Nuptials and Fashion: the Case of the Kabyle Acculturation

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Nuptials and Fashion: the Case of the Kabyle Acculturation
Nacima Ourahmoune, Reims Management School, France/ Université Lille Nord de France
Nil Ozçaglar-Toulouse, Université Lille Nord de France
In this paper, we propose to interpret how Algerian women use fashion during wedding ceremonies to assert their position in society
especially within the Kabyle sub-culture that just opened up to exogamic marriages. Results show that new consumptions of AraboIslamic codes allow women to participate indirectly in the current inter/ intra acculturation process in Algeria although ambiguities
and tensions remain vivid.
[to cite]:
Nacima Ourahmoune and Nil Ozçaglar-Toulouse (2011) ,"Nuptials and Fashion: the Case of the Kabyle Acculturation ", in AP Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Zhihong Yi, Jing Jian Xiao, and June Cotte and Linda Price,
Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 100-101.
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1008899/volumes/ap09/AP-09
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Nuptials And Fashion: The Case of The Kabyle Acculturation
Nacima Ourahmoune, Reims Management School, France/ Université Lille Nord de France*
Nil Ozçaglar-Toulouse, Université Lille Nord de France
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
In this paper, we propose to decipher how Algerian
women use fashion during wedding ceremonies to assert their
position in society especially within the Kabyle sub-culture
that just opened up to exogamic marriages. Algeria was a
former French department (1830-1962) that experienced a
socialist regime (until the 1990s) and the construction of a
Nationalist Arabo-Islamic collective project as a firm reaction
to the French Colonization. The rise of a consumer society is
then very recent and challenges social positions, identity
projects and gender issues. Within this context, we investigate
the Kabyle sub-culture in particular. Kabyle people are a subgroup of a larger ethnic group named Berbers widespread
across North of Africa, sharing their own language
(Tamzight). Basically, it is a Mediterranean sociolinguistic
group that faces a cultural assimilation (Arabic and French) as
well as a mutation of its social organization. We propose in
this paper to tackle gender issues and fashion consumption
showing how aesthetics do shift and convey different identity
positions among Kabyle women today.
MARRIAGE AS A SITE FOR IDENTITY
NEGOTIATIONS
Marriage ―is not and has never been, and cannot be a
private issue‖ (Levi-Strauss, 2002). It is driven by cultural
and economic considerations. Then, marriage depends on
some objectives that a society might manage to achieve
through endogamy or exogamy. In the Kabyle context,
starting the 17th century, local assemblies (Djemaa) did forbid
both women and men to marry people outside their
community (endogamy) otherwise they would not be eligible
for heritage. This was in order to avoid the dislocation of
lands and of the region. By studying the current period of a
shift from endogamic to exogamic weddings in Kabyle subculture this research aims understanding how fashion
consumption mediates Kabyle women s‘ identity projects.
METHODOLOGY
This paper is part of an ethnographic research on
acculturation in Algeria. Authors performed participant
observation, interviews and a structural semiotic analysis of
past/present wedding pictures (Floch 1990, 1995). One of the
authors did attend 15 weddings in Algeria (from preparation
to ceremony). Marriages under study represent a ―qualitative
diversity‖ (Schwarz, 1990, p 41) rather a representative
sample, couples having very diverse backgrounds, being
between 23 and 42, living in Kabylie region or in Algiers. We
focus here on the results of a structural semiotic approach
performed to capture the meaning of hundreds of wedding
visuals‘ from the 70s until now (Greimas & Courtès, 1986,
Floch 1990, 1995).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A semiotic square allows analyzing the relationships and
meanings of paired concepts and enriches binary oppositions
(Greimas & Courtès 1986, Floch 1990, 1995, Holt and
Thompson 2004, Kozinets 2009, Ourahmoune and Nyeck
2008). Drawn from a deep reading of cultural texts on Algeria
and the Kabyle culture, as well as observations and
interviews, and the analysis of wedding photos, we construct
a semiotic square to interpret feminine fashion in kabyle
wedding ceremonies and their link with consumers identity
projects.
INSIDE vs. OUTSIDE semantic opposition allows
capturing the dominant narratives that prevail in the Kabyle
culture today.
Being INSIDE the community means valorizing
ancestral Mediterranean culture and aesthetic references to
the Kabyle and Berber fashion together with the highly
French inspired style.
At the opposite, being OUTSIDE the community means
valorizing the Other/Exotic, in this case the Arabo-islamic
aesthetics and fashion that were forbidden to Kabyle women
until recently. Other regions folkloric outfits, Ottoman
Heritage, Moroccan Caftans, Lebanese Make up, Gold Jewels
vs. traditional Kabyle silver and coral jewels are then
adopted.
The semiotic square is useful enriching and overcoming
this binary opposition emphasizing two other signified. Being
NOT OUTSIDE which is strictly conforming to Kabyle ethics
and aesthetics and negating any resemblance and inspiration
from the Arabo-Islamic Algerian culture, which is mainly the
position, occupied today by Autonomy seekers (weddings
cannot be exogamic in this case and displays only typical
Kabyle folklore in terms fashion, music and food during
wedding ceremonies). Fashion consumption then stands as a
mirror of a minority radical resistance as regard the dominant
culture through the display of ―natural‖, ―pure‖, ―Arab Free‖
signs.
Finally, Being NOT INSIDE means a renouncement to
the Kabyle specificities and the adhesion to the nationalist
Arabo-Islamic ideology although people acknowledge their
Kabyle origins. This position will mainly concern families
that moved to other Algerian regions for decades or have
been basically connected at a high level to the political
regime. Algerian regimes instituted the Arabo-Islamic
identity as a unique source of ―Algerianity‖ (in a Jacobinist
manner). In terms consumption and fashion, exogamic
weddings become a rule and even though families‘ names
might be Kabyle, people live themselves as Arabs (highly
acculturated) and then exclusive Arabo-Islamic fashion is
displayed.
Our research emphasizes that until now most of the
mixed marriages are mainly a Kabyle male phenomenon
rather than women espousing Arabs. This might be explained
by the role of women in Latin cultures as regard identity/
tradition transmission and speaks of the gender asymmetry in
this subculture (cf. Bourdieu‘s work on masculine domination
in the Kabyle context). But, even though women are still less
directly involved, new consumptions allow them to
participate in the Kabyle/ Arab acculturation process.
Especially, analysis of the evolution of kabyle brides‘ wear
shows how they recently shifted from a double aesthetic
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reference (Kabyle and French styles) to a juxtaposition of
references including the valorization of Arabic aesthetics.
The young female generation displays signs of very
syncretic references escaping some clichés. But, while doing
so, they introduce a new uniformity. All brides displaying the
same signs according to scripted sequences representing
basically the main ideological forces in Algeria today.
Thereby, they do construct a very chameleon self-identity
through consumption. A 5th position within our semiotic
square is then discovered through this research and accounts
for a ―swapping‖ (Oswald 1999) between INSIDE AND
OUTSIDE the community rules. Fashion in the case of a
minority in a developing country speaks of the inner desires
of women to overcome gender restrictions. Fashion as a
―soft‖ stylistic consumption permits to insert liberator
feminine claims in a closed and scripted world. But, while
opening the box and entering a multiple identity framework,
our respondents seem more able to signify it through fashion
signs than explicit/verbal discourse. Kabyle women
interviewed adopt a conventional discourse as regard their
Kabyle identity and formulate their wish for their relatives to
maintain endogamy rules as a priority for the Kabyle identity
to be.
This point needs to be addressed by future research
therefore to deeply investigate whether fashion consumption
stands as a simple stylistic/recreational effect or as a profound
sign of gender identity deconstruction within the Kabyle
minority in Algeria.
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