Patrimony as Inalienability in Nineteenth-Century Algeria: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Destroying and the Promise of Comparison

This article brings Annette Weiner’s thought on inalienable possessions, developed in relation to her work in Melanesia, into dialogue with the dynamics of colonial state patrimony in nineteenth-century Algeria. While the paradox of keeping-while-giving that Weiner proposed as a replacement for traditional anthropological models of reciprocity has occasionally been applied to the nation-state idiom of patrimony, the colonial context complicates such an extension by often introducing a disconnect between the collective to whom the inalienable possessions are attached and the state that would conserve them. Through an exploration of the establishment of a “Hispano-Mauresque” patrimonial apparatus in nineteenth-century Algeria, this article affirms that Weiner’s theorization can be useful for thinking about colonial contexts. However, this requires attention to what I call the paradox of keeping-while-destroying, as well as a finer-grained picture of the colonial state – one in which patrimonial actors understand themselves to stand in part outside the state. These seemingly contradictory adjustments in perspective come together particularly vividly in the relationship between state patrimony and the Islamic regime of inalienable endowments known as ḥubūs or waqf: even as the colonial state ultimately oversaw the dismantling of waqf, the founder of the colonial patrimonial apparatus in Algeria viewed his own work as in part a continuation of its spirit. This colonial claim of continuity and subsumption leads me to conclude with a consideration of waqf through Weiner’s framework. I suggest that the theory of inalienable possessions offers a comparative framework for thinking about patrimony and waqf – one that ultimately underlines their differences, nineteenth-century officials’ claims notwithstanding. At the same time, this comparison permits us to revisit some of the fundamental claims of Weiner’s theory by suggesting that a kind of temporally distant reciprocity may in fact be central to the concept and practice of inalienability after all.