Forced labor, resistance and memory: The deuxieme portion in the French Soudan, 1926--1950

Catherine Mornane Bogosian, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the history of the deuxième portion de la contingent militaire --a quasi-military labor service--in the French Soudan, between 1926 and 1950. This dissertation argues that men in the deuxième portion drew from and adapted local and colonial ideologies of labor relations and duty to contest the conditions under which they worked. Men in the deuxième portion critiqued not only the hard physical conditions of the working environment but also the neglect of culturally based social obligations between workers and employers. In considering this unique form of labor, this dissertation challenges historians' understandings of labor relations in the period following the abolition of slavery and through to the end of the colonial era. The dissertation emphasizes the continuing salience of dependent relationships, including slavery, as cultural frameworks that informed individuals' understandings of the meanings of work and obligation. African workers, even within the context of forced labor, interacted with each other and with colonial officials with an expectation that reciprocity is inherent in all forms of labor exchange. These workers manipulated precolonial and contemporary conceptions of slavery, freedom, patron-client obligations and civic duty to interpret and to critique the deuxième portion. The dissertation further considers the historical memory of work in Mali. Drawing upon pre-colonial epics, colonial archival material and post-colonial labor practices, political commentary and oral history, the dissertation analyzes the changing ways Malians have interpreted the significance of the deuxième portion in the decades since it was abolished. The deuxième portion, though a transitional labor arrangement, had an enduring effect not only upon relationships between African employees and French employers, but also upon an evolving understanding of the relationship between the citizen and the state, an impact that continued in independent Mali. The arguments in this dissertation are based on 15 months of oral and archival research in West Africa.

Recommended Citation

Catherine Mornane Bogosian, "Forced labor, resistance and memory: The deuxieme portion in the French Soudan, 1926--1950" (January 1, 2002). Dissertations from ProQuest. Paper AAI3054924.
http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3054924