Kabylia and the Migrant Tradition

Abstract

Throughout the first half-century of emigration (c.1905–1950) there existed a remarkable variation between zones of high and low emigration. The great majority of Algerians in France were Kabyles, the mountain-dwellers of Berber descent, who inhabited the sedentary peasant villages of Greater and Lesser Kabylia to the east of Algiers.1 This predominance was reflected in the title of the first official inquiry into Algerian emigration carried out in 1912–14, Les Kabyles en France. Kabyles were estimated to have constituted 84 per cent of total Algerian emigration in 1923, 75 per cent in 1938 and about 60 per cent in the early 1950s.2 These figures should be treated with caution since there was no accurate way of identifying who the Berber/Kabyles were, since many had historically, and continued to be, absorbed into surrounding Arab peoples. However, the figures provide a reasonable measure of Kabyle predominance.3 Since Kabyles made up about 21 per cent of the total Algerian population, but up to 84 per cent of all emigrants in 1923, Kabyle men were sixteen times more likely to migrate than Arabs. The remarkable geographical concentration of the regions of emigration is shown in Map 1 for 1949.4