Colonial Suspects: Suspicion, Imperial Rule, and Colonial Society in Interwar French West Africa (France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization)

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Description

A Vietnamese cook, a German journalist, and a Senegalese student—what did they have got in common? They were all suspicious persons kept under surveillance by French colonial authorities in West Africa in the 1920s and 1930s. Colonial Suspects looks at the internet of surveillance set up by the French government throughout the twentieth century as France’s empire slipped into crisis.

As French West Africa and the French Empire more usually underwent fundamental transformations throughout the interwar years, French colonial authorities pivoted from a stated policy of “assimilation” to that of “association.” Surveillance of both colonial subjects and visitors traveling through the colonies increased in scope. The effect of this change in policy was once profound: a “culture of suspicion” became deeply ingrained in French West African society.

Kathleen Keller notes that the surveillance techniques developed through the years by the French included “shadowing, postal keep an eye on, port police, informants, denunciations, home searches, and gossip.” This ad hoc approach to colonial surveillance mostly proved ineffectual, on the other hand, and French colonies became transitory spaces where a global cast of characters intermixed and French power remained precarious. An increasing number of, French officials—in the colonies and at home—reacted in short-sighted ways as both perceived and real backlash occurred with respect to communism, pan-Africanism, anticolonialism, black radicalism, and pan-Islamism. Focusing primarily at the port city of Dakar (Senegal), Keller unravels the threads of intrigue, rumor, and misdirection that informed this chaotic period of French colonial history.
 

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