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14641. The New "Ethnology" and "la situation coloniale" in Interwar France

Author:
Alice L. Conklin
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Jean Bazin's 1996 invocation of the enduring effects of Georges Balandier's critical insights of the 1950s is a testimonial to not just how revolutionary, but also how persuasive these insights were and remain. It is common currency now, even among those of us who are not anthropologists, that first European travelers, then European scientists "invented" places like "Africa" that tell us more about themselves/ourselves than the reality they purported to describe. The particular "invention" of the twentieth century was anthropologists' "discovery" of "pure cultures" untouched by history and especially by colonialism. Having found such peoples, anthropologists then devoted themselves to recording and preserving their "authentic" traditions before it was too late. Balandier's precocious contribution to the field, in this context, was to take the colonial situation itself as his object of study as early as 1951 and to render visible the unequal power relations so discreetly evacuated by his more "complicit" professional colleagues.
Political Geography:
Europe and France

14642. Decolonizing Situations: The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Colonial Studies, 1951-2001

Author:
Frederick Cooper
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
When Georges Balandier published "The Colonial Situation" in 1951, colonial empires were at the heart of profound debates and struggles. By the 1970s, colonialism had been banished from the realm of legitimate forms of political organization. What remained "colonial" in world politics passed itself off as something else. The burst of scholarship on colonial societies in the 1980s and 1990s thus appears paradoxical, and so too does the lack of response and follow-up to Balandier's brilliantly incisive article in the two decades after its appearance.

14643. Retour sur le régime de l'indigénat: genèse et contradictions des principes répressifs dans l'empire français

Author:
Isabelle Merle
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
L'objet du présent article consiste à repenser ce qu'on a appelé le "régime de l'indigénat", parfois improprement qualifié de "code de l'indigénat" ou réduit, dans l'usage courant, à la simple formule "l'indigénat", le tout renvoyant à un ensemble législatif et réglementaire répressif, élaboré dans les colonies françaises à l'encontre des seuls indigènes.

14644. The Empire of Law: Dignity, Prestige, and Domination in the "Colonial Situation"

Author:
Emmanuelle Saada
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
My contribution is an attempt to resolve one of those enigmas that the French colonial archives hold for assiduous readers. In the course of comparative research on the juridical status of métis children in the French Empire, I was struck by the frequency with which the terms "dignity" and "prestige" figured in a wide range of colonial preoccupationswhether on the part of local or central administrations, private individuals or institutions. These were not merely personal or social qualities, but terms that had precise legal meanings and that played a central role in colonial jurisprudence. In this context, the terms were predominantly used in the negative-referring to threats to prestige (atteintes au prestige) or to the obligation to maintain one's dignity (garder sa dignité). This runs counter to the conventional image of a self-confident colonial society, persuaded of its superiority and of the legitimacy of its "mission civilisatrice."
Topic:
Law

14645. Easternization Meets Westernization: Patriotic Youth Organizations in French Indochina during World War II

Author:
Anne Raffin
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Although colonizers generally repressed emergent national movements as potential vehicles of national liberation, the French encouraged patriotic mobilizations in Indochina in the early 1940s as a way to counteract Thai irredentists, Vietnamese revolutionaries, and Japanese occupiers and their claims of "Asia for Asians." Here, colonial authorities sought to build allegiance to the empire by "patriotizing" youth attitudes through sports activities and youth corps. Participation in such youth organizations mushroomed in Indochina between 1940 and 1945, gaining over a million members in that short span.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and Asia

14646. 150 Years Of Algerian Painting: Relevance for Understanding the Postcolonial Situation

Author:
François Pouillon
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
There are significant differences between the way academics in France and the United States see postcolonial processes, differences having to do with particular national histories. It is, however, precisely the task of academics to work to transcend such specificities. So the differences must have to do with collective intellectual movements in the two countries, and it would perhaps be useful to compare them.
Political Geography:
United States and France

14647. Un Passage À L'acte Improbable? Notes de recherche sur la trajectoire sociale de Zacarias Moussaoui

Author:
Stéphane Beaud and Olivier Masclet
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
La France découvre, au lendemain des attentats du 11 septembre 2001 et de la guerre en Afghanistan, qu'elle a couvé en son sein des jeunes, nés ou élevés dans le pays, qui sont devenus des soldats de l'islamisme radical. Antoine Sfeir, directeur des Cahiers de l'Orient, estime à 150 le nombre de jeunes Français qui seraient impliqués dans les réseaux islamistes proches de Al Quaïda. Le plus connu d'entre eux, Zacarias Moussaoui, 33 ans, fiché depuis 1999 par la Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (D.S.T.) comme "susceptible d'appartenir au Jihad international", est soupçonné d'être le vingtième pirate de l'air des attentats du 11 septembre 2001. Emprisonné aux États-Unis, il risque la peine de mort. On peut aussi citer Djamel Beghal, arrêté à Dubaï en juillet 2001, et son adjoint Kamel Daoudi, 27 ans, informaticien de formation, tous deux d'origine algérienne et également suspectés d'appartenir au même réseau Al Quaïda.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and France

14648. Policy Activism In A Globalized Economy: France's 35-hour Workweek

Author:
Gunnar Trumbull
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Globalization is commonly thought to impede policy activism. Yet France's 35-hour workweek initiative demonstrates that globalization can, in certain circumstances, create incentives for greater policy activism. This is because economic actors experience globalization differently. The French government, facing fiscal and monetary constraints, was seeking alternative means for promoting employment. French employers, facing new foreign competition, increasingly valued workforce flexibility. And French labor unions, facing declining membership, were anxious to establish a bridgehead in new sectors of the economy. These diverse pressures of globalization, felt differently by different economic actors, created the context in which an activist labor policy could be negotiated.
Topic:
Economics and Government

14649. The New Politics Of African Cinema At The French Ministry Of Foreign Affairs

Author:
Teresa Hoefert de Turégano
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The article examines French cinematographic policy toward Africa within the context of the shift in control from the French Ministry of Cooperation and Development to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Is francophone West Africa losing its privileged position in French cinematographic policy? During the first two years of the new regime for cinema a dual dynamic was evident, with both transition and historical continuity. In the final months of 2001 a clearer message appears in the politics of African cinema at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Central elements of the film policy under the Ministry of Cooperation are compared to current policy and then situated into French film politics in a more general sense.
Political Geography:
Africa

14650. French E-Managers: A Generation in the Making

Author:
Mette Zølner
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The article examines French cinematographic policy toward Africa within the context of the shift in control from the French Ministry of Cooperation and Development to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Is francophone West Africa losing its privileged position in French cinematographic policy? During the first two years of the new regime for cinema a dual dynamic was evident, with both transition and historical continuity. In the final months of 2001 a clearer message appears in the politics of African cinema at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Central elements of the film policy under the Ministry of Cooperation are compared to current policy and then situated into French film politics in a more general sense.
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
Africa