Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2021
In this chapter, the author argues that despite the invention of the region as a single geographical unit, it is characterized by fissures born out of the very process of colonial invention. The author discusses three of them: the problem of borders, especially the thorny problem of the western Sahara; the problem of racial formations of population, especially the racial division of Arab versus Berber; and the linguistic problems that too oppose Arabic to Berber and not in a binary way, but in a trinary way, since French is a hegemonic language that governs both. These three major problems of the region, the author argues, cannot be properly debated, much less solved, without taking into account the colonial invention of the region.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.