Reclaiming confiscated memory: towards an autonomous Kabyle documentary fund

By Stéphane Arrami – Kabyle.com

In 1930, the orientalist Louis Massignon published an article in the Revue des Études Islamiques titled “Distribution of the Kabyles in the Paris Region.”

With his scholarly pen, he drew a handwritten map: Gennevilliers, Nanterre, Saint-Denis, Ivry, Montreuil, Issy, Alfortville… each neighborhood was associated with a “tribe.”

This document, as fascinating as it was ambiguous, was less about memory than surveillance: an administrative control tool targeting Kabyle workers in the Parisian diaspora.

A memory collected without our own

This map and other similar documents still lie dormant in the collections of the Prefecture of Police, the National Archives, or the Center in Aix-en-Provence.

They were produced, archived, and cited by external researchers—without the concerned Kabyle families ever being able to reclaim their own voice or narrative.

This is not a simple oversight: it is the continuation of a colonial system where knowledge about the Other was constructed without them.

Reclaiming control over our archives

It is time to change this.

Through Amazigh Connect, we are launching a documentary reconstruction program today.

Its goal: to find, digitize, contextualize, and publish the scattered archives of the Kabyle presence in France and across the world.

But this time, according to our methods, our words, and our ethical frameworks.

This work relies on a dual approach:

• Memorial, to confront them with living speech: testimonies, family notebooks, photographs, and exile narratives.
• Historical, to identify official, administrative, police, and academic sources.

Partnership with collectors and institutions

Part of these archives now only exists in private collections: photographers, families of former workers, researchers, and activists.

We are working on building a partnership network with these collectors in order to:

• Digitize the documents according to the professional standards of museums and libraries (TIFF formats, Dublin Core records, IPTC metadata, etc.).
• Create an interoperable online catalog (compatible with Omeka-S, Tainacan, or CollectiveAccess).
• Publish the documents in the form of a digital museum gallery, browsable and commentable by the public.

The objective is not to centralize the collections, but to federate a shared heritage, respecting the rights and provenance of each piece.

Professional tools for memory

We use tools usually reserved for heritage institutions:

• Omeka S / Tainacan for museum publication and description.
• IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) for high-definition viewing of images and maps.
• METS / EAD / Dublin Core standards for archival indexing.
• Open-source platforms (WordPress + museum plugins) to link this content to Kabyle.com and Amazigh 24.

These tools will make it possible to publish virtual exhibitions, geolocated historical paths, and commented archival corpora, in order to make Kabyle memory accessible and shareable over the long term.

Kabyle.com: from media to augmented archive

Since 1997, Kabyle.com has navigated the transformations of the web without ever abandoning its vocation: to transmit.

Today, it is transforming into an augmented memorial site, where archives dialogue with the living.

Each map, each report, and each photograph will be placed back into its context, accompanied by a critical notice and a sensitive reading.

Our ambition is clear: to take back control of our narratives.

Not to lock them up in a museum, but to circulate them, connect them, translate them, and transmit them.

A free, critical, and universal memory

Kabyle memory must no longer be studied as an ethnographic object: it must be recognized as an essential part of human heritage.

Our archives tell stories of exile, dignity, and fraternity, and they fit into the broader memory of migrations and social struggles.

What Massignon drew to observe, we reclaim to understand.

What the administration filed away, we reopen to transmit.

What was once an inventory of control is now becoming an atlas of memory.

Call for contributions

We are launching a call to all those who preserve photographs, letters, recordings, or family documents related to the Kabyle diaspora.

Every archive, even a modest one, can contribute to reconstructing this shared history.

Contributions will be digitized, credited, and restored in an online public gallery, with respect and transparency.