On Oral Sources, Historians, and the Fichier de Documentation

Extract

While the purpose of this brief article is to draw attention to the invaluable service performed by J. M. Dallet, P. B., and his collaborators at the editorial center of the Fichier de Documentation Berbère (For National, Algeria), I find it difficult to resist the temptation to suggest a few ideas on oral sources and historians. Clearly, anthropologists, ethnologists, linguists, and sociologists are not shy about using a variety of sources for their learned research. Oral traditions, for example, have long fascinated many of these specialists; but historians, until quite recently, have continued to plod along with their sacrosanct written records. This hesitation is unfortunate, for historical interpretations of many important questions are impossible as no relevant documents survived, if indeed such ever existed. Algerian historians--as opposed to European historians of Algeria--are involved in a breakthrough in this context. Particularly since independence, a small group of Algerian authors has begun to write and publish enlightening new interpretations or reinterpretations in which they unhesitatingly utilize oral traditions in the development of their theses. They, of course, know the traditions firsthand. Foreign specialists are not so fortunate. In any case, Mostefa Lacheraf (1965), Saadia-et-Lakhdar (1961), and Amar Naroun (Juin and Naroun 1963) come to mind immediately as examples of a new, vigorous, and probably very valid school of historical interpretation which draw upon oral sources.

Anyone who has worked in European archives on topics relevant to North Africa knows that the traditional written and static category of documentation leaves many questions unanswered. How, for example, can a question about Algerian reactions to French policies be fairly and fully answered on the basis of only colonial administrative reports and of the memoirs of colons and official representatives of the imperial system? Occasionally reactions were quite clear.