During the fellowship, Yazid Ben Hounet will be focusing on his essay on the Laghouat massacre, which occurred on December 4, 1852 and in the days that followed. There are at least three reasons why the Laghouat massacre is particularly relevant among other massacres. Firstly, it is poorly documented. As it occurred in 1852, it falls outside the time periods covered by historians Alain Ruscio (1830–1851) and William Gallois (1830–1847). Secondly, it is emblematic of the policy of terror directed at the populations of southern Algeria in Brower’s Desert Named Peace (2009). Thirdly, it condenses »all the horrors of war«, appearing as one of the genocidal peaks of the colonial conquest. The massacre wiped out two-thirds of Laghouat’s inhabitants in a matter of days. It left a deep mark on the local population, who continue to refer to 1852 as am al khaliya (»the year of emptiness« or »annihilation« in Arabic) to remind them of this horrific event and the emptiness it left behind.

Yazid Ben Hounet is a social anthropologist and a Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), affiliated with the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale (CNRS – Collège de France – EHESS) in Paris. He holds a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), completed in 2006, and a habilitation (HDR) from the University of Paris in 2020. His academic work primarily explores the intersections of legal and political anthropology in Muslim societies, with a particular focus on North Africa. His research has delved into tribal issues in contemporary Algeria, local reconciliation processes in Algeria and Sudan, legal practices related to property, and kinship studies. His current research focuses on colonial crimes in Algeria. He also teaches, as an associate professor, at Comenius University Bratislava and was recently a visiting associate professor at the National University of Singapore.