干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

During the second half of the 20(th) century, the North African oases experienced considerable economic and social changes. In Algeria, these changes, coupled with a political will to liberalize the agricultural sector, resulted in the unlocking of access to water and land, outside the existing palm groves. This paper analyzes the process of unlocking these resources and the impact on the agricultural and societal dynamics. The study focuses on the emergence of new forms of agriculture at the margins of the ancient palm grove of Sidi Okba. The results show that these transformations are the combined result of the unlocking of new resources (mainly water and land) and the social ambition of young people from the oasis communities, who colonized new spaces and accessed groundwater during the 1980s. These agricultural transformations have contributed to societal changes that, resulted in the upward social mobility of the sharecroppers and their descendants in these oases.