Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the phylloxera crisis in France led to the extension of vine frontier in North Africa. It takes into consideration the increasing global circulation of entomological knowledge during the period, and the role this insect has in shaping Algerian and Tunisian winescapes.

Paper long abstract:

The introduction of phylloxera in Europe had a disruptive effect on the global wine market in the late 19th century, leading to an extension of the vine frontier in North Africa. The emergence of global entomology as a scientific field, international conferences and legislative models devised to establish a phytopathological order came out of the phylloxera crisis. In this paper, I will look at the circulation of entomological knowledge, moving from the international conferences to the ground, and its role in the transformation of the colonial vineyards in Algeria and Tunisia. Despite entomologists’ efforts to prevent the arrival of the aphid, showing control anxieties exacerbated in the colonial framework, phylloxera thwarted these attempts, and gradually invaded Algeria and Tunisia between the 1880s and the early 20th century. The networks of actors involved in fighting phylloxera produced strategies based on intensive surveillance of vineyards, controlled flows of plants and people likely to carry the insect, as well as systematic pest eradication with insecticides. This paper focuses on how new configurations of humans and nonhumans resulted in ecological simplifications and a paradoxical transition to winegrowing monoculture in the French Empire.