"Violence causes harm and extends power in many different ways. Best known is physical violence, meaning the wounds and deaths that weapons inflict upon living bodies. However, violence also exists in symbolic forms, such as language, individual words, and beliefs, all of which can do harm and even kill. The Colonization of Names focuses on one modality of symbolic violence-the forced imposition of new personal names by colonial authorities-and uses it to examine Frances colonization of Algeria. While most of the violence of this renaming was invisible, it did not go unfelt. In as much as a personal name decides ones sense of self and place in society, imposing new names distorted and even destroyed Algerian identities and social institutions. Upon this destruction the French state extended its power, interpellating colonized subjects by their new names before its laws and commands. Focusing on the nineteenth century, this book draws upon previously unstudied records in the colonial archive, along with published historical documents and specialized studies, which together provide insights on four different northwest African naming traditions, Arabo-Islamic, Berber (Amazigh), Judeo-Arab, and modern French names.

With the aid of literary and critical theory, author Benjamin Brower shares new insight into the name and its relationship to power and subjectivity. The result is an exploration of the many unseen forms of colonial violence that still persist to this day"-- Provided by publisher.