Is Clericalism a Product for Export? French Nuns in the Arab World (1835–2008)

ABSTRACT For over a century, French nuns followed the lead of a pioneer, Emilie de Vialar (1797–1856), who with a handful of nuns and against all odds established the first missionary congregation of women in Algeria, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition, in August 1835. This article retraces the work and political, social, and linguistic roles of these women in the colonial geopolitics of the nineteenth century during the French Third and Fourth Republics as well as their part in the decolonization process.