Directrice d’études, EHESS
Anthropology
CNE research themes
The places and limitations of politics
Judith Scheele is a social anthropologist with a special interest in the Sahara and neighbouring areas. She has carried out long-term fieldwork in Algeria, Mali and Chad. Her research focuses on exchange, mobility, and local and regional interdependence, with the aim of developing a comparative framework that would allow us to analyse the Sahara as a region, in drawing on its own ethnographic and historical categories.
Former research has investigated the construction of the local in Kabylia (Village Matters, 2009), trans-border relations between southern Algeria and northern Mali (Smugglers and Saints, 2012), and the particular social and economic arrangements that inform life in the town of Faya-Largeau in northern Chad (Value of Disorder, 2019). Judith has also taken a sustained interest in in interdisciplinary projects, mostly with historians but also, more recently, geographers and political scientists. She is the co-editor of Saharan Frontiers (2012, with James McDougall), two volumes of the Legalism series (2014 and 2015, with Fernanda Pirie and Paul Dresch), and of The Scandal of Continuity (2019, with Andrew Shryock).
Publications
Monographs
2019 The Value of Disorder: Autonomy, Prosperity and Plunder in the Chadian Sahara. Cambridge: University Press (with Julien Brachet).
2012 Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: University Press.
2009 Village Matters: Knowledge, Politics and Community in Kabylia (Algeria). Oxford: James Currey.
Edited Volumes
2019 The Scandal of Continuity in Middle East Anthropology: Form, Duration, Difference. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (with Andrew Shryock).
2015 Legalism: Rules and Categories. Oxford: University Press (with Paul Dresch).
2014 Legalism: Community and Justice. Oxford: University Press (with Fernanda Pirie).
2012 Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (with James McDougall).
Journal Articles
2019 Remoteness is power: disconnection as a relation in northern Chad. Social Anthropology 27/2, 156-71 (with Julien Brachet).
2018 Fiscalité marginale sur mesure. L’économie politique du natron au Borkou, Tchad. Politique africaine 151, 39-59 (with Julien Brachet).
2018 Ravens reconsidered: raiding and theft among Tubu-speakers in northern Chad. African Studies Review 61/3, 135-55.
2016 The Libyan connection: settlement, war, and other entanglements in northern Chad. Journal of African History 57/1, 115-34.
2016 A ‘despicable shambles’: labour, property and status in Faya-Largeau, northern Chad. Africa 86/1, 122-41 (with Julien Brachet).
2015 Les années écroulées. Vestiges, développement et autonomie à Faya-Largeau, Tchad. L’Homme 215-6, 279-306 (with Julien Brachet).
2015 Fleeting glory in a wasteland: wealth, politics, and autonomy in northern Chad. Comparative Studies in Society and History 57/3, 723-52 (with Julien Brachet).
2015 The values of ‘anarchy’: moral autonomy among Tubu-speakers in northern Chad. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21/1, 32-48.
2015 L’envers du tourisme au Sahara tchadien. Entre jeu politique national et indifférences locales. Cahiers d’études africaines 217, 107-31 (with Julien Brachet).
2013 A pilgrimage to Arawân: religious legitimacy, status and ownership in Timbuktu. American Ethnologist 40/1, 165-81.
2012 L’énigme de la faggâra : commerce, crédit et agriculture dans le Touat algérien. Annales H. S. S. 67/2, 471-93.
2012 Difficiles comptabilités sahariennes: fragilité économique et interdépendances sociales. Études Sociales 155, 133-52.
2011 Circulations marchandes au Sahara: entre licite et illicite. Hérodote 142, 143-62.
2010 Traders, saints and irrigation: reflections on Saharan connectivity. Journal of African History 51/3, 281-300.
2010 Councils without customs, qadis without states: property and community in the Algerian Touat. Islamic Law and Society 17/3, 350-74.
2009 Tribus, états et fraude: la région frontalière algéro-malienne. Études Rurales 184, 79-94.
2008 A taste for law: rule-making in Kabylia (Algeria). Comparative Studies in Society and History 50/4, 895-919.
2007 Recycling baraka: knowledge, politics and religion in contemporary Algeria. Comparative Studies in Society and History 49/2, 304-28.
2006 Algerian Graveyard Stories. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12/4, 859-79.
2006 Generating Martyrdom: forgetting the war in contemporary Algeria. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. Special Issue 6/2, 180-94.
Book Chapters
2019 Segmentation versus tyranny: politics as empirical philosophy. In The Scandal of Continuity (eds) J. Scheele and A. Shryock. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 187-209.
2019 Introduction: on the left hand of knowledge. In The Scandal of Continuity (eds) J. Scheele and A. Shryock. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1-26 (with A. Shryock).
2019 Introduction: on the left hand of knowledge. In The Scandal of Continuity (eds) J. Scheele and A. Shryock. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1-26 (with A. Shryock).
2018 Heterarchy, connectivity, locality: can (and should) we speak of a shared political imagination across the Sahara? In The Multiplicity of Orders and Practices: a tribute to George Klute (eds) T. Hüsken, A. Solyga and D. Badi. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 135-53.
2018 Dignity and honour: struggles over land and legitimacy in the Soummam valley. In Law and Property in Algeria: Anthropological Perspectives (ed.) Y. Ben Hounet. Leiden: Brill, 82-102.
2017 Cows and the sharīʿah in the Abéché customary court (eastern Chad). In Legalism: Property and Ownership (eds) G. Kantor, T. Lambert and H. Skoda. Oxford: University Press, 29-54.
2015 In praise of disorder: breaking the rules in northern Chad. In Legalism: rules and categories (eds) P. Dresch and J. Scheele. Oxford: University Press, 153-76.
2015 Rules and Categories: an overview. In Legalism: rules and categories (eds.) P. Dresch and J. Scheele. Oxford: University Press, 1-27 (with P. Dresch).
2014 Community as an achievement: Kabyle customary law and beyond. In Legalism: Community and Justice (eds) F. Pirie and J. Scheele. Oxford: University Press, 177-200.
2014 Law, justice, and community. In Legalism: Community and Justice (eds) F. Pirie and J. Scheele. Oxford: University Press, 1-24 (with F. Pirie).
2014 Embarrassing cousins: genealogical conundrums in the Central Sahara. In Past is present: the religious and political uses of genealogies in Muslim societies (eds) S. Savant and H. de Felipe. Edinburgh: University Press, 89-101.
2012 Travail et liberté en Algérie. In Couleurs de l’esclavage sur les deux rives de la Méditerranée (Moyen Âge – XXe siècle) (eds) R. Botte and A. Stella. Paris: Karthala, 371-90.
2012 Shurafâ’ as cosmopolitans: Islam, genealogy and hierarchy in the Central Sahara. In Articulating Islam: anthropological approaches to Muslim worlds (eds) M. Marsden and K. Retsikas. New York: Springer, 33-54.
2012 Rightful measures: irrigation, land and the sharīʿah in the Algerian Touat. In Legalism: anthropology and history (eds) P. Dresch and H. Skoda. Oxford: University Press, 197-228.
2012 Garage or caravanserai. Saharan connectivity in al-Khalîl, northern Mali. In Saharan frontiers: space and mobility in northwest Africa (eds) J. McDougall and J. Scheele. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 222-37.
2012 Time and space in the Sahara. In Saharan frontiers: space and mobility in northwest Africa (eds) J. McDougall and J. Scheele. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1-21 (with James McDougall).
2010 Coming to terms with tradition: manuscript conservation in contemporary Algeria. In The Trans-Saharan Book Trade: Arabic Literacy, Manuscript Culture, and Intellectual History in Islamic Africa (eds) G. Krätli and G. Lydon. Leiden: Brill, 291-318.
2010 Regional attractions: world and village in Kabylia (Algeria). In Translocality: the study of globalising processes from a southern perspective (eds) A. von Oppen and U. Freitag. Leiden: Brill, 159-78.
2008 Being from faraway: constructing the ‘local’ in Kabylia. In Cultures of Migration – African Perspectives (eds) H. P. Hahn and G. Klute. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 261-78.
2007 Le Play enquêteur en Angleterre: le voyage de 1851. In Frédéric Le Play: parcours, audience, héritage (eds) A. Savoye and F. Cardoni. Paris: École des Mines, 43-64.
2007 Revolution as a convention: rebellion and political change in Kabylia. In Creativity and Cultural Improvisation (eds) T. Ingold and E. Hallam. Oxford: Berg, 208-28.