Colonialism and Ethnography: Foreword to Pierre Bourdieu's "Travail et travailleurs en

Algrie"
Author(s): Pierre Bourdieu, Derek Robbins and Rachel Gomme
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 13-18
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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Colonialismand

ethnography

Forewordto PierreBourdieu's Travailet travailleursen Algirie

BY
TRANSLATION
DEREK
ROBBINS
&
RACHEL
GOMME
Derek Robbinshas
translated 'Statisticsand
sociology' (Bourdieu's
introductionto Part I of
Travailet travailleursen
Algarie), with a commentary,
as a Social Politics Working
Paper,published by the
School of Social Sciences,
Universityof East London.
He has also published
translationsof texts by
LucienLivy-Bruhl,Bourdieu
and Loic Wacquantand
Michel Foucault.
Rachel Gommeis sub-editor
of ANTHROPOLOGYTODAY

and a professional translator

from French and Russian
into English. Her email is
atrachel@uk2.net.

Right:Arab guide infront of

thepost office in the
Europeansettlement,El
Kantara,Algeria, c. 1914.
The guide was employedby
the French authorities,and
accompaniedofficial visitors
to variousparts of the
interior

Trarail
et Trawanilleur
n Alg'rie

PIERRE
BOURDIEU
An extractfrom Travailet travailleursen Alg rie
(Paris/TheHague: Mouton,1963, pp. 258-68).
Pierre Bourdieu(1930-2002) was Professor of Sociology
at the College de France, Parisfrom 1981 until his death,
but he studied philosophy at the Acole Normale
Superieure in the early 1950s and carried out
anthropological research in Algeria - which he called
'fieldworkin philosophy' - during the Algerian War of
Independence. He published some 40 major texts, the
best knownof which are, perhaps, Outline of a theory of
practice(1972, 1977), Reproductionin education,society
and culture (1970, 1977) and Distinction (1979, 1984).
Most of his sociological research in France progressed
logically from his original anthropological studies and
there was a coherent and continuous dialectical
relationshipbetween his scientific studies and his social
and political commitment.

55

0o

If we are to subject to scrutinythe ideology accordingto

which all research conducted in a colonial situation is
essentially contaminated,we need to remind ourselves of
this ideology. 'If', Michel Leiris writes, 'for ethnography
even more thanfor otherdisciplines,it is alreadyclear that
pure science is a myth, we must in additionrecognize that
under such circumstancesthe desire to be pure scientists
weighs nothing against this truth; working in colonized
countriesethnographers,who not only come from the colonizing nation but are also representativesof that nation
since it is the state which assigns our tasks, have less justification than anyone for washing our hands of the policies pursuedby the state and its agents in respect of these
societies which we choose as our field of study and for
which, in our encounterswith them, we have been careful
- if only out of professionalastuteness- to show the sympathy and open-mindednesswhich experience has shown
to be indispensableto the smooth progressof research.'"
Complicitas we are, this all seems to go withoutsaying.
We contrast 'pure' science with ideology enlisted in the
service of a given power or a given establishedorder.And
we add that the pure intention to create a pure science is
necessarilydoomed to failure.2The postulateon which the
demonstrationis basedis thatthe ethnographer,becausehe
belongs to the colonizing society, bears the burdenof the
original sin, that of colonialism. In orderto demonstrate
this we need only make implicit reference to the wellknown argumentof historicismandsociologism according
to which any social or historicalscience is relativebecause
the historianandthe sociologist areparticipantsin a period
and a society. But in the specific case of ethnology, this
historico-culturalembeddednessis seen as the foundation
of a complicity, and thus an indelible culpability. 'In this
sense, therefore,ethnographyis closely linked to the colonial fact, whether ethnographerslike it or not. In general
they work in the colonial or semi-colonial territories
dependent on their country of origin, and even if they
receive no direct supportfrom the local representativesof
their government,they are toleratedby them and more or
less identified, by the people they study, as agents of the

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But is this originalcomplicitydifferentin

administration.'3
naturefrom that which binds the sociologist studying his
own society to his own class? If class barriersseparate
individualswithin a society, can class solidaritynot bring
togetherindividualsin differentsocieties, across the colonial barrier?Must we assume, as is often maintained,that
only natives can conduct 'pure' ethnology? Why should
such an ethical andepistemologicalprivilege exist? These
are questions that we take good care not to ask, because
they would distanceus from the firm groundof undisputed
evidence.
It is indisputablethat every action derives its meaning
from the context in which it is performed,in this case the
colonial system. This system is a given which the ethnologist has to allow for because he is placed, by the force and
the logic of circumstances,within a social form which
existed before he did, which is not of his making, and
which he must accept even if he disapprovesof it or tries
to dissociate himself from it. Moreover,it is a form from
which he benefits even in his profession as ethnologist,
since, like any otherinterpersonalrelationship,the relation
between observerandobserveddevelops againstthe background of the relationshipof dominationwhich has been
objectively establishedbetweenthe colonizing society and
the colonized society.
For the ethnologist there follows from this an absolute
imperative,not ethicalbut scientific:thereis no behaviour,
attitudeor ideology which can be described,understoodor
explained objectively without referenceto the existential
situationof the colonized as it is determinedby the action
of economic andsocial forces characteristicof the colonial

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13

do good. Thus we must admit clearly, to ourselves and to

others,thatthe colonizer of good will is doomed to empty
word-spinning,and that the first and only radical questioning of the system is thatwhich the system itself generates, namely revolution against the principleson which it
is based. It is therefore importantthat the ethnographer
give up the attemptto makehis 'mission' a reversecrusade
designed to expiate the original crime, and separate the
problems of science from the anxieties of conscience.
Perhapsthe most impureof all motivationsis actuallythe
moralistaim of pure intention.
Denunciationsof the compromises of ethnology often
mask the simple conviction that there is no pure science
relatingto an impureobject, as if science andthe scientist
'participated'(in the ethnologicalsense) in the impurityof
theirobject. But we shouldremindourselves of the advice
old Parmenides gave to Socrates: there is no noble or
ignoble subject for science. For example, though they
aroused profound disapproval,the redistributionsof the
populationin Algeria conductedby the Frencharmy represented an eminently appropriateobject of study for
myriadscientific and humanreasons- not least because it
will henceforthbe impossible to understandAlgerianrural
society without considering the extraordinaryand irreversible upheavalwhich they broughtabout.
Whatwe can quitejustifiablydemandof the ethnologist
is thathe do his best to restoreto othermen the meaningof
theirbehaviours,a meaningof which, among otherthings,
they have been dispossessed by the colonial system.
Refusing to seek a refuge and an escape from his own anxieties in the dramasand anguishof others, the ethnologist
can at one and the same time recognize thathis testimony
is of no use to anyone and feel boundby the moralimperative of proclaimingwhat men have said to him - not for
the sake of his saying it, but because they had this to say.

Cl
z

0m
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C.

0zCL
U)
"-i

Belkadi ben Namou,Arab

interpreter(deira)and guide
appointedto the HiltonSimpsonparty visiting
Algeria c. 1914. Decorated
by the French authorities,he
was assigned to official
visitors by the colonial
government.

14

system. To maintainotherwise would mean, by a sort of

ontological sleight of hand,conjuringaway what is in fact
the essence of the situation,namely the system of 'predetermined, inescapable relationships independent of the
will of individuals' by reference to which attitudes and
behavioursare organized.This is the trueresponsibilityof
the ethnologist.
However this may be, we have to choose between the
language of necessity, or fate, and that of freedom and
responsibility.Unless we believe in a universaland original responsibility,are we not peddlingempty phrasesand
false questionswhen we speak of the moralresponsibility
or culpabilityof the ethnologist?We say: 'We cannot dissociate ourselves from the actions of the colonial administration, actions in which (as citizens and employees) we
necessarily have our share of responsibility and from
which, if we disapproveof them, it can never be enough to
make futile attemptsto dissociate ourselves.'4What does
this share of responsibilityconsist of? Is it a share of the
responsibilitywhich weighs collectively on the colonizing
nation?But what can we say aboutthis collective responsibility itself?5Isn't the aim of this desperate attemptto
salvage responsibilityin an inescapablesituationin fact to
snatch freedom from the grip of the system and thus to
restorea wholly clear conscience, allowing us to feel that
there is a place in such a universefor good will?
Once we have chosen to pose the problem in ethical
terms, we are obliged to recognize that, as long as the
system persists, the actions with the most generous of
formal intentionswill in practiceprove to be either completely futile or, because they take their meaningfrom the
context, objectively bad. And we will always be open to
the accusationof taking advantageof injusticein orderto

How are these problems, so often posed in terms of conventions, manifested in the actual conduct of a study?
There is no doubt that this research would have been
impossible without an official sanction, indispensablein
orderto avoid cross-examinationby officials;this sanction
was provided by the Institut National de Statistiques et
d'Etudes Economiques. Statisticians and sociologists,
groupedtogether in a scientific researchassociation, had
in common the clearly statedwill and determinationto do
everythingin theirpower to discoverthe truthandto make
it known. The same contractboundthe personresponsible
for sociological studies to the Algerian and French interviewers. From the very first day, the problemwas explicitly statedand everyone understoodthat,having chosen to
undertakethis study ratherthan not to undertakeit - the
only real choice - it was possible, allowing for some concessions essential to its completion,to conduct it with the
desired degree of objectivity.If they managed,in spite of
the brevityof theirtrainingin interviewtechniquesandthe
difficult circumstances in which they had to work, to
gatherthe lively and real documentationwhich follows, it
is above all because they were passionately interestedin
the researchand approachedtheir interlocutorswith sympatheticattentiveness.Having decidedto conduct,in a difficult and, one might say, 'impure' situation, an
investigationof which they expected anythingbut a confirmationof naive ideologies, they simply performedtheir
task as public scribes, without deluding themselves that
they were accomplishing a historic mission or a moral
duty.6
Of all the difficulties presentto the study,those arising
from the political situation might have seemed the most
insurmountable.While, as Maurice Halbwachs rightly
notes, war and revolutiontend to bring profoundchanges
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A Kabylefrom Tazairt,
Algeria, photographedby
Randall-Maciverfor the
BritishAssociation, 1900.

and psychological action, the researchershad always to

expect to be met with suspicion.8The questionsmost likely
to arouse distrust were obviously those which related,
directly or indirectly,to politics.9But as soon as trusthad
been established, everything that had previously been an
obstacle became an asset. Thus the same questions could
help to establisha true dialogue,because the interviewees
saw the choice to ask these questions as an indication of
true understanding."'Nowhere did we find that taking
notes inspiredreticence; once trust had been established,
the interviewees found it completely normal that their
responses should be written down, and even sometimes
insisted on it, no doubt seeing in this a confirmationof the
seriousness of the study and of the interest taken in what
0i
they said."
cc.
In the ruralcommunities,which are more stronglyintegrated,our task was made easier by the fact thattrust,like
coI
mistrust, was collective and global; by contrast, in the
a
urbansetting the effort to gain trusthad to be made again
and again.'2The researchersemphasizedthe fact that they
0
I
were taking partin a study aimed at publicizing the living
m?
.
...
cc.
conditions of the Algerianpeople. In a revolutionarysituation, these are issues which carryweight, since everyone
to the social structureand divertthe attentionof those who knows that to describe is to denounce.13 But trust only
are completelyabsorbedby them from any otherconcerns, became complicity when the interviewer introducedhis
we nevertheless hoped, by taking as our object the very own experience into the dialogue.'4On several occasions
root of the most immediate and everyday concerns, to an interviewee, suddenlyinterruptinga cautious and coninduce those interviewed to engage fully in dialogue.7 ventional statement, would say: 'Listen, scrap that and
Thus, for example, each time we tried to question relo- let's startagain.' Most of the time the interview situation
cated peasants about their former life, we met with was forgotten to such an extent that the informantsfelt
shocked, even hostile surprise; on the other hand, we obliged to entertaintheirvisitors,offering them tea, coffee
encounteredlively interest once we returnedto the only or fruit. Questioned about his income, an unemployed
subject worthy of study in their eyes, their currentsuf- manual worker in Constantinereplied: 'We don't know
what comfort is; as you can see, we don't even drink
fering.
Nevertheless, in an atmosphereof police interrogation coffee' - a discreet way of apologizing for failing to offer
anything.
Perceivedas an outsider,the ethnologistis notjudged by
the criteriawhich operate in everyday relations between
membersof the group. Algerian researchers,on the other
hand, are immediately situatedin the social hierarchyby
the interviewees,andthusencounterthe difficultiesarising
from differencesin social status."It is easy to understand
why, of all the possible combinations,the most effective
interview team proved to be that consisting of one
Algerian and one French interviewer. The team of two
French people aroused mistrustand was always likely to
garneronly conformiststatements,since the interviewees
were inclined to express themselves less on their own
behalf than as spokespeople for their community.On the
other hand, when 'educated'members of their own communitywere present,intervieweestendedto adoptthe attitude they thought was expected of them, sometimes
repeating a rote-learnedlesson. Moreover, a number of
questions which could not have been asked by an
Algerian, either because he would have been expected to
know the answer or because they might have seemed
improperif put by him, seemed naturalto the interviewees
when they came from a French interviewer.'6Thus, a
rationaldivision of labourwas graduallyestablishedin the
mixed team."7
Reticence or outright refusal was only encountered
among individuals at the highest social levels, especially
among the semi-educatedwith a veneerof learning,whose
.
mistrust was groundedin the refusal to be treated as an
object of study,in the fear of being made to look foolish,
in the claim to understandall the ins and outs of the study,
and finally, in the sense of the risks they ran, much more
real for them thanfor people who, as they frequentlymaintained, had nothing to lose."8Those from the intermediate
categories,particularlyworkersin modem industries,who
have none of that bourgeois cautiousnesswhich is mani-

CL

MountedArab sheikh in
ceremonialdress, Biskra,
Algeria, 1920-21. The
burnouswith braid indicates
an office held underthe
French authorities.

tr-

10

tr

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zj

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15

The son of Bou Hafs ben

Chenouf Sheikhof
Mechounech,Algeria, 1914.

fested as a fear of committingthemselves, freely accepted

the unspokencontractwhich is the only thing, in this kind
of context, which can permit genuine dialogue. On the
otherhand,they were also equippedto understandthis situationandto respondto it in a coherentmanner,unlike the
unemployed, day-labourers and manual workers, who
were as disconcertedby the researcher'squestionsas they
were by the problemsof everydaylife.'9
Thus, the experience of a studyundertakenin the midst
of a crisis in colonial society refutes the normative discourses andabstractsophistry.Because all of these actions
are set in the context of the colonial system, relations
between persons always appearagainstthe backgroundof
the hostility which separates groups and constantly
threatensto resurfaceto corruptthe meaning and the very
existence of communication:effectively, because the two
societies are separatedby a multitudeof institutionaland
spontaneousbarriers,everythinghappensas if the logic of
the system tended to reduce communicationto an indispensable minimum. In this context, the simple fact of
appearingto the other's gaze alreadyin itself constitutesa
language,in which physical type andclothing arethe signs
and which most often forms the sum total of communication. Between colonizer and colonized, relations usually
remain 'instrumental' and language, similarly, is only
exceptionallyits own end.
In the absence of deliberately instituted dialogue,
behaviouris perceived as a set of signs within which the
smallest detail - gesture, intonation, smile - acquires a
symbolic value so that speech is always accompaniedby
barely perceptible harmonics which give it its tonality.
Because the colonized, as is often the case with oppressed
people, pays extremely close attention to the smallest
details of the behaviourof the dominantsociety, because
he is preparedto engage all of his sensitivityin an anodyne
exchange, he infallibly picks up these tiny details which
incline him towardseithercomplete trustor hostility.20
The
words or gestures which seem to us most conventionalgreeting,shakinghands, smile - arehere signs of recognition:breakingwith reciprocalavoidanceandthe inequality
of the customary relationships, they have something
miraculousaboutthem. Thus, because it inverts the usual
direction of the relationship, the attitude of the French
interviewer,who has come to listen, observe, learn and
understand,is almostalways greetedwith a sortof wonder.
Like every enquiry,but more so than any otherbecause of
the circumstancessurroundingit, this studyis the resultof
a host of compromises and sacrifices. To this extremely
diverse object of study, we could only bring very limited
methods of investigation.Moreover,since there were virtuallyno scientificallyestablisheddatain this field, stereotypes and prejudicesstill had currency- for example the
idea, derived from individual examples, that there was a
high level of instabilityin employment.Turningits back
on a disintegratingworldwhose contradictionsit could not
have failed to discover,colonial science had no choice but
to flee into times past. And indeed, when it was not
devoting its efforts to supplying the colonial power with
the means to establish and maintain itself (as with the
study of marabouts,for example), when it did not go quite
as far as providinga pseudo-scientificjustificationfor the
prejudicesof the colonizing caste, it prudentlytook refuge
in ethnology and pre-colonial history. Several studies
motivated by an opposite intention gave only a selective
andmutilatedversion of reality,more sentimentalthanscientific. Indicatorsof the decline in living standardswere
collected, but less apparentthough no less dramaticphenomena, such as the disintegrationof social structuresor
the debatebetweentraditionandinnovation,were ignored.

16

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More generally, rather than attempting to understand

events and people in their irreducibleuniqueness, these
researcherswere often contentto transposemodels drawn
from the experience of industrialsocieties.
The purely ethnographicapproachcame up against a
realitywhich was too broad,too complex and too fluid for
us even to think about generalizingfrom the conclusions
offered by monographs,however numerous, as it would
have meantrunningthe risk thatparticular,butparticularly
striking, facts relegated more importantbut less obvious
aspects of reality to the background.Thus, the persistent
impression of wretchedness and despair which haunts
observersof urbanshantytowns could resultin a failureto
note that the shanty town allows its inhabitantsto create,
albeit at the lowest level, their own form of economic,
social and psychological equilibrium.2'But how could the
ethnographerfail to be aware of the deficiencies of the
intuitionisminto which he is forced by the lack of such
indispensable instrumentsas censuses analysable at the
level of local units, civil statusregisters, or land registers
- particularlywhen he is confronted with this immense
field with its ill-defined boundaries, this world where
urbanizationhas introduced, at least on the surface, a
diversification of activities, and in which it would be
pointless to look for strictlydefined social structures,uniform models of behaviourand simple types of attitudes?
Only statistical studies can identify pattern in diversity,
hierarchyof lifestyles in apparentlevelling of the material
conditions of existence, and the latent order in manifest
inconsistencies.
On the otherhand, only ethnographicknowledge of the
problemsof work in ruraland urbansociety could supply
the set of initial hypotheses used to draw up the questionnaire.22
Moreover,in the colonial situation,work is the preeminent locus of conflict between traditionalmodels and
those imported and imposed by colonization - in other
words, between the imperativesof rationalizationand traditional cultures; it follows that statistical patterns can
only be understoodif the model from which the current
behaviourdrawsits meaning,even as it betraysor repudiANTHROPOLOGYTODAYVOL 19 NO 2, APRIL 2003

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Shawia girl in the everyday

dress of the early 20th
century.Photo by M.W
Hilton-Simpson,1920.

ates it, is reconstitutedby ethnology.Every action refersat

one andthe same time to the old model, which formedpart
of a system now partiallyor completely destroyed,to the
new situationand, finally, to the model which is to come,
which can be detected in the eccentricities or contradictions of currentbehaviour.

Collaborationbetween sociologists and statisticianswas

useful firstly in allowing us to compensate for the weakness of the proceduresavailable and to adopt a method
suited to a uniqueobject,by juxtaposingan ethnologically
inspired study, which could offer the explanatory
hypotheses, with descriptiveresearchrelating to a wider
By comparingthe two sets of resultswe were
population.23
able to perform a continual and reciprocal checking.
Knowledge of the structuraldatasuppliedby the statistical
studyallowed us to monitorthe validity of the sampleused
in the sociological study andto verify or weight the sociological hypotheses;24
conversely,analysis of the interviews
the
to process theirdatain an origstatisticians
encouraged
inal way.25Finally,becausethe social variationis relatively
limited, in-depth study of a numberof typical cases from
differentcategories allowed us to grasp the internalunity
of the particularconfigurationof featureswhich makes up
the individual.26
As we analysedthe interviews,we had the
sense that the differences between individuals in a given
category had much more to do with their level of awareness of theirsituationandtheirgreateror lesser capacityto
express it clearly than with objective differences in their
behaviourand attitudes.Thus, reading throughthe interviews of a homogeneousgroup,a sortof typical portraitof
the characteristicperson in this category would emerge;
and quite frequentlythe deeperknowledge of a particular
individual,encounteredpreviouslyin the caf6 de la Marsa,
the casbahor the Mahieddindistrict,providedthe intuitive
link which allowed us to bring the disparate elements
emerging from differentinterviews together into a living
whole. At the very least, very often a statementmade by a
more lucid subject, able to express himself more clearly,
broughttogethereverything of which the others had presented a partial, blurred picture into a single clear and
vibrantimage." Based as it is on unimpeachablestatistical
data and on methodical analysis, the selection of typical
individuals allows us to return, via a long detour and
without the risk of lapsing into impressionistic intuitionism, to the traditionalmethods of ethnography.
Thus, understandingcan only advance through a con-

devantle
1MichelLeiris,'L'ethnographe
colonialisme', TempsModernes,August 1950: 359

(myemphasis).
is couched
2 Eventhetermsin whichargument
aresignificant:
'it is alreadyclearthat','wemustin
additionrecognizethat','wehavelessjustification
thananyone...'Theartof persuading
ratherthan
convincing. Or rather,the artof preachingto the
converted.
3Leiris op.cit.: 358.
4 Leiris op.cit.: 360.
5 However naive it may appear,this problem
hauntssome consciences: is the break-upof
traditionalsocieties the result of harmfuland unjust
policies, or the consequenceof an unavoidable
evolution?In short,is it caused by will or by fate? If
it is truethatthese phenomenaare simply the result
of the clash of two civilizations, and if we can
explain them purelythroughthe laws governingthe
phenomenaof culturalcontact,it becomes clear that
the responsibilityof the dominantpower, our

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stant interchangebetween evidence drawnfrom intimacy

- blinding evidence, in both senses of the word - and the
evidence of statistics- blind evidence which needs to be
deciphered.The familiarityderived from participationin
the environment,dialogue and observationcould not do
withoutthe laboriousdetourvia figures, graphsand calculation. Yet nothing would be more presumptuousthan to
identify sociological science with that which is only one
aspect of it, namely the mathematicalprocessing of data,
andto regardthe gatheringof facts, in the form of dialogue
with the particularobject, the specific individual, as the
less importantaspect of the research..

responsibility- since this is the issue - is lifted. Not

completely,however: we could, like Oedipus,have
tried to escape this destiny.Thus it might be
claimed that the only responsibilityof the Western
man is that,unwittinglyor throughself-interest,he
intervenedin societies which were none of his
concern.From this propositionwe could conclude
equally well either that the only thing to do is to
withdrawor, on the contrary,that we must continue
in orderto atone for our originalcrime.
6 Thanksare due to MadameMarie-AimdeHdlie,
MademoiselleDjamila Azi, Messieurs Mohammed

Azi, RaymondCipolin,SamuelGuedj,Damien

Hdlie, SeddoukLahmer,Ahmed Misraoui,Mahfoud

Nechem, Titahand Zekkal.
7 'A war does more thansimply stirup national
passions.It profoundlytransformssociety,slowing
down or paralysingsome of its functions,creatingor
developingothers.Above all, it simplifiesthe
structureof the social body, causingan extreme
reduction,as Spencernoted,in the differentiation

betweenparts... The same is trueof revolutions,and

perhapseven of those periodsof politicalunrestin
which, fromthe outside,nothingappearsto have
changedin the structureof the social body.The
functionsmay be the same, andcontinueto be
carriedout. Merchants,workers,government
officials, peasantsretaintheirpositions.But their
thoughtsare elsewhere;theirfamily,professionaland
social life continues,but on a muchmore automatic
basis, andwith muchless personalengagement.All
activitywhich is not politicalin natureis therefore
similarlyreduced.'M. Halbwachs,Les causes du
suicide;Introduction,p. 9-10.
8 Two anecdotessuffice to give an idea of this
atmosphere:'Wewent to the subject'shome at 10.15
am; as he was not therewe arrangedto returnat 2.00
in the afternoon.At 2.00 he was waiting for us in
front of the building.He said to us at once: "On22
July the police came and asked the same questions
as your friends(i.e. the interviewersresponsiblefor
gatheringthe basic data).I told my superiors."We

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17

showed our interviewers'identificationand assured

him thatthis was a strictlyanonymousstudy;despite
this, he remainedmistrustfulfrom the beginningto
the end.' 'It was in the Belcourtdistrict,'two other
researchersrecount;'the subjectwas polite but
clearly uneasy,and asked us if we had been sent by
the Committeefor Public Safety.When we burstout
laughing,he relaxedand said: "EverythingI have
just told you was because I didn'ttrustyou. I
couldn't trustyou just like that;now I know who you
are. You can ignore the answersI gave you, and start
again."At Matmata,a redistributioncentrein the
Ch1lif plain, interviewersfound 'spontaneous'
informants,the new leaderschosen by the French
army,who were returningfrom a 'trainingcourse'.
(These quotationsand those which follow are taken
from the discussionwith the full groupof
interviewersheld at the end of the study.)
9 This was the case with the question about
whetherthe informantbelonged to a tradeunion,
and sometimes the question aboutthe causes of
unemployment.
10'At the end of one interviewin Oran,the
workerwe had been interviewinginsisted on
accompanyingus to the trolleybus.It was dusk, he
was walking beside us, visibly moved: "Thank
you," he said, "you have allowed me to pour out my
heart."'
" The
tape recorderwhich would have been
invaluable,particularlyfor the study of
interviewees' linguistic system (languageused in
relationto the issues raised, at differentpoints in the
interview,linguistic interferencesetc.) could not be
used, owing to lack of resourcesand above all
because we were concernedthatit would arouse a
mistrustwhich would be too difficult to overcome.
Workingin teams of two, the interviewershad to
learn the questionnaireby heartso that they could
ask questions in a naturalmannerand did not risk
jolting the interviewee into rememberingthe
interview situation.While one of them maintained
the dialogue, the other wrote down the interviewee's
responses verbatim.The integratednatureof the
questionnairemeant that it was likely that the
interviewee, following the logic of his own
responses, would answer some of the questions
before they were asked:the interviewers'task was
to follow the interviewee'strainof thoughtand then
briefly recap at the end of the interview,asking all
the stipulatedquestions in the actualwords of the
questionnaire.Thus we hoped to combine the
advantagesof a closed interviewwhich could be
statisticallyprocessed and a free interview,or
indeed a monograph.
12 'In the ruralsetting trustspreadsquickly. If just
one person publicly shows trustin us, that is, is
willing to discuss certainproblemswith us openly
and answerus sincerely,collective resistance
disappears.That is when we learn aboutthe
warningsand ordersissued by the authorities.The
attitudeof the authoritiesand their suspicion of us
can, if we know how to use them, be very useful to
us because it attractsattentionto us and, to the
extent that it dissociates us from them, helps to turn
the situationto our advantage.'
13 'Craftspeopleand tradersareless trusting,
becauseof the questionsaboutincome. A worker,on
the otherhand,is not afraidto declarewhat he earns;
he is all the morewilling to since he wishes to
denouncethe exploitationof which he is the victim;
often he shows his pay and tax slips.'
14 'The atmospherewas betterwhenever we
talked of our own problemswhich are, afterall, not
so differentfrom those of the interviewee.Relating
our situationsin this way very much helps the
smooth flow of the interview.It was also a markof
greattrustwhen people asked us personalquestions,
aboutour family, for example, but generallyonly
those who judged that we were of the same social
class did so; agriculturalworkersand shanty-town
18

dwellers would not have dared.Unsurprisingly,the

only time someone asked me this kind of questionit
was a colleague of my father's(a schoolteacher).'
"1The qualityof the interviewsvaries
considerablydependingon whetheror not thereis a
difference in the social origin of interviewerand
interviewee.Thus a researcherwho obtained
excellent interviewswhen he talked with subproletarianand proletarianworkersin cities
encountereddifficulties every time he had to deal
with people from the middle and upperclasses.
'Withthe Prefect's attach6in M. I had problems:he
barely answeredme and surveyedme with contempt
from behind his desk, as if I was a subordinate.'
And in fact everythingaboutthis researcher- dress,
speech, bearing- bespoke his lower-class origins .
16 'What?Now
you're asking me aboutmy wife?'
exclaimed an Algiers refuse collector when the
Algerianinterviewerasked him aboutwomen and
work.
" Particulardifficulties arose
throughthe
participationof a young Algerianwoman in the
research.While in middle-classenvironmentsshe
obtainedexcellent interviews, among the lower
classes her demeanour,her bearing,her mere
presence shocked people or caused distortions.In a
discussion of women and work, for example, they
could not demonstratetheir traditionalismwithout
displayingrudenesstowardsher. In general,the
participationof a young woman in a study of
employmentwas not successful because it is not
seen as a woman's place to questionmen on what is
exclusively men's business. On the other hand,in
the study of dwelling places conductedin JulyAugust 1961, the presence of a woman was essential
because we were interviewingwomen and the
interioris exclusively woman's domain.
18 'We found it was especially the higher whitecollar workerswho refused to respond;sometimes
they ended up understanding;sometimes right until
the end they refused to listen and simply threwus
out. Some of them saw us as inferior,and treatedus
as such. "I know all about statistics,"one of them
said to us, "it's all made up";anothersaid: "You
again, you with your ideas alreadyformed, go
away."At best they answeredto please us, giving
little away, without believing in what they said.'
19 'Withpeople in the lower social categoriestrust
is establishedmore immediately,more intuitively
and above all more comprehensivelythan with
people in the higher categories.The intervieweris
trustedwhateverthe content of the question, and
attentionis no longer focused on the question.
Moreover,their intellectualmodesty means that
they don't pick apartthe question to try to find the
hidden meaning,or any suspect elements in it.
Someone in a social category with some intellectual
pretensionswould indulge in such analysis - on
false premises, we might add - believing himself
well-informedenough in this type of work to be
able to despise it, the kind of person who thinksof it
as "the stupidwork of the administration",as one
intervieweeput it.' People in the poorest categories
tendedto believe that the aim of the interviewers
was to find work for them or renderthem assistance.
This conviction reinforcedtheirtrustand
contributedto creatinga kind of complicity,but
could have the disadvantageof encouragingsome to
make an exaggerateddisplay of their wretchedness.
20 The sensitivity famously attributedto Algerians
and to colonized people in generalis a productof
the colonial system - more precisely of the
inequalityin the relationsbetween colonizers and
colonized.
21 For example, on the basis of 50 or so family
monographswrittenin 1958 in variousAlgiers
shantytowns, I had concludedthat the precarious
living conditionsoperatedas a brakeon the
adoptionof urbanmodels and the transformationof
lifestyles. On the basis of this finding, I formedthe

hypothesisthat moving to a moderndwelling would

lead to a sort of mutation,in all domains and
especially in the economic, since some types of
expenditurepreventedby precariousliving
conditions, such as furnishingthe home, now
became possible. In fact, because I had been struck
by the most obvious contradictions,of which the car
parkedoutside a corrugatediron shack or the
television aerialprotrudingfrom a tar-paperroof are
the manifest symbol, because I had unconsciously
focused on the cases of the most well-off
individuals,I had failed to note what the study
would reveal - that the shantytown allowed the
poorestto create an equilibriumwhich moving to a
moderndwelling destroyed.Thus, while it held true
for a fractionof the poorly housed population,the
hypothesiswas completely false in relationto all the
others.
22In additionto allowing savings of time and
money, the multiple-contentquestionnairewas well
suited to an exploratorystudy,but could have
compromisedthe qualityof the results if the
researchershad not been skilled enough to adaptit
to the differentsituationsand individuals.
23 In a traditionalsociety in a process of
transformation,where the differentiationbetween
economic and social conditionsis relatively limited,
the significance of the distortionarisingfrom a
samplingerroris reduced.
24 It is generally recognized that thereis no better
guaranteeagainst samplingand measurementerrors
than comparingresults obtainedwith data on the
same phenomenonwhose validity has been
incontrovertiblyestablished(cf. HerbertHyman,
Surveyof design and analysis, Free Press, 1960, p.
166).
25 See, for example, the verificationby calculation
of hypotheses on the stabilityof employment:PartI,
'Note on methodology'.
26 Sixty individuals,selected on the basis of a
typology drawnfrom a first manipulation,were
questionednot only on their professionalactivities
but on the whole of theirlife, in orderto resituate
work among other aspects of everyday life. Through
the informationthey providedon the family life of
the subjects,these monographsmade it possible,
among other things, to measurethe degree of
rationalizationin the domestic economy and the
disjunctionbetween behavioursimposed by the
workingenvironmentand traditionalbehaviours
which tend to be maintainedwithin the family. The
study of the changes in family life broughtaboutby
moving to a moderndwelling (currentlybeing
analysed)will provide more precise documentation
on this issue.
27 Similarobservationscan be found in M.
Halbwachs,Esquisse d'une psychologie des classes
sociales, Rivibre, 1945, p. 53-54.

NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS

M. W. Hilton-Simpson (1881-1936) was a

traveller,collector and ethnographerwho travelled
extensivelyin North and CentralAfrica in the early
part of the 20th century.Togetherwith his wife,
Helen, he made a numberofjourneys among the
Shawia, Berber hill tribes of the AurksMountains,
SouthernAlgeria, collectingjewellery and other
artefactsfor the Pitt-RiversMuseum,Oxfordfrom
1912 until the early 1920s. He published both
popular accounts of his Algerianjourneys and a
numberofpapers on Arab medicineand surgeryas
practised by the Shawia. TheRAIPhotographic
Libraryholds over 700 cellulose nitratenegatives,
which offer a comprehensivevisual documentation
of Shawia crafts, customs,activities, architecture
and landscape in the early 20th century. For
details contactphoto@therai.org.uk.
ANTHROPOLOGYTODAYVOL 19 NO 2, APRIL 2003

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