ABSTRACT

With the French colonisation of Algeria in 1830, women’s dance in the Ouled Naïl region came to be confused with what in the West is called ‘belly dancing’. Postcolonial nationalism continues to build on the fetishisation of the art form and condemns it as a perpetuation of the master–slave narrative. During the colonial period, the dance came to involve economically disenfranchised young women from Ouled Naïl in merry-making performances in regions outside their own, and for a fee. However, this article explains how this dance is equally grounded in a pastoral-nomadic order, as it parallels the Ouled Naïl seasonal migration to the b’ni m’zab oasis in the south during autumn and back to their homelands during the spring. The dance is known as fezāai, connoting the shivering pigeon freely flying back and forth. In order for La mission civilisatrice to succeed, that pastoral-nomadic order had to be systematically destroyed. This article suggests that the example of Naïliyat dance offers postcolonial policy-makers insights into how to decolonise development and provide a space for working outside the capitalist economy.

摘要

随着 1830 年法国对阿尔及利亚的殖民统治，Ouled Naïl 地区的女子舞蹈开始与西方所谓的“肚皮舞”相混淆。后殖民民族主义继续建立在对艺术形式的迷恋之上，并谴责它是主从叙事的延续。在殖民时期，这种舞蹈开始让来自 Ouled Naïl 的经济上被剥夺权利的年轻女性参与到她们所在地区以外的地区进行欢乐的表演，并收取费用。然而，本文解释了这种舞蹈如何同样植根于游牧秩序，因为它与 Ouled Naïl 在秋季到南部的b'ni m'zab绿洲并在春季返回家园的季节性迁徙相似。这种舞蹈被称为fezāai，意味着颤抖的鸽子自由地来回飞行。为了使La Mission Civilisatrice成功，必须系统地破坏这种游牧秩序。本文认为，Naïliy​​at 舞蹈的例子为后殖民政策制定者提供了关于如何使发展非殖民化并为在资本主义经济之外工作提供空间的见解。