From Algiers to Timbuktu: Multi-Local Research in Colonial History Across the Saharan Divide

Abstract The so-called “Saharan Divide” separating sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa into distinct fields has a long and complicated history. Paradoxically, given its dense historiography, this divide is particularly pronounced in scholarship on the colonial period. This article proposes an approach to researching across this division, centered on research in multiple African archives, to build a “multi-local” understanding of colonial-era trans-Saharan Africa. This approach is illustrated by the story of Algerians who taught in colonial schools in Mauritania and French Soudan, and by the author’s discovery of this story in sites across northwest Africa. This approach can help scholars reconceptualize multi-sited research and reevaluate the Area Studies divisions that continue to structure knowledge of African history.