With their participation in the struggle for national independence, Algerian women continuously challenged established gender roles and hierarchies both within the colonized society and in their interactions with the colonizers. In the first-person narratives of Algerian activists, body politics emerge as a particularly significant field in the fight against colonialism but also within the colonial system itself. On the one hand, women’s bodies were targeted by the colonizers, for instance through violence, torture, and public unveiling ceremonies. However, I examine how women simultaneously used their bodies in diverse ways for political participation.

Among other actions, female members of the Algerian Front de la Libération Nationale (FLN), predominantly young, well-educated women familiar with French neighborhoods and the French way of life, placed bombs in the French quarters of Algiers. The FLN aimed to exploit the women’s knowledge of French codes as well as the underestimation and depoliticization of women by French soldiers. Body politics, such as playing with Western and Orientalized notions of beauty, the use of passing, and mimicry, were central to this strategy.

My dissertation explores various aspects of body politics, the questioning of the gendered colonial spatial order, and the role of violence in self-narrative texts by Algerian women. These texts suggest that the women were well aware of the gender-specific attributions assigned to them and deliberately used these for the advancement of the national liberation struggle—and, in some cases, simultaneously for their own empowerment as women.