Algeria and France: historical & experiential layers of a footballing relationship

Abstract

This article examines the trajectories of Algerian-French belonging as they are exhibited within the world of playing and supporting football. I begin by tracing a broad history of football in France and Algeria and delineating the role of colonialism in the establishment of football associations and in the establishment of the Algerian Front de Libération National (FLN) national team. Engaging more directly in the trajectories themselves, I discuss the disconnect and alterity of French citizens of Algerian descent in the post-colony who participate in performances of national belonging—like supporting the Algerian national team or playing for it—and focus on the post-9/11 period as crucial to the shift from representations of Algeria as being Arab to being Muslim. I then consider the nexus of national sporting infrastructure, global capital in French football clubs, and the corporate social responsibility in footballing initiatives that accompanies such investment, which can at times unwittingly reproduce colonial discourses. Finally, considering the discursive shift from Arab to Muslim and the attendant meanings of being or feeling Algerian, I turn back to Karim Benzema and Riyad Mahrez and their individual club/national careers as exemplars of a new transnational Algerian generation.

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