research_article October 24, 2026

War as Catalyst for Social Mobility in Yasmina Khadra’s In the Name of God

Jane Agunabor Omesiete, Alexander Kure
Volume1
Issue4
Pages124-131
DOI10.5281/zenodo.23610780
Abstract

This study employs the theoretical framework of New Historicism to explore how Yasmina Khadra's In the Name of God portrays war as a paradoxical catalyst for social mobility within the fractured socio-political landscape of 1990s Algeria. For the purpose of this paper, New Historicism has been selected as the literary theory to be used as baseline for the critical exploration and is grounded in the historical conditions that precipitated the Algerian Civil War—including the unresolved legacies of colonialism, post-independence authoritarianism, economic disenfranchisement, and the aborted democratic transition—the analysis interrogates how systemic violence reshapes class dynamics and opens unintended avenues for upward mobility. The study adopts a contextual and interpretative approach, situating the novel within its historical milieu while it examines how Khadra's narrative foregrounds characters who, amid chaos and disintegration, leverage ideological extremism, political opportunism, or militant affiliation to renegotiate their positions within Algeria's rigid social hierarchies. The findings suggest that while war devastates the moral and material fabric of society, it simultaneously creates fluidity in class relations—collapsing old elites, empowering new ones, and intensifying struggles over identity, ideology, and survival. In the Name of God reveals how violence becomes a mechanism for not only social rupture but also socio-economic reconfiguration. Ultimately, Khadra's work contributes to an emergent corpus of Algerian "emergency literature," using fiction to expose how war, beyond its immediate destructiveness, can recalibrate systems of privilege, access, and mobility in postcolonial contexts.

Keywords
WarSocial MobilityIdeological ExtremismHistorical NarrativePowerClass Relations
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