Archives de catégorie : Uncategorized

list of researchers involved in the project

Françoise Blum, projet leader, (CHS-Paris1), Page personnelle

Maria-Benedita Basto (CRIMIC-Université Sorbonne nouvelle ), Page personnelle

Capucine Boidin (IHEAL-Sorbonne Nouvelle ), Page personnelle

Chiara Candaele (Département d’histoire, University of Antwerp), Page personnelle

Michel Cahen (LAM-Sciences po Bordeaux), Page personnelle

Yves Denéchère (Département d’histoire, TEMOS, Université d’Angers) Page personnelle

Odile Goerg (Cessma-Université de Paris), Page personnelle

Liesbeth Jacobson (Leiden University) Page personnelle

Héloïse Kiriakou (Imaf-Paris1), Page personnelle

Nicola Labanca (Département des sciences historiques et du patrimoine culturel, Universita di Siena), Page personnelle

Céline Labrune-Badiane (Département d’histoire, Université Assane Seck de Ziguinchor), Page personnelle

Amandine Lauro (Centre de recherches Mondes modernes et contemporains (MMC), Université libre de Bruxelles), Page personnelle ; Site personnel

Delphine Lauwers (Centre de recherches Mondes modernes et contemporains (MMC), Université libre de Bruxelles),

Ângela Lazagna (Département d’histoire, Université Fédéral Fluminense), Page personnelle

Martin Mourre, fellowship in the projet, (IMAf-Université Paris1), Page personnelle

Didier Nativel (Cessma-Université de Paris), Page personnelle

Céline Pauthier (UFR histoire, histoire de l’art et archéologie, Université de Nantes), Page personnelle

Karine Ramondy (Sirice, Université Paris1), Page personnelle

Ophélie Rillon (IMAf-CNRS), Page personnelle

Julia Roos (Département d’histoire, Indiana University), Page personnelle

Emmanuelle Saada (Département de français, Columbia University), Page personnelle

Ann-Laura Stoler (Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI), New School for Social Research), Page personnelle

Judith Surkis (Département d’histoire, Rutgers School), Page personnelle

Violaine Tisseau (IMAf-CNRS), Page personnelle

Sarah Zimmerman (Collège des humanités et des sciences sociales, Western Washinton University), Page personnelle

Agenda

The project will start in January 2021 with the hiring (3 months – January-March) of a CDD in charge of building a bibliography to feed a blog, which the same CDD will open. The person will conduct interviews with researchers and possibly with mestizos involved in the revision of their history.

The second step will be the organization of workshops (face-to-face if possible and videoconferences). The first of these workshops could take place in April 2021 and will be intended to prepare a comparative volume whose various contributions will be written by several hands.  The following workshops will continue this work until the preparation is deemed sufficient to divide the work and the contributions.

The third step will be the work on the volume and its publication. The book could be finalized by the end of 2022.  Its production will go hand in hand with a reflection on the follow-up to the project.

From one empire to another

From one empire to another, and even from one territory to another, the situation was different. It was different according to the number and duration of the settlers, it was different according to the type of colonization, and sometimes different within the same empire. The Portuguese Cape Verde, for example, had an entirely mixed population, since the Portuguese (exclusively men) arrived on uninhabited islands and united with slaves brought by the slave trade, which led the Portuguese royalty to issue some regulatory decrees.  On another level, while the administration – and the medical profession – encouraged in the Belgian and French cases the colonials to take a wife in the fashion of the country (a question of hygiene!), the British were in this respect much more reserved, even hostile. 

Some works highlight the fluctuations of the medical discourse on mixed unions, as Amandine Lauro did in Belgium. Others, such as those of Ann-Laura Stoler, analyze the use of categories. She shows, for example, that in the Dutch Empire of the Indies (Indonesia) a single category designated poor Europeans born in the Indies and mixed-race people. The Nuremberg laws borrowed from Germany’s race policy in Africa. Italy, for its part, applied the racial laws of 1938 to Ethiopia, which it occupied from 1938 to 1941.

What do the invention and treatment of the mestizo question say about imperial governance, its anxieties and fears, and what are the differences, from one governance to another, not so much in the structures as in the « racial » vision that the « mestizo question » can, par excellence, reveal? It is not only from one empire to another, but from one colony to another, that complex assignments are played out, which depend on laws but also on power relations. The law plays a very different role (and sometimes none at all) according to the territories, and yet a « Métis question » exists everywhere.

In addition to laws, decrees and various codes, or jurisprudence, there are also numerous (auto)biographical narratives, that is to say, narratives produced by the individuals themselves (memoirs, autobiographies) or by the colonial administrations on the life trajectories of the mestizos (following the example of personal files). These life stories, although not archetypal, make it possible to identify some constants inherent to the « mestizo condition.  They allow, moreover, to make the voices of the mestizos heard and how some of them have lived (in acceptance or in revolt) a condition assigned by the colonial order. How also sometimes they have been able to disturb this order by challenging or overcoming its constraints, whether by their complicity with the colonized or by their social success. And in a general way the fate of the mestizos was extremely varied, in terms of gender in particular. The fact that they were mostly confronted with forms of racism is not in doubt, whether from Europeans, Africans or Asians. This led them to organize themselves in associations or congresses. In the Portuguese empire, there are different associations for the « whites of the country », the mestizos and the assimilated blacks. On the one hand because the colonial administration wanted to divide, but also because the experiences of these different legal categories of population were not the same. In general, mestizo associations were called « African » (in the sense of « non-indigenous ») while black associations were called « negras » or « negrófi-las ». The indigenous people (98% of the population) were obviously not allowed to found associations.

In this regard, a distinction must be made between the different colonial spaces. To take once again the example of the French Empire of Africa, it seems that the European-Malagasy mestizos were, according to Violaine Tisseau, relatively well accepted by the Malagasy society, compared to other colonies. In AOF, the mestizos of the 4 communes, French citizens since 1916, sometimes had leading political roles. But their history was not the same as that of children abandoned by their fathers in the rest of the AOF. In the AEF, racism was undoubtedly more brutal, and social relations of « race » more violent. This did not prevent some mestizos from having important roles there as well, such as Henri Lopes, or Andrée Blouin who, raised in an orphanage in Brazzaville, became head of the proto-school of the short-lived Lumumba government. In the Portuguese colonies, mestizos played an important role in the liberation struggles. But what about North Africa or India, for example?

This project has several objectives:

– To take stock of the situation by listing contemporary works on the question, scientific works and articles, without forbidding some excursions into the colonial library. Beyond the scientific literature, we will also take stock of published testimonies, as well as films and/or documentaries, many of which give a voice to mestizos. We will also be interested in the complaints recently filed by mestizos asking for reparation for the fate that was reserved for them. We will take into account the novels. Some have become archetypal, such as the famous novel by Abdoulaye Sadji: Nini la mulâtresse du Sénégal, or the Roman d’un Spahi, by Pierre Loti.  But many of them remain unknown and/or have sunk into oblivion. This census will be publicized via a blog (hypothesis notebook) that will also be fed with interviews with researchers and witnesses. Once the project is completed, this blog could become a reference site.

– Identify public or private archives that could shed light on the blind spots in the research.

– To constitute an international network of researchers on the question, even though the compartmentalization is still too rigid, with specialists from one empire to another. Involve some researchers to re-read their own work in the light of the « mestizo » question. 

– Organize workshops bringing together a certain number of these specialists.

– The purpose of these workshops would be to prepare a volume devoted to the issue in three parts: Laws, decrees and devices; trajectories (life stories); contemporary impacts.  All the contributions should be comparative, perhaps by associating specialists from different geographical areas. It is a question of « working together ».

This project has several ambitions:

– To decompartmentalize imperial histories. It is about colonial empires, Spanish, French, British, Portuguese, Dutch, and the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. Although the chronology is not the same, we cannot exclude the Spanish empire insofar as it was a precursor in the invention of the « mestizo question », nor the old colonies such as the West Indies, but the focus will be on the empires of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

– To question imperial constructions through the prism of the « mestizo question » by focusing on the interweaving of social, racial and gender issues.

– To question the impact of racial policies on racialized subjects themselves.  

– It does not claim to be exhaustive in any way, but rather to provide tools (Sites, interviews, books) for future students or researchers, as well as to shed some light on contemporary issues that have ancient roots.

Some works highlight the fluctuations of the medical discourse on mixed unions, as Amandine Lauro did in Belgium. Others, such as those of Ann-Laura Stoler, analyze the use of categories. She shows, for example, that in the Dutch Empire of the Indies (Indonesia) a single category designated poor Europeans born in the Indies and mixed-race people. The Nuremberg laws borrowed from Germany’s race policy in Africa. Italy, for its part, applied the racial laws of 1938 to Ethiopia, which it occupied from 1938 to 1941.

What do the invention and treatment of the mestizo question say about imperial governance, its anxieties and fears, and what are the differences, from one governance to another, not so much in the structures as in the « racial » vision that the « mestizo question » can, par excellence, reveal? It is not only from one empire to another, but from one colony to another, that complex assignments are played out, which depend on laws but also on power relations. The law plays a very different role (and sometimes none at all) according to the territories, and yet a « Métis question » exists everywhere.

In addition to laws, decrees and various codes, or jurisprudence, there are also numerous (auto)biographical narratives, that is to say, narratives produced by the individuals themselves (memoirs, autobiographies) or by the colonial administrations on the life trajectories of the mestizos (following the example of personal files). These life stories, although not archetypal, make it possible to identify some constants inherent to the « mestizo condition.  They allow, moreover, to make the voices of the mestizos heard and how some of them have lived (in acceptance or in revolt) a condition assigned by the colonial order. How also sometimes they have been able to disturb this order by challenging or overcoming its constraints, whether by their complicity with the colonized or by their social success. And in a general way the fate of the mestizos was extremely varied, in terms of gender in particular. The fact that they were mostly confronted with forms of racism is not in doubt, whether from Europeans, Africans or Asians. This led them to organize themselves in associations or congresses. In the Portuguese empire, there are different associations for the « whites of the country », the mestizos and the assimilated blacks. On the one hand because the colonial administration wanted to divide, but also because the experiences of these different legal categories of population were not the same. In general, mestizo associations were called « African » (in the sense of « non-indigenous ») while black associations were called « negras » or « negrófi-las ». The indigenous people (98% of the population) were obviously not allowed to found associations.

In this regard, a distinction must be made between the different colonial spaces. To take once again the example of the French Empire of Africa, it seems that the European-Malagasy mestizos were, according to Violaine Tisseau, relatively well accepted by the Malagasy society, compared to other colonies. In AOF, the mestizos of the 4 communes, French citizens since 1916, sometimes had leading political roles. But their history was not the same as that of children abandoned by their fathers in the rest of the AOF. In the AEF, racism was undoubtedly more brutal, and social relations of « race » more violent. This did not prevent some mestizos from having important roles there as well, such as Henri Lopes, or Andrée Blouin who, raised in an orphanage in Brazzaville, became head of the proto-school of the short-lived Lumumba government. In the Portuguese colonies, mestizos played an important role in the liberation struggles. But what about North Africa or India, for example?

This project has several objectives:

– To take stock of the situation by listing contemporary works on the question, scientific works and articles, without forbidding some excursions into the colonial library. Beyond the scientific literature, we will also take stock of published testimonies, as well as films and/or documentaries, many of which give a voice to mestizos. We will also be interested in the complaints recently filed by mestizos asking for reparation for the fate that was reserved for them. We will take into account the novels. Some have become archetypal, such as the famous novel by Abdoulaye Sadji: Nini la mulâtresse du Sénégal, or the Roman d’un Spahi, by Pierre Loti.  But many of them remain unknown and/or have sunk into oblivion. This census will be publicized via a blog (hypothesis notebook) that will also be fed with interviews with researchers and witnesses. Once the project is completed, this blog could become a reference site.

– Identify public or private archives that could shed light on the blind spots in the research.

– To constitute an international network of researchers on the question, even though the compartmentalization is still too rigid, with specialists from one empire to another. Involve some researchers to re-read their own work in the light of the « mestizo » question. 

– Organize workshops bringing together a certain number of these specialists.

– The purpose of these workshops would be to prepare a volume devoted to the issue in three parts: Laws, decrees and devices; trajectories (life stories); contemporary impacts.  All the contributions should be comparative, perhaps by associating specialists from different geographical areas. It is a question of « working together ».

This project has several ambitions:

– To decompartmentalize imperial histories. It is about colonial empires, Spanish, French, British, Portuguese, Dutch, and the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. Although the chronology is not the same, we cannot exclude the Spanish empire insofar as it was a precursor in the invention of the « mestizo question », nor the old colonies such as the West Indies, but the focus will be on the empires of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

– To question imperial constructions through the prism of the « mestizo question » by focusing on the interweaving of social, racial and gender issues.

– To question the impact of racial policies on racialized subjects themselves.  

– It does not claim to be exhaustive in any way, but rather to provide tools (Sites, interviews, books) for future students or researchers, as well as to shed some light on contemporary issues that have ancient roots.

An example among others: the French Empire

Several studies, including the seminal work by Emmanuelle Saada, offer a fairly accurate picture of the way in which the law took up the question, and of the practices that were used in the French Empire. Nevertheless, there are still blind spots, such as the history of mixed-race riflemen and Indochinese women, some of whom were taken to Africa and others of whom remained in Indochina, even though there was a massive repatriation of mixed-race French colonial or military men and Indochinese women to metropolitan France. Angle mort is also, to our knowledge, the case of North Africa.

The children born of these « mixed » unions were very rarely recognized by their fathers, fathers who most of the time abandoned them by changing jobs or returning to France. There were of course exceptions, such as Albert Nebout who returned to France with his « mousso » partner and their five children, or the colonial administrator Henri d’Arboussier who brought back his two children at the end of the First World War and gave them a brilliant education. The rule was therefore to leave these children on the soil where they had been conceived. The State made an issue of it, and sometimes took them away from their mothers, wanting to make them Europeans because of the « white blood » that ran in their veins. It was in a way the « one drop rule » reversed.  The fact remains that the half-breeds posed a problem for the imperial administrations: what to do with these children? Were they « natives » in the statutory sense of the term? In many cases, the children of these unions between colonizers and colonized were placed in « orphanages for half-breeds » to be raised in the European way. Today, some of them are asking for reparation. Specialized associations were concerned with their fate. Several works are interested more or less precisely in these orphanages, such as the studies of Owen White or Rachel Jean-Baptiste.

Legislation was enacted alternately in Indochina, French West Africa (AOF), Madagascar and French Equatorial Africa (AEF), and New Caledonia, legislation that introduced race into French law for the first time, as Emmanuelle Saada has shown. The legal status of mixed-race children born in the colonies to legally unknown parents was established first in Indochina in 1928, then in the French West Indies (AOF) by the decree of 5 September 1930, in the colony of Madagascar by the decree of 21 July 1931, and in the French West Indies (AEF) by a decree of 13 September 1936. But mestizos had, much earlier, been the object of investigations and attention, if not of various concerns. The Anthropological Society of Paris, for example, had sent a detailed questionnaire on mestizos to William Ponty, Governor General of the French West Indies, as early as 1908, asking him to pass it on to the appropriate people. The results of the survey were published in the Revue Anthropologique in 1912. Miscegenation was defined as follows:

« One must understand, in a general way, by mestizo the individuals coming from the union of 2 persons belonging to clearly different races. Rejecting any a priori theory on the origin of human types, we understand by pure race any ethnic type currently well constituted and sufficiently stable to have deserved a definite appellation. We therefore call miscegenation the unions between White and Negro, Yellow and White, Negro and American Indian, European and Hindu, Semite and European, Negro and Chinese, etc. »

The administrators’ responses mostly reflected their embarrassment in describing and identifying mestizos:

« Slightly dark colored skin »; « Very white colored skin »; « Dark complexion »; « Very dark skin »; « Very white »; « Dark »; « Light complexion »; « As dark as his mother’s »; « Fairly light complexion »; « Very white »; « Light yellowish-brown skin »; « Fairly light skin »; « Very black skin »; « Brown skin. »

Since color was obviously not an indicator, the Empire, in order to « unmask » mestizos, or rather those who claimed to be mestizos and were not, instituted various protocols, such as medical examinations and certificates, and in a general way, endeavored to deal with this « question », which it had in fact invented.

Genesis

The imperial conquests were first and foremost a matter of men: explorers, traders, soldiers, missionaries, administrators. Women, with a few exceptions, joined their husbands only later, which did not come without great upheaval. And these men alone obviously established relations with the girls of the conquered countries, from the first contacts but also in a much more systematic way with the development of imperial administrations, and the permanent installation of administrators or colonists. These relationships were more or less constrained. The « mousso », for example, a generic term from the Bambara meaning woman, used to designate the « companions » of Europeans, is a commonplace figure in West Africa. Were there not also some births in the colonial territories resulting from relationships between European women (nuns, teachers, social workers, wives of colonial officials, etc.) and colonized men? The taboo is strong and the archives perhaps only reveal these types of secrets with difficulty. As Capucine Boidin writes, « The hidden face of male colonial desire was the fear supposedly naturally inspired by the union of the white woman with the colonized man. The presence of this inverse myth could in fact serve as legitimization for an enterprise to eliminate the men of the opposing party, who had become rivals in love.

Objectives

The present project is interested in the way in which the modern colonial empires (19th-20th), Portuguese, German, French, British, Belgian and Italian, invented « mestizaje », defined it, and constructed it – or not – as a « question » or « problem ». We will also take into account the Spanish empire – and what remained of it in the 19th century -, despite the chronological gap. But the focus will be on the 19th and 20th centuries. There is a historiography on the subject, which has been developing over the last twenty years, but which remains compartmentalized, each empire having its specialists, who do not necessarily dialogue with each other. Rare are the studies that, like that of Capucine Boidin comparing Spanish America and French Indochina or Ann-Laura Stoler, adopt a comparative point of view. It is therefore first of all a question of taking stock of the historiographic situation, beyond the sole case of the French Empire, and of creating a network of researchers specializing in different imperial areas. The aim is to produce a volume with a comparative perspective, prepared during workshops that bring together the researchers concerned, and that makes it possible to put together works concerning various geographical areas. This volume will thus produce a comparative analysis of discourses and practices in various imperial areas, regardless of chronological shifts. It is now a fact that the Empires, in a general way, were inspired by each other, which did not prevent them from cultivating their differences. We will also be interested in the contemporary impact of imperial definitions and policies, in the perception of miscegenation in contemporary societies, and in a certain return of the repressed in the form, for example, of demands for reparation. The « mestizo question » is very present in the memorial debates on colonial legacies, including at the highest institutional level. In Belgium, there has recently been a complaint for « crimes against humanity ».

 This volume will therefore approach the question from three different angles: Imperial discourses and policies; mestizo trajectories; contemporary impacts. 

Introduction: The invention of métissage

Miscegenation: the concept refers, as Jean-Loup Amselle rightly pointed out, to a front, de facto considered as essence and/or pure identity. It is an illusion and if the métissage exists, it is everywhere, has always been and will always be. But this concept, like race, has been historically constructed, and therefore situated, and has had, and still has, social effects. The colonial empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries invented modern miscegenation, based on a supposed scientific knowledge, making it a « question ». Miscegenation (understood as the mixing of two « identities », whatever they may be) had already been a problem for a long time, for example for religious reasons or because of the rules of parentage and marriage. But its articulation with pseudo-scientific thinking is more recent. Neither anthropological societies, nor administrators, nor jurists have had any scruples about codifying, producing discourses and devices about mestizaje and mestizos. This invention still has contemporary effects. Miscegenation » as we think of it today or as common sense defines it still owes to these imperial constructions, and to the encounters of populations that were linked to them, which we therefore find useful to decipher and analyze, from one empire to another. In the colonial context, the « mestizo question » was generally circumscribed to individuals born of the union between a colonizing father and a colonized mother. The reverse is very rare for various reasons, which Latin American feminists have explored in depth in recent years. In this sense, it is as much a questioning of the racial and social hierarchies produced within the imperial space. This fear of a disruption of power relations has « justified » the fabrication of a « mestizo question » and its « treatment ».

Liste des chercheuses et chercheurs impliqués dans le projet

Françoise Blum, porteuse du projet, (CHS-Université Paris 1), Page personnelle

Maria-Benedita Basto (CRIMIC-Université Sorbonne nouvelle ), Page personnelle

Capucine Boidin (IHEAL-Sorbonne Nouvelle ), Page personnelle

Chiara Candaele (Département d’histoire, University of Antwerp), Page personnelle

Michel Cahen (LAM-Sciences po Bordeaux), Page personnelle

Yves Denéchère (Département d’histoire, TEMOS, Université d’Angers) Page personnelle

Odile Goerg (Cessma-Université de Paris), Page personnelle

Liesbeth Jacobson (Université de Leiden) Page personnelle

Héloïse Kiriakou (Imaf-Paris1), Page personnelle

Nicola Labanca (Département des sciences historiques et du patrimoine culturel, Universita di Siena), Page personnelle

Céline Labrune-Badiane (Département d’histoire, Université Assane Seck de Ziguinchor), Page personnelle

Amandine Lauro (Centre de recherches Mondes modernes et contemporains (MMC), Université libre de Bruxelles), Page personnelle ; Site personnel

Delphine Lauwers (Centre de recherches Mondes modernes et contemporains (MMC), Université libre de Bruxelles)

Ângela Lazagna (Département d’histoire, Université Fédéral Fluminense), Page personnelle

Martin Mourre, postdoc dans le projet, (IMAf-Université Paris1), Page personnelle

Didier Nativel (Cessma-Université de Paris), Page personnelle

Céline Pauthier (UFR histoire, histoire de l’art et archéologie, Université de Nantes), Page personnelle

Karine Ramondy (Sirice-Université Paris1), Page personnelle

Ophélie Rillon (IMAf-CNRS), Page personnelle

Julia Roos (Département d’histoire, Indiana University), Page personnelle

Emmanuelle Saada (Département de français, Columbia University), Page personnelle

Ann-Laura Stoler (Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI), New School for Social Research), Page personnelle

Judith Surkis (Département d’histoire, Rutgers School), Page personnelle

Violaine Tisseau (IMAf-CNRS), Page personnelle

Sarah Zimmerman (Collège des humanités et des sciences sociales, Western Washinton University), Page personnelle

Agenda

Le projet débutera en janvier 2021 avec l’embauche (3 mois- janvier-mars) d’un.e CDD chargé.e de construire une bibliographie destinée à nourrir un blog, que le même CDD ouvrira. La personne réalisera des entretiens avec des chercheu.r.se.s et éventuellement avec des métis impliqués dans la révision de leur histoire.

La deuxième étape sera l’organisation d’ateliers de travail (présentiel si possible et visioconférences). Le premier de ces ateliers pourrait avoir lieu en avril 2021 et sera destiné  à préparer un volume comparatiste dont les différentes contributions seront écrites à plusieurs mains.  Les ateliers suivants poursuivront ce travail jusqu’à ce que la préparation soit jugée suffisante pour répartir le travail et les contributions.

La troisième étape sera donc le travail sur le volume et sa publication. L’ouvrage pourrait être finalisé fin 2022.  Sa fabrication ira de pair avec une réflexion sur les suites à donner au projet.

D’un Empire à l’autre

D’un empire à l’autre, voire même d’un territoire à l’autre la situation était différente. Elle était différente suivant le nombre et la durée d’installation des colons, elle était différente suivant le type de colonisation, et quelquefois différente au sein du même empire. Le Cap-Vert portugais, par exemple a une population entièrement métisse puisque les Portugais (exclusivement hommes) arrivèrent sur des iles inhabitées et s’unirent avec des esclaves amenées par la traite, ce qui conduisit la royauté portugaise à émettre quelques décrets régulateurs.  Sur un autre plan, alors que l’administration – et le corps médical – encourageait dans les cas belges et français les coloniaux à prendre une épouse à la mode du pays (question d’hygiène !), les Britanniques furent à cet égard beaucoup plus réservés, voire même hostiles. 

Des travaux  mettent en évidence les fluctuations du discours médical sur les unions mixtes comme Amandine Lauro à propos de la Belgique[1]. D’autres encore, tels ceux de Ann-Laura Stoler,  analysent l’usage des catégories[2]. Elle montre par exemple que dans l’Empire néerlandais des Indes (Indonésie) une seule et même catégorie désigne les Européens pauvres nés aux Indes et les métis. Les lois de Nuremberg empruntèrent à la politique de la race pratiquée en Afrique par l’Allemagne. L’Italie, quant à elle, appliqua les lois raciales de 1938 à l’Ethiopie qu’elle occupa de 1938 à 1941.

Qu’est-ce que l’invention et  le traitement de la question métisse disent de la gouvernance impériale, de ses angoisses et de ses peurs, et quelles sont, d’une gouvernance à l’autre, les différences, non pas tant des structures que de la vision « raciale » que peut, par excellence,  révéler la « question métisse » ? Ce n’est d’ailleurs pas seulement d’un empire à l’autre mais d’une colonie à l’autre que se jouent des assignations complexes, qui dépendent de lois mais aussi de rapports de force. Le droit joue un rôle très différent (et parfois inexistant) selon les territoires et pourtant une « question métisse » existe partout.

Outre les lois, décrets et divers codes, ou jurisprudences, il existe aussi de nombreuses narrations (auto)biographiques, c’est-à-dire des récits (narratives) produits par les individus eux-mêmes (mémoires, autobiographies) ou par les administrations coloniales sur les trajectoires de vie des métis.ses (à l’instar des dossiers personnels). Ces histoires de vie, bien que non archétypales, permettent de dégager quelques constantes inhérentes à la « condition métisse ».  Elles permettent, plus encore, de faire entendre les voix des métis.se.s et comment certain.e.s ont vécu (dans l’acceptation ou dans la révolte) une condition assignée par l’ordre colonial. Comment aussi parfois ils ou elles ont pu troubler cet ordre en en récusant ou dépassant les contraintes, que ce soit par leur complicité avec les colonisés ou par leur réussite sociale. Et d’une manière générale le sort des métis a été extrêmement varié, en termes de genre notamment. Qu’ils ou elles aient été la plupart du temps confrontés à des formes de racisme ne fait aucun doute, tant de la part des Européens que des Africains ou des Asiatiques. Cela les conduisit à s’organiser en associations ou congrès[3]. Dans l’empire portugais, il y a des associations différentes pour les « Blancs du pays », les métis et les Noirs assimilés. D’une part parce que l’administration coloniale souhaitait diviser, mais aussi parce que les vécus de ces différentes catégories légales de population n’étaient pas les mêmes. En général, les associations métisses s’appelaient « africaines » (au sens de « non-indigènes ») alors que les associations noires se désignaient comme « negras » ou « negrófilas ». Les indigènes (98% de la population) n’avaient évidemment pas le droit de fonder des associations.

Il faut à cet égard distinguer entre les différents espaces coloniaux. Pour prendre encore une fois l’exemple de l’Empire français d’Afrique, il semble que les métis européens-malgaches étaient, d’après Violaine Tisseau[4], relativement bien acceptés par la société malgache, comparativement à d’autres colonies. En AOF, les métis des 4 communes[5] , citoyens français depuis 1916 ont eu parfois des rôles politiques de premier plan. Mais leur histoire n’était pas la même que celles des enfants abandonnés par leur père dans le reste de l’AOF. En AEF, le racisme était sans doute plus brutal[6], les rapports sociaux de « race » plus violents. Cela n’a pas empêché certains métis d’avoir là aussi des rôles importants, tel Henri Lopes, ou cette Andrée Blouin qui, élevée en orphelinat à Brazzaville devint chef du protocole de l’éphémère gouvernement Lumumba. Dans les colonies portugaises, les métis ont joué un rôle important dans les luttes de libération. Mais qu’en est-il par exemple de l’Afrique du Nord ou de l’Inde ?

Ce projet a donc  plusieurs objectifs :

  • Faire un état des lieux en recensant les travaux contemporains sur la question, ouvrages et articles scientifiques,  sans s’interdire pour autant quelques excursions dans la bibliothèque coloniale. Au-delà de la littérature scientifique on recensera aussi les témoignages publiés, de même que les films et/ou documentaires dont nombreux sont ceux qui donnent la parole aux métis. On s’intéressera aussi aux plaintes récemment déposées par des métis demandant réparation du sort qui leur a été réservé[7]. On prendra en compte les romans. Certains  sont devenus archétypaux tel le célèbre roman d’Abdoulaye Sadji : Nini la mulâtresse du Sénégal, ou le Roman d’un Spahi, de Pierre Loti.  Mais nombreux sont ceux qui demeurent inconnus et/ou ont sombré dans l’oubli. Ce recensement sera publicisé  via un blog (carnet hypothèses) que l’on nourrira aussi d’entretiens avec chercheurs et témoins. Une fois le projet achevé, ce blog pourra devenir un site de référence.
  • Repérer des fonds d’archives, publics ou privés,  susceptibles d’éclairer les angles morts de la recherche.
  • Constituer un réseau international de chercheur.e.s sur la question alors même que le cloisonnement est encore trop rigide, des spécialistes d’un empire à l’autre. Impliquer certains chercheurs pour qu’ils ou elles relisent leurs propres travaux à la lumière de la question « métisse ». 
  • Organiser des ateliers réunissant un certain nombre de ces spécialistes.
  • Ces ateliers auraient pour objet de préparer un volume consacré à la question en trois  parties : Lois, décrets et dispositifs;  trajectoires (Histoires de vie) ; impacts contemporains.  Toutes les contributions devront être comparatistes, peut-être en associant pour chacune des spécialistes de diverses aires géographiques. Il s’agit de faire « travailler ensemble ».

Ce projet a plusieurs ambitions :

  • Décloisonner les histoires impériales. Il s’agit ici des empires coloniaux, espagnol, français, britannique, portugais, néerlandais, et de l’occupation italienne de l’Ethiopie. Bien que la chronologie ne soit pas la même, on ne peut exclure l’empire espagnol dans la mesure où il a été précurseur dans l’invention de la « question métisse », ni les vieilles colonies telles les Antilles,  mais la focale sera mise sur les empires du XIXe et du XXE. 
  • Interroger les constructions impériales au prisme de la de la « question métisse » en s’intéressant aux imbrications des questions sociale, raciale et de genre.
  • Interroger l’impact de politiques raciales sur les sujets racisés eux-mêmes.  
  • Il ne prétend à aucune exhaustivité mais bien plutôt à fournir des outils (Sites, entretiens, ouvrages) à de futurs étudiants ou chercheurs, de même qu’à apporter certaines lumières sur des problèmes contemporains qui ont des racines anciennes.

[1] Amandine Lauro, Coloniaux, ménagères et prostituées au Congo belge (1885-1930), Bruxelles, Espace nord, 2005.

[2] Ann-Laura Stoler,  Au cœur de l’archive coloniale : questions de méthode ; trad de l’américain, Paris, EHESS, 2019 et Ann-Laura Stoler, La Chair de l’empire : savoirs intimes et pouvoirs raciaux en régime colonial ; trad. de l’américain,  Paris, La Découverte, 2013.

[3] Le premier congrès de métis dans l’Empire français se tient à Brazzaville en 1957.

[4] Violaine Tisseau, Etre métis en Imerina (Madagascar) aux XIXe-XXe siècle, Karthala, 2017

[5]Voir à ce sujet : Hilary Jones , The Métis of Senegal. Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa, Indiana University Press, 2013.

[6] Voir Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Conjugal Rights: Marriage, Sexuality and Urban Life in Colonial Libreville, Gabon, Athens OH, Ohio University Press, 2014.

[7] Voir par exemple ce documentaire diffusé par France24 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv7tseuu8HY