Revue d'histoire contemporaine de l'Afrique
The Revue d'Histoire Contemporaine de l'Afrique (RHCA) is a French-language contemporary history journal with an international editorial board that focuses on the contemporary history of the African continent (19th to 21st centuries). Entirely open access, it publishes thematic issues (2 per year) as well as various articles, book reviews, interviews and a ‘Sources, fields & contexts’ section. RHCA publishes peer-reviewed articles in French and provides a forum for African historians to meet and exchange ideas.
“Les archives des luttes des femmes en Algérie”
This contribution revisits a project launched in 2019, called “ Les archives des luttes des femmes en Algérie” , which focuses on gathering a collection of unpublished sources. The aim of the project is to collect and digitize a wide range of documents from different Algerian associations, groups, and collectives involved in the fight for women's rights, in order to create a collaborative digital archive. This initiative responds to a popular need to preserve the memory of these struggles, in a context where the state often controls historical narratives. Highlighting this lesser-known documentation has opened up new ways of thinking about the feminist movement in Algeria after independence, offering a better understanding of how these organizations were structured, in a context of historiographical renewal regarding these subjects.
Copyright (c) 2026 Camille Mallem https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Jochen S. Arndt (2022) - Divided by the Word
Reviewed: Jochen S. Arndt, Divided by the Word. Colonial Encounter and the Remaking of Zulu and Xhosa Identities, Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2022, 326 p.
Copyright (c) 2026 Matthieu Rey https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Gillian Mathys (2025) - Fractured Pasts in Lake Kivu’s Borderlands
Reviewed: Gillian Mathys, Fractured Pasts in Lake Kivu’s Borderlands. Conflicts, Connections and Mobility in Central Africa, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2025, 378 p.
Copyright (c) 2026 Henri Medard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Meredith McKittrick (2024) - Green Lands for White Men
Reviewed: Meredith McKittrick, Green Lands for White Men: Desert Dystopias and the Environmental Origins of Apartheid. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2024, 321 p.
Copyright (c) 2026 Tholithemba Lorenzo Ndaba https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Stephanie Newell (2023) - Newsprint Literature and Local Literary Creativity in West Africa
Reviewed : Stephanie Newell, Newsprint Literature and Local Literary Creativity in West Africa, 1900s-1960s, Woodbridge, James Currey, 2023, 232 p.
Copyright (c) 2026 Wale Adebanwi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Collecting Prehistoric Artefacts in the International Zone of Tangier
Between 1936 and 1940, two American amateur archaeologists, Hooker Doolittle and Ralph Nahon, excavated the Mugharet el Aliya cave (located in the international zone of Tangier) and collected prehistoric artefacts. In 1941, the collection was transferred to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. This article reconstructs and analyses the mechanisms and actors involved in the collection and circulation of prehistoric artefacts from Morocco to the United States. It examines the value of the prehistoric collection and its evolution from the Tangier region, and demonstrates how amateur archaeological practice in the first half of the twentieth century was essential to the development of an academic and institutional archaeological discipline.
Copyright (c) 2026 Delphine Delamare https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Bizarre Case of the Resemblance between the Embroideries of Assisi and Azemmour
This article uncovers overlooked stories of women’s communication and knowledge exchange across the Mediterranean and proposes using embroidery, a craft predominantly practiced by women, to trace these exchanges. The discussion begins with the unique figural embroidery of Azemmour, a small Moroccan town, that is distinct form all other Moroccan embroideries. To explore the influences on the Azemmouri embroidery, the article turns to Assisi, Italy, where strikingly similar embroideries were produced. The article suggests that the Franciscan Order, founded in Assisi and present in Morocco since the thirteenth century, may have contributed to this exchange. By tracing this circulation, this investigation emphasizes the value of conducting “fragmented history,” which pieces together fragments of sources. The article argues that the circulation of embroideries across the Mediterranean enabled women in Assisi and Azemmour to establish nonverbal communication that transcended time and space.
Copyright (c) 2026 Elya Assayag https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Unveiling Moroccan Craftsmanship and its Producers in the Early 20th Century
This article offers a critical analysis of the Moroccan section of the 1922 Colonial Exhibition in Marseille, examining the logic behind the selection of objects and artisans. Drawing on archival sources, visual materials, and historiographic approaches, it sheds light on the mechanisms of colonial patrimonialization, shaped by aesthetic display, hierarchical valuation of craft traditions, and the structural invisibilization of many Moroccan producers. While certain crafts – such as metalwork or bookbinding – were highlighted and offi cially rewarded, others, particularly those practiced by women or tied to specific communities, were marginalized or left anonymous. The exhibition thus functioned as a tool of imperial legitimation, where standardized and redefined artisanal practices served to construct a controlled, idealized image of Morocco. By exposing these tensions between formal recognition and symbolic erasure, this study underscores how colonial authorities instrumentalized local practices for political, economic, and aesthetic purposes.
Copyright (c) 2026 Julie Rateau https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This article examines the introduction of electricity in Morocco from the late nineteenth century to the eve of the Second World War through a socio-cultural lens. Far from constituting a mere technical innovation, electricity emerges as a profound social, cultural, and political phenomenon. Initially discovered by Moroccan elites prior to the establishment of the Protectorate through their travels in Europe, it rapidly became a powerful symbol of prestige and modernity. Its adoption, initially driven by local initiatives in cities like Tangier and Fes, remained a selective process. Under the Protectorate, electrification was transformed into a tool of colonial administration. It engendered a clear spatial segregation between the electrified new towns and the marginalized medinas, with access restricted to a privileged minority. Exhibitions held in Casablanca (1929–1932) staged this modernity while concealing its deeply unequal nature. This selective electrification ultimately reinforced pre-existing social and spatial hierarchies, leaving a legacy of structural inequalities that persisted well beyond independence.
Copyright (c) 2026 Mohammed Lahboub, Tayed Biad https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Between 1927 and 1937, Moroccan nationalist students built a transnational political network connecting Rabat, Fez, Paris, Geneva, Tetouan, Tunis, and Madrid. Drawing on pan-Maghreb, pan-Arab, and anti-colonial organizations, these “Young Moroccans” sought to internationalize the Moroccan cause in the face of colonial repression. Based on archives from French intelligence services and private collections of anti-colonial activists, this article sheds light on the scope and limitations of this fi rst attempt to internationalize Moroccan nationalism. It shows how the nationalists opportunistically allied themselves with foreign actors to bypass censorship and mobilize international public opinion. Although this elite and limited network, with its many branches, foreshadowed the future Istiqlal Party and the Democratic Independence Party, it encountered increasing repression by the late 1930s, which severely weakened its international ties.
Copyright (c) 2026 Guillaume Denglos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Fear of Communist Conspiracy and the Surveillance of French Activists Migrating to Morocco at the end of the Rif War
During the Rif War, both the metropolitan and colonial press fiercely denounced a Bolshevik-Riffian conspiracy. In France, opposition to the conflict came mainly from the Communist Party and the organizations within its orbit. These mobilisations followed the instructions of the Communist International, which sought to lead the anti-imperialist struggle. In Morocco, colonial authorities looked communism as a foreign and subversive ideology from which the territory needed to be protected. That justified the constant surveillance of individuals which seemed suspicious. It’s also explained the difficulties for the communist activists to organize a militant structure. Another reason lies in the fact that those militants who migrated to Morocco didn’t find, on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, the same sociopolitical environment that had shaped their earlier engagement. As a result, their migration often means a rupture in their militant trajectory.
Copyright (c) 2026 Stève Bessac-Vaure https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This article aims to reposition Morocco within Germany’’s pan-Islamic strategy during the Great War by analysing propaganda campaigns targeting Moroccan soldiers captured in Germany, as well as those spread across Morocco by German agents. The study highlights the content, channels of distribution and fi gures involved in this propaganda, while showing how these actions were part of a broader German strategy. By reconstructing these dynamics, this investigation highlights Morocco’s central role both in German imperial logics and in the trans-imperial circulation of actors, discourses and ideological media. Th is article thus follows the footsteps of other works that consider Morocco as a full-fl edged front of the Great War. To this end, it draws on sources that have been little explored by historiography, such as propaganda newspapers written in standard Arabic, as well as booklets and leafl ets produced for the Moroccan public.
Copyright (c) 2026 Othmane Mouyyah, Halil Kaya https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Th is paper examines the strategies of agentivity implemented by Moroccan temporary workers into French farms to stabilize their access to employment in a context of labor reversibility and competition on the globalized labor market. Th rough a study of the archives of an agricultural company over several decades (1973-2025), this research illustrates the relational work put in place by the families of workers from Morocco to get their peers hired. Th rough the analysis of hirings, missives and visits, the article aims to demonstrate the emergence of new social ties forged in labor migration around a mutual dependence between workers and bosses. Within these ambiguous relationships, work is negotiated during non-work time and from the spaces of departure.
Copyright (c) 2026 Anne-Adélaïde Lascaux https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This article examines the role played, between 1916 and Morocco’s independence, by a small group of men specially sent to the metropole by the General Residency, the administration representing the French government and directing the protectorate, in order to oversee Moroccan workers employed in France. It reconstructs their trajectories, from the Indigenous Affairs office or the civil control services in Morocco to the departments under the protectorate administration in France, and explores how their expertise was developed and institutionalized. Deploying a discourse rooted in ethnographic knowledge forged in colonial settings and adapted to the metropolitan economic context, these men influenced immigration policies and the management of migrants, while contributing to the construction and circulation of a set of narratives and classifications concerning Moroccan workers.
Copyright (c) 2026 Hugo Mulonnière https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The introduction to this issue devoted to Morocco’s modern history revisits one of the most recurrent and striking clichés about the country, that of Moroccan “insularity.” The country is said to be closed in on itself, and its isolation is said to ensure Moroccan “exceptionalism.” This topos, sometimes negative, sometimes positive, has a long history. In this introduction, we draw a genealogy of this topos by shedding light on its inception in 19th century imperial representations and its subsequent transformations through colonial discourses and nationalist re-interpretations of Moroccan history. This sedimentation is still refl ected in current research on Morocco, which appears highly fragmented and partially marked by a methodological colonialism and nationalism that have kept it disconnected from recent major historiographical trends. This introduction, as well as the articles in this issue, nevertheless contribute to an ongoing opening up of the field, some aspects of which are presented here, to reposition, for example, Morocco in African history.
Copyright (c) 2026 Benjamin Badier, Yazid Benhadda, Abdelmounaïm Fanidi, Othmane Mouyyah, Soufiane Taïf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Radio Maarif: A Popularisation Experience of the History of Morocco
Over the past decade, the history of Morocco has increasingly become the target of eff orts aimed at disseminating historical scholarship to the general public. A number of initiatives – ranging from short video clips shared on social media to audio podcasts – contribute to these eff orts, sometimes to reinforce the Moroccan national myth, and other times in order to bridge scientifi c research and public space. With 20,000 to 30,000 listens per episode, Radio Maarif has established itself as a major player in this landscape of making Moroccan history accessible since its creation in 2018. In this interview, Reda Allali, co-founder of this Moroccan web radio, highlights the origins of the initiative, the challenges it faces, and its ambitions.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yazid Benhadda, Abdelmounaïm Fanidi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Paul Moity Collection was donated to the Archives of Morocco in Rabat in 2024. It brings together the private archives of French videographer Paul Moity (1933–2021), documenting his activities within various research centers and institutions in Morocco between 1958 and 1970. By examining the process through which this corpus was assembled, the article highlights its value for documenting a still understudied history of the “time of cooperation” in Morocco. The article also emphasises the specific contribution of this collection, comprising films fixes, photographs, sound recordings and film scripts, to the study of how audiovisual media were used in techniques of persuasion and public information associated with rural development projects in Morocco in the 1960s.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ben Clark https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Antoine Perrier (2023) - Monarchies du Maghreb
Reviewed: Antoine Perrier, Monarchies du Maghreb. L’État au Maroc et en Tunisie sous protectorat (1881-1951), Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS, 2023, 379 p.
Copyright (c) 2026 Luc Chantre https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Josep Lluís Mateo Dieste (2023) - Remembering the Tatas
Reviewed: Josep Lluís Mateo Dieste, Remembering the Tatas, Domestic Women and Slavery in Tetouan (19th- 20th centuries), Leyde, Brill, Studies in the History and Society of the Maghrib, 2023, 460 p.
Copyright (c) 2026 Benjamin Badier https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Brahim El Guabli (2023) - Moroccan Other-Archives
Reviewed: Brahim El Guabli, Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship after State Violence, New York, Fordham University Press, 2023, 272 p.
Copyright (c) 2026 Walid Cherqaoui https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Emmanuel Blanchard (2024) - Des colonisés ingouvernables
Reviewed: Emmanuel Blanchard, Des colonisés ingouvernables. Adresses d’Algériens aux autorités françaises (Akbou, Paris, 1919-1940), Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2024, 332 p.
Copyright (c) 2025 Romain Old https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Anthony G. Hopkins (2024) - Capitalism in the Colonies
Reviewed: Antony G. Hopkins, Capitalism in the Colonies. African Merchants in Lagos, 1951-1931, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2024, 576.
Copyright (c) 2025 Louise Barré https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Revisiting the memory of the Algerian War: The story of a female resistance fighter.
In 2020, Nora Hamdi adapted her eponymous essay to direct La Maquisarde, an independent film that highlights the often overlooked role of women in the struggle for independence, a little-known chapter in the history of the Algerian War. The story follows Neïla, a 16-year-old Kabyle girl forced to flee after her village was destroyed by the French army. Although hesitant, she eventually joins the fight for independence before being captured in 1956. The film depicts the relationship between Neïla and Suzanne, a French nurse who joined the Algerian Front de libération nationale (FLN). This relationship highlights the historical tensions between France and Algeria while questioning the disappointed expectations of women in post-independence Algeria. Through the integration of archival footage, the film articulates the themes of resistance, solidarity, and memory. Through this narrative, La Maquisarde offers a reinterpretation of official history, examining the contradictions associated with decolonization and quest for emancipation. Nora Hamdi's Portrait: Thierry Rateau.
Copyright (c) 2025 Michel Bampély https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
It is well known that Africa is the youngest continent in the world today, with 70% of its population under the age of thirty according to 2024 statistics. Youth are often seen as vectors of change in African societies. But historical scholarship on childhood and youth in Africa remains underdeveloped compared to the scholarship on childhood and youth on other continents. This special issue responds to this gap, bringing together work from several historians of childhood in Africa that highlights the problems, constraints, and possibilities African children have encountered from within their own communities, from missions, or from the state. Concentrating on the period from the nineteenth century to the present, these articles suggest that we must examine how the meanings of the word “child” have changed over time and across different African societies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Kelly Duke Bryant, Kalala Ngalamulume https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Pierre Guidi, Jean-Luc Martineau et Florence Wenzek (eds.) (2024) - L'école en mutation
Reviewed: Pierre Guidi, Jean-Luc Martineau, Florence Wenzek (eds.), L’école en mutation. Politiques et dynamiques scolaires en Afrique (années 1940-1980), Toulouse, Presses universitaires du Midi, 2024, 138 p.
Copyright (c) 2025 Serena Iacobino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Humanitarian campaigns in 1990-2000s fought against a ‘child soldier crisis’, depicting child soldiers as traumatized victims of adult abuse and the ‘barbarism’ of new, civilianized warfare. This article argues that child soldiering was not a new phenomenon, but that children were a significant presence in conflicts throughout the twentieth century in Africa (and elsewhere). The ‘child soldier crisis’ emerged in late 1980-90s because changing notions of childhood, child rights, human security and war rendered them visible as objects of humanitarian concern. The article shows how shifting constructions of ‘the African child’, and African childhoods, in (post-)colonial and global humanitarian discourse informed the obscuring and then the highlighting of children’s involvement in conflict.
Copyright (c) 2025 Stacey Hynd, Marie-Luce Desgrandchamps https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
From the end of the 19th century, colonial administrators set up institutions and standards to assess and manage “abandoned” “native” children. Guardianship commissions dealt with the placement of orphans, disqualification from motherhood, and the appointment of guardians. They brought together representatives of the colonial state, religious missions and institutions, and private individuals. This article focuses, in particular, on mixed-race children born of interracial relationships in the colonial context in Congo and Ruanda-Urundi. The commissions relied on a network of surveys and investigations to decide on the fate of the children, control the – African – mothers, and, to a lesser extent and not without contradictions, compel the “presumed” European fathers to contribute financially to the education of their métis children. In this article, we show how the guardianship commissions are an observatory of the ambiguities, paternalism, racism, and violence of colonial society.
Copyright (c) 2025 Valentine Dewulf, Ornella Rovetta https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
In August 1934, a year after the dismantling of the Upper-Volta colony (contemporary Burkina Faso), by the colonial administration, Mossi fathers and uncles bring a series of complaints to the administration: missionaries have signed up their daughters to catechism (karengo, in Mooré), “with force” (ne panga). This article reinterprets these cases from the perspective of the history of childhood. The twenty-six cases of “abduction of young girls” reveal how much the financial crisis of 1929 and the suspension of the Upper-Volta colony transformed family dynamics and educational aspirations in the region of Ouagadougou. What were the stakes of catechism (karengo) for different social groups (girls, fathers, fiancés, Mossi nobility) in times of crisis?
Copyright (c) 2025 Thomas Zuber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
"Was on the Street Corner Playing with a top"
This article examines the control of juvenile mobility in Reunionese cities during the 19th century, drawing on unpublished judicial sources. Reunionese children and youths were frequently labeled as vagrants by colonial judicial authorities without legitimate justification. Most of these so-called “vagrants” were in fact indentured workers. They were arrested and brought before the district court, their mobility being considered a disturbance to public order. The main punishment was confinement in the Providence penitentiary. The article highlights the arbitrariness of a colonial justice system influenced by slaveholding mentalities, where youth mobility was perceived as a menace. The sources used provide a rare glimpse into the voices and experiences of these marginalized children in the urban space of Reunion
Copyright (c) 2025 Véronique Blanchard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Anaïs Angelo, Chikouna Cissé, Camille Evrard, Martin Mourre, Claire Nicolas, Sara Panata, Karine Ramondy, Romain Tiquet, Joseph Tsigbé https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0