Virtual Returns: Colonial postcards online and digital 'nostalgérie' among the former European settlers of Algeria

This article examines how former European settlers of Algeria (pieds-noirs) utilize online platforms to create digital spaces of remembrance using scanned colonial-era postcards. The study traces the role of these postcards in pied-noir memory narratives, from phototexts of the 1980s to websites of the mid-2000s onward, suggesting these digital sites attempt to maintain a connection to an imagined Algerian homeland during the 'memory wars.' By digitally reproducing postcards and photographs, pieds-noirs aim to reconstruct a lost topography. These 'virtual returns' rely on affective responses to 'nostalgérie,' but ultimately recreate the 'visual economy' of early 20th-century French Algeria. While the internet offers connectivity, these websites primarily focus on a homogenous collective memory for an imagined pied-noir audience. However, the study concludes that this online model of colonial nostalgia has influenced how other groups interpret visual 'nostalgérie'.

Beatrice Ivey