Jardins au désert, Évolution des pratiques et savoirs oasiens, Jérid tunisien

by Vincent Battesti

**Translated Back Cover** The presence of oases in the Sahara can seem as an ecological aberration. The palm plantations, and the gardens which they shelter, are in fact the fruit of a millennial conquest, which continues today. These artificial landscapes, “terroirs” carefully worked and maintained, are the prototype of anthropized natural systems. This book has been written from investigations on the field carried out in Tunisian Jerid, but also in Tassili n’Ajjer (Djanet, Algeria) and in the wadi Draa (Zagora, Morocco). If this comparative perspective reveals the diversity of the oasian practices and knowledge and of the relations to the environment, it also emphasizes the local dynamics, which unfold beyond the usual dualism between tradition and modernity. In addition, several scales of study, from the vegetable bed to the garden and from the plot of land to the whole palm grove, make it possible to underline the variety of the articulations between ecological, economic, and socia