Orientales, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris (Mention Très Bien)

 Septembre 2001 - Juin 2002 : Programme Annuel d’Arabe (niveau avancé – 720 h), Département d’Enseignement de l’Arabe Contemporain (DEAC), Le Caire

 Juillet 2000 : Programme Estival Intensif d’Arabe (niveau avancé – 100 h), Université Saint-Joseph, Beyrouth

 Octobre 1997 - Juillet 2001 : Diplôme de Sciences-Po Paris - Spécialisation : Recherche Historique

Expérience de recherche
 Depuis Février 2008 : Doctorante associée au Centre d’Etudes de Documentation Economiques, Juridiques, et Sociales (CEDEJ), Le Caire

Thèse en cours : Neither brigands, nor heroes : The Minūfīyya peasants’ perceptions and practices of colonial legality and illegality (1881-1919)

 Octobre 2007 - Mai 2008 : Chercheuse associée à l’American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), Le Caire

 Février - Avril 2003 : Boursière de recherche au Centre d’Etudes de Documentation Economiques, Juridiques, et Sociales (CEDEJ), Le Caire

Mémoire : Contribution à l’étude du nationalisme égyptien à travers l’analyse de ses ‘Lieux de Mémoire’. Etude de cas : Sa‘d Zaghlûl sous la direction de Ghislaine Alleaume et Nadine Picaudou (Mention Très Bien)

 Octobre – mi Décembre 2000 : Chercheuse associée au Centre d’Etudes et de Recherche sur le Moyen-Orient Contemporain (CERMOC), Beyrouth

Mémoire : La Place des Martyrs à Beyrouth entre 1943 et 1975 : un ‘Lieu de Mémoire’ ? sous la direction d’Henry Laurens (Mention Très Bien)

Expérience d’enseignement
 Juillet – Août 2008 : Chargée de Travaux Dirigés : Introduction à l’Islam - Département des Civilisations Proche- et Moyen-Orientales, Université de Toronto

 Février - Mai 2008 : Chargée de Travaux Dirigés : Méthodologie de la Recherche - Section Francophone, Faculté d’Economie et de Sciences Politiques, Université du Caire

 Septembre - Décembre 2006 : Chargée de Cours : Introduction à l’Histoire du Moyen-Orient Moderne - Département des Civilisations Proche- et Moyen-Orientales, Université de Toronto

 Juillet - Août 2006 : Chargée de Travaux Dirigés : Introduction à la Langue Arabe - Département des Civilisations Proche- et Moyen-Orientales, Université de Toronto

 Mai - Juin 2005, 2006 et 2007 : Chargée de Travaux Dirigés : Introduction à l’Histoire du Moyen-Orient Moderne - Département des Civilisations Proche- et Moyen-Orientales, Université de Toronto

Expérience dans le domaine de la coopération éducative et scientifique
 Mai – Décembre 2009 : Assistante administrative – Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB), Bureau du Caire

 Janv. – Avril 2009 : Enseignante bénévole – Adult Education Program, St Andrew’s Refugee Services, Le Caire

 Septembre 2001 – Juin 2002 : Stagiaire - Section Francophone, Faculté d’Economie et de Sciences Politiques, Université du Caire

 Janvier – Juin 1999 : Stagiaire - Bureau Régional de l’UNESCO pour les Etats Arabes, Beyrouth

 Juillet – Août 1998 : Enseignante bénévole – Ecole des Sœurs des Saints-Cœurs, ‘Andqit, ‘Akkār, Liban

Conférences et Séminaires
 Mars 2009 : 10th Mediterranean Research Meeting, European University Institute (Florence & Montecatini Terme, Italie) Atelier : Parliaments and courtrooms in action « The meanings of denial in early 20th century Egypt : The Dinshaway peasants’ complex strategies of resistance and collaboration in the courtroom performance »

 Octobre 2008 : American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) (Le Caire, Egypte) « Before and After Dinshaway : A study of the process of criminalization of the fallāhīn and of their resistance to British colonial rule (1881-1914) »

 Juin 2008 : Ecole doctorale « Colonisation et Savoirs à l’époque contemporaine » organisée par l’Ecole Française de Rome & La Casa de Velázquez (Madrid, Espagne)

« The Construction of Colonial Knowledges on Rural Criminality in Egypt at the turn of the 20th century (1882-1914) » (en français)

 Novembre 2007 : 41ème Congrès Annuel de la Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) (Montréal, Canada) « Exploring the modernity of colonial rural communities in ‘traditional’ sources ? The encounter of al-Fallāh, al-Efendī and al-Khawāga in early 20th century Upper Egyptian folksongs »

 Octobre 2007 : Congrès Annuel de l’Association Allemande d’Anthropologie (DGV) (Halle, Allemagne) Atelier : Re-thinking History and Memory in the Anthropology of the Middle East « Between histories and memories : The Dinshaway Incident as a ‘Lieu de Mémoire’ of the Egyptian nation »

Publications

 « Des dunes du désert aux jardins d’Eden : L’interprétation des désirs par Ibn ‘Arabî à travers une appropriation du nasîb, du ghazal et du muwashshah) », à paraître dans Alif : Journal of Comparative Poetics, n° 28, février 2008.

 Sa‘d Zaghlûl : « Lieu de mémoire » du nationalisme égyptien, Le Caire, Cedej, 2005, 141 p.

À partir des archives de la presse partisane, cet ouvrage examine la manière dont, entre 1927 et 1952, les différents héritiers politiques de Sa‘d Zaghlûl ont utilisé, déformé, transformé la mémoire de ce personnage riche et plein d’ambiguïtés, l’érigeant en véritable « lieu de mémoire ». En se fondant sur l’étude de neuf ouvrages de type biographique, ce travail de recherche suggère également une analyse de l’évolution des référents identitaires et des valeurs nationales promus au sein de la société égyptienne durant cette période. Restituant ainsi des processus de transformation en profondeur de l’imaginaire nationaliste, cette étude contribue à mettre en évidence d’importantes continuités et à nuancer la thèse d’un shift du nationalisme égyptien dans les années trente.

Voir le sommaire et/ou commander l’ouvrage au Cedej

Bourses de recherche
 2010-2012 Harvard Academy Scholars Fellowship (Pre-doc/Post-doc)
 2008-2009 School of Graduate Studies Doctoral Completion Grant, University of Toronto
 2007-2008 School of Graduate Studies Travel Grant, University of Toronto
 2004-2009 Connaught Fellowship, University of Toronto
 2003 Grant for M.A. fieldwork, INALCO Fieldwork fellowship, CEDEJ
 1999 Rotary Club Award for a 6 month internship at the UNESCO Regional Office in Beirut

Affiliations professionnelles Middle East Studies Association of North America Canadian Committee of the Middle East Studies Association of North America American Historical Association Comparative and International Education Society