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EAN : 9782707139825
Shaping : BROCHE
Pages : 336
Size : 155 x 240 mm
CHILDREN OF THE COLONIES

Collection : L'espace de l'histoire
Release date : 24/05/2007

The colonial encounter in the French Empire produced tens of thousands of ‘métis’ children. Most were the product of short-term relationships between European men and native women. Many were abandoned by their fathers, and condemned to illegitimacy. Colonial elites considered them a threat because they blurred the sharp distinction between...

The colonial encounter in the French Empire produced tens of thousands of ‘métis’ children. Most were the product of short-term relationships between European men and native women. Many were abandoned by their fathers, and condemned to illegitimacy. Colonial elites considered them a threat because they blurred the sharp distinction between citizens and subjects on which the colonial order rested. Colonial authorities met this challenge with an array of social and legal efforts to resolve this ambiguity—to «reclassify» the « métis problem » out of existence. Education and culture played a key role in this process, as métis children were placed in special orphanages devoted to « straightening out their heredity », turning them into French citizens of « soul and quality ». This book explores the forgotten history of these children of the colonies, and of their central place in larger strategies of imperial domination and the management of colonial sexuality. It pays special attention to Indochina, which served as a laboratory for the “métis question”, but it is also an account of a global Empire marked by the persistent challenge of maintaining boundaries between citizen and subject. In exploring this intersection between sexuality, race and citizenship in the colonial context, this book challenges and revises the ‘republican model’ of nationhood that has dominated histories of France since the 19th century.

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EAN : 9782707139825
Shaping : BROCHE
Pages : 336
Size : 155 x 240 mm
La Découverte