Racism and Colonialism: the Case of Albert Memmi (인종주의와 식민주의-알베르 멤미(Albert Memmi)의 경우-)

Kim, Yong Woo (김용우)

Racism and Colonialism: the Case of Albert Memmi

Korean Review of French History
Abbr : KRFH
2014, (31), pp.171~195
Publisher : KOREAN SOCIETY FOR FRENCH HISTORY
Research Area : Humanities > History

Kim, Yong Woo ¹

¹한국기술교육대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In his most celebrated essay, Portrait du colonisé précédé de portrait du colonisateur (1957), Albert Memmi affirmed that racism illustrates, summarizes, and symbolizes the colonial relation. It is remarkable that in his Portrait du décolonisé arabo-musulman et de quelques autres (2004), a companion text to his first work, Memmi almost intentionally refuses to use racism as an analytical tool in examining the fate of Arab Muslim immigrés. How can we make sense of this almost total absence of racism in his analysis in spite of multiple practices of racialization at every level of daily life of immigrés? Contrary to the commonly held view of young radical metamorphosing into old reactionary, or radical discontinuity of Memmi’s thinking, I will argue that in his initial conceptualization of racism in context of colonialism, Memmi seems to fail to grasp the important aspect of European colonial racism, “racial historicism.” This failure is partly due to Memmi’s tendency of absolutizing the element of “difference” in conceptualizing racism and also to his eurocentric conception of history.

KEYWORDS

Albert Memmi, Racism, Colonialism, Decolonization, Immigrant

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.

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