Algeria, antifascism, and Third Worldism: An anticolonial genealogy of the Western European New Left (Algeria, France, Italy, 1957-1975)

Project Information

The Damned

Grant agreement ID: 837297

DOI

10.3030/837297

Project terminated on 30 September 2022

EC signature date 22 March 2019

Start date 20 January 2020

End date 19 January 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 221 605,44

EU contribution

€ 221 605,44

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - The Damned (Algeria, antifascism, and Third Worldism: An anticolonial genealogy of the Western European New Left (Algeria, France, Italy, 1957-1975))

Reporting period: 2022-01-20 to 2023-01-19

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Breaking with current interpretations, THE DAMNED is the first study to reframe the European political geography to include the (post)colonial space and to reassess the historical influence of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) – and Third Worldism more generally – in the genealogy of the new political cultures that flourished during the ‘long 1960s’, associating a renewed antifascism with anticolonial struggles. Bringing together disciplines and methodologies from across a number of humanities and social sciences, THE DAMNED has produced a case study (focusing on Algeria, France and Italy) setting out new approaches to understanding the emerging of the New Left (mid-1950s to mid-1970s) as a complex process encompassing local, national and transnational dynamics; a process shaped by, but also shaping, decolonisation. The goal was to contribute – at least – to complicating the Western narrative of the global 1960s, by shifting the focus from Berkeley and Paris to Algiers.
THE DAMNED was carried out in Algeria, with a secondment in France and a return phase in Italy. Working with leading experts in each of these countries, THE DAMNED developed a truly transnational, interdisciplinary network exploring anew the global 1960s. By means of an extensive oral history project interviewing anticolonial activists, THE DAMNED created a repository of sources for researchers.
THE DAMNED reached the most of its objectives as laid down in the Description of the Action, including: the organisation of a seminar, an international conference and other events; a project website and a conference website; several outreach activities; and the publication or preparation of 1 monograph, 8 articles published in scientific journals (3 peer-reviewed), 3 edited volumes, 1 peer-reviewed book chapter, 7 dictionary entries, 5 reviews.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Among the many publications produced by THE DAMNED one can mention the online free access: ‘“If one day that hour returns”. The new left between anti-fascist legacy and third wordlism’, Italia contemporanea year book, 2021, n. 297 (https://doi.org/10.3280/icYearbook2021-oa008); ‘Algeria, Antifascism, and Third Worldism: An anticolonial genealogy of the Western European New Left’, Journal of International and Commonwealth History, 2020, vol. 48, n. 5 (https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2020.1817232); ‘Cold War Warriors or New Left Internationalists? Algerians students and French coopérants in the Global 1960s’, in Educational Internationalism in the Global Cold War, ed. by Damiano Matasci & Raphaëlle Ruppen Coutaz, Routledge, New York and London, 2023, forthcoming.

The exploitation and dissemination of the project results was carefully planned with many events convened. Among these: seminar ‘Doing History Differently: “Generation Independence: Algeria, a people’s history”' (Maison Française d’Oxford, 11 March 2020); workshop ‘A Global Civil War? Theories and practices of liberation between antifascism and decolonisation’ (Centre d’histoire sociale des mondes contemporains, Paris-Sorbonne, 1st April 2022); international conference ‘Memories of Colonial Pasts: Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon of the Present Time’ (‘La contemporaine’ – Paris Nanterre University Campus, 6–7–8 December 2022). A major 3-day international peer-reviewed conference, this was a joint event co-organised by UNITO, University of Paris-Sorbonne (Centre d’histoire sociale des mondes contemporains), Oxford, MFO, and UNAM-Mexico (https://www.memoriesofcolonialpasts.com/en).

THE DAMNED gave full value to the communication and public engagement activities. Accordingly, Dr. Brazzoduro’s was deeply engaged in reaching a wider audience. Among the many events and interventions one can mention:

• Institut du Monde Arabe & Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 21–22 January 2022
International conference Opposition intellectuelle à la colonization et à la guerre d’Algérie. Paper title: ‘Les intellectuels italiens contre la guerre d’Algérie’. The entire 2-day event was broadcasted online and made freely accessible on the website of both the Bibliothèque National and the Institut du Monde Arabe: https://www.imarabe.org/ar/rencontres-debats/colloque-international-oppositions-intellectuelles-a-la-colonisation-et-a-la-0.
Target audience: academic scholars, PhD students, students and general public.
https://www.bnf.fr/fr/agenda/colonisation-et-guerre-dalgerie-oppositions-intellectuelles

• The participation to the Salon International du Livre d’Alger (The Algerian International Bookfair, 26–31 March 2022) where Dr Brazzoduro was invited to represent Italy, 2022 special guest. Round Table with Prof Bruna Bagnato and Dr Caterina Roggero (chaired by Abdallah Cheghnane): ‘Guerre d’indépendence, la solidarité du peuple italien envers la cause algérienne’ (War of Independence, the Solidarity of Italian People with the Algerian Cause).
Target audience: general public.
https://www.24hdz.com/italie-sila-litterature-programme/

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Originality and innovative aspects of the project.
(a) THE DAMNED advances knowledge about the New Left in Western Europe through a new genealogy that reframes it within the global process of decolonization. The project offers the opportunity to apply a concept lying at the crossroads of political history and cultural history, namely political cultures (Sirinelli) to the emergence of the New Left within and beyond the established Left parties. In so doing, THE DAMNED concentrates on the interweaved imaginaries and repertoires of collective actions (Tilly) triggered by the Algerian War within and among Algeria, France and Italy. This is particularly timely given the developments in the historiography of the global 1960s, which have produced path-breaking national case studies. No studies on the New Left have ever conducted a connected study crisscrossing different countries, reframing the European political geography to include the (post)colonial space.
(b) THE DAMNED applies a new concept drawn from the historiography on the second Thirty Years War (1914–45) – the European civil war (Traverso) – to the New Left for the first time. THE DAMNED will analyse the replay of the fascism/antifascism divide within a new global civil war – triggered by Algeria, decolonization, and Cold War – as a key feature of the political cultures that emerged during the 1960s. It also tests the consequences of this framework for the social legitimization of political violence. This application of Traverso’s concept to the New Left represents an absolutely novel contribution both to the cultural history of politics and social movements studies.
(c) THE DAMNED expands upon methodological experiments that have been successfully conducted in Early Modern History – global microhistory and connected history (Trivellato, Subrahmanyam) – but have never been tested in such a large empirical study of 20th Century history. THE DAMNED foregrounds the networks of activists who have played a pivotal role in the process of transnational dissemination of anticolonial ideas and mobilization models since the Algerian War. It encompasses a global intellectual history and a bottom-up approach by grounding its focus on cultures and practices of grassroots activists’ networks. This is a key methodological advance in understanding the long 1960s’ transnational activism in a global perspective, encompassing local, national and transnational.

Original LP's cover, Canti della Rivoluzione algerina, 1960, Italia canta, MP33/CRA/0014