Lou Khalfaoui
- Email: hylcfm@leeds.ac.uk
- Thesis title: Reconciliation in the aftermath of colonialism? The denial and remembrance of colonial violence in French and Algerian official discourses (1999-2022)
- Supervisors: Professor Claire Eldridge, Jim House
Profile
After graduating with a BA (Hons) in Human Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge, I went on to complete a MSc (Hons) in International Public Policy from the University College London (UCL). Before starting a PhD at the School of History in 2022, I was an intern and later a research assistant to director of the Institute of Race Relations, an antiracist educational charity based in London.
Research interests
I have enjoyed working in multidisciplinary environments, combining political and social science methods and theories with history-based ones. As a result, I work across the School of History and the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. My research focuses on the construction of colonial violence in the official discourses of the French and Algerian state over the last 24 years. I apply the method of discourse analysis to speeches, public statements, and interviews of state actors to highlight the maintenance and disruption of particular framings. These discourses serve to contextualise contemporary memory focused policies seeking appeasement and ‘reconciliation’. My thesis will integrate oral histories of civil society actors who organise around the memory of colonial violence, to illustrate the reception of official discourses and their contestation.
Alongside my PhD project and with a team of PGR students from the Universities of Leeds, York, and Sheffield, I organise the Oral History Collective, a series of AHRC-funded Oral History Events taking place throughout 2023/2024. I have taken gotten involved in various School activities, helping to organize one of the community-building bake sale whose proceed were directed towards Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network (LASSN).
I have also presented various papers, including at the School’s PGR seminar and to experts from the IREMAM institute, which is part of Aix-Marseille University. I have obtained external funding for various projects, one of which was fieldwork and language training conducted in Algiers in the summer of 2023, from the Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain based in Tunis.
Qualifications
- BA Human, Social and Political Sciences
- MSc International Public Policy