مجلة العبر للدراسات التاريخية و الاثرية في شمال افريقيا
Volume 9, Numéro 2, Pages 173-184
2026-06-30
Cartographies Of Conquest: The Convergence Of Military Logistics And Aesthetic Representation In The Colonization Of The Algerian Sahara (mid-19th To Mid-20th Century)
Authors : Brioua Nadira .
Abstract
French colonization of the Algerian Sahara fused military, aesthetic, and literary means to impose imperial control. Traditional histories often dismissed it as secondary or merely scattered clashes. This study demonstrated that it formed a unified, totalizing project. The research deconstructed the “textual attitude” that converted the Sahara from a sovereign territory into a colonial domain. It examined how conquest violence was concealed and justified through intertwined mechanisms of knowledge, art, and law. Military logistics provided instrumental mapping, artistic works offered an aesthetic justification, and state legalism enabled a narrative of “peaceful penetration” that hid occupation’s brutality. Employing a multidisciplinary approach integrating archival analysis, postcolonial criticism, and political theory, the study analyzed sources from the mid-19th to mid-20th century. Key materials included General Cavaignac’s surveys, Henri Duveyrier’s Saint-Simonian ethnographies, Eugène Fromentin’s romantic travelogue Un été dans le Sahara, and administrative frameworks of the Organisation Commune des Régions Sahariennes. Findings showed a division of roles: Cavaignac gridded the desert for domination; Fromentin erased indigenous presence for an aesthetic alibi; Duveyrier’s utopianism contributed to the failed Flatters mission and stricter rule. These discourses converged in the 20th century to legally detach the Sahara from northern Algeria, enable resource extraction, and cement a persistent “desert imaginary” contested in postcolonial literature.
Keywords
Saharan Colonization, Colonial Epistemology, Military Expansionism, Aesthetic Representation.
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