Drawing on research by scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and countries, this collection offers a fresh, multidimensional perspective on race, class, and gender relations in France and its former colonies, exploring how black women have negotiated the boundaries of patriarchy and racism from their emancipation from slavery to the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Drawing on research by scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and countries, this collection offers a fresh, multidimensional perspective on race, class, and gender relations in France and its former colonies, exploring how black women have negotiated the boundaries of patriarchy and racism from their emancipation from slavery to the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Black French Women and the Struggle for Equality, 1848-2016
294
Black French Women and the Struggle for Equality, 1848-2016
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Overview
Drawing on research by scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and countries, this collection offers a fresh, multidimensional perspective on race, class, and gender relations in France and its former colonies, exploring how black women have negotiated the boundaries of patriarchy and racism from their emancipation from slavery to the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781496210357 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2018 |
| Series: | France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 294 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Originaire Women and Political Life in Senegal's Four Communes
Hilary Jones
On June 7, 2010, the gender parity law proposed by President Abdoulaye Wade of the Republic of Senegal became law. The law specified that women must comprise at least half of the party candidates for all local and national elections. In 2012 sixty-five women succeeded in becoming members of Senegal's National Assembly. Subsequently, the law has stimulated debate and provoked controversy over the struggle for gender equality in Senegal, the legacy of French rule, and the role of women in government. Considering Senegal's originaire women offers valuable perspective on the making of an African citizenry in Senegal's French colonial towns. It shows the gendered notions of power and politics that urban Senegalese brought to the public arena in the early colonial period and also shines a light on the connections between gender and colonialism, especially in the arena of government and politics. This study, while not exhaustive, offers a fresh perspective on the intersection of urban life, citizenship, and gender in French West Africa.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, neither African women nor French women possessed the right to vote, and yet women of Senegal's colonial towns exercised influence within the masculine domain of electoral politics. Taking a closer look at African understandings of female power and the ways in which women interacted with politics in the colonial towns makes the role of daughters, mothers, wives, and sisters visible in our narratives about Africa under French rule. Prior to the formal colonial era, women in urban and rural settings held access to power even though patrilineal systems and patriarchal norms limited women's authority. The advent of colonial conquest subordinated the role of elite women in public life to the authority of male chiefs, male officials, and, in the case of the towns, notable men who held elected office. Senegal's originaire women, in this case, withdrew from politics and instead focused attention on networks of civil society that could be mobilized to protect the reputation of their families, secure needed services for their neighborhoods, and weigh in on political debate at critical moments. This essay examines the specific skills and strategies that African women brought to the making of the urban citizenry and the art of politics during the early phase of French colonial rule in Senegal.
Toward a Gender Perspective on Colonial Citizenship in French West Africa
The literature on politics in French West Africa necessarily deals with the concept of citizenship as the central idea that structured the assimilationist rhetoric of French empire and also because Africans, particularly after World War II, based their claims for equal rights on the long-established notion of citizenship as integral to the French "civilizing mission." In his research on Senegal's dockworkers at the height of colonialism, historian Frederick Cooper demonstrated that even trade unionists used the idea of citizenship to make demands on the French state and to claim equality with other French citizens. Mamadou Diouf argues that the origins of African concepts of citizenship date to the mid-nineteenth century, when Senegal's originaires transformed the French idea of citizenship by fighting for their right to vote as "citizens" of the towns without renouncing their personal or Islamic status, a condition of colonial citizenship required by the French state. Indeed, Senegal's modern political history cannot be understood without reference to how the idea of colonial citizenship becamearticulated in the urban administrative district of the Four Communes and thus served as a model for future rights claims in French West Africa.
Although the literature is replete with cases that show the importance of the idea of citizenship for people of French West Africa, none consider the gendered aspects of colonial citizenship nor how women understood and proclaimed the rights of Africans under French rule to be treated as citizens rather than subjects. One reason for this absence has to do with the fact that French women did not achieve voting rights until the Fourth Republic extended the franchise to women in 1944. Even though France confirmed the legal status of Senegal's originaires as citizens with the Diagne laws of 1916, only adult men had the right to vote. Furthermore, Blaise Diagne tied his legislative proposal to recognized residents of the Four Communes as full French citizens to the fact that Senegalese men had demonstrated their loyalty by fighting and dying for France in the Great War, like all other Frenchmen. Since the historical record does not mention individual women as key figures in urban political life of early colonial Senegal, historians have generally understood electoral politics as men's business. Until recently, scholars have primarily considered African nationalism as the work of male actors. Among Senegal's most well known figures of the "modern" era, the names François Carpot, Blaise Diagne, Lamine Guèye, Modibo Keita, and Leopold Senghor are familiar. Less familiar are the names Soukeyna Konaré (cousin of originaire politician Lamine Guèye), Constance Devès (daughter of Saint-Louis political leader Gaspard Devès and sister of Saint-Louis mayor Justin Devès), Ndate Yalla Fall (cousin of originaire politician Galandou Diouf), and Caroline Diop (first Senegalese woman elected to the National Assembly). Both the documentation produced by the colonial administration and scholars' assumptions about the role of politics and the history of nationalism underscore male biases in the production of knowledge about colonial Africa.
Second, any study of the role of women in the political activities of Senegal's colonial towns must consider the intersection between French structures of governance and African understandings of power and politics. Scholars of African feminism contend that we cannot approach thestudy of African women and their search for equality in the same manner that we understand the concerns of women's movements in the West. Elizabeth Schmidt's study of women's entry into party politics in Guinea during the decade of decolonization shows that African women entered the political arena not to fight for gender equality or to articulate their right to be leaders in party politics but rather to right the wrongs of society and to deal with the social and economic realities facing them, their families, and their communities. Schmidt shows us that for Guinean women in politics, "female consciousness held sway over feminist." The absence of originaire women in narratives about urban politics underscores the gaps in our understanding of the gender dynamics of colonial rule. In order to fully appreciate colonial citizenship and the emergence of electoral politics in Senegal under French rule, these silences deserve interrogation to advance research on the subject.
Urban Identity and Originaire Politics in Senegal's Towns
Today's Republic of Senegal sits at the westernmost point of sub-Saharan Africa. Situated where the Senegal River meets the Atlantic Ocean, Senegal has served as a natural entry point for North Africans and Saharans who crossed the southern edges of the desert, as well as Europeans who approached the continent from the ocean. French recognition of the Four Communes as municipalities stems in part from the long history of Saint-Louis and Gorée as seats of French mercantile trade interests and the locus for imperial expansion. In the mid-seventeenth century, the French built forts on the coastal islands to facilitate the trade in slaves and other trade goods. In the nineteenth century, Saint-Louis became the most viable port for French "legitimate trade" interests. The town also acted as the French cultural capital in the region and the place where the French military launched wars of conquest in the interior. For a short period from 1895 to 1902, the French named Saint-Louis as the capital of French West Africa before moving the federation's headquarters to Dakar.
The long history of French and African engagement in coastal Senegal produced a population of Africans who worked closely around the French forts and who adopted Catholicism (called gourmets) and a self-conscious mixed-race group born to African or Afro-European women (called signares) and European merchants or soldiers. The towns of Gorée and Saint-Louis in particular fostered the growth of an urban community with long-standing ties to France. The residents of that community served as trade intermediaries and sought integration into French familial, trade, and political networks. As early as the mid-eighteenth century, town residents elected their own mayor from among the notable inhabitants who represented the urban community, who managed affairs related to the town, and who even convened the Catholics for mass and festivals in the absence of a permanent clergy. In addition, Saint-Louis supported the growth of an influential Muslim community. Migrants from the upper and lower Senegal valley brought Islam to the town. After 1830 free Muslim traders gained entry into the middleman trade in the upriver trade posts. Muslim traders owned property on the island and strategically sent their sons to study in both French schools and Koranic schools on the island. The population of nineteenth-century Saint-Louis thus reflected the heterogeneity and cosmopolitanism of a vibrant nineteenth-century port that straddled both African and French worlds.
Historians disagree about when exactly the word originaire came to refer to Senegal's urban population under colonial rule. Regardless of when it appeared, it has become synonymous with the struggle by black African residents of Senegal's towns for full status as French citizens. According to the decree of November 5, 1830, all free adult men born and living in Senegal could enjoy the same rights as those granted to French citizens by the civil code. The Second Republic elaborated on the legal rights of Senegal's inhabitants by establishing the General Council for Senegal similar to the departmental assemblies in metropolitan France. The provision further clarified the status of town residents by specifying that these inhabitants did not have to be naturalized in order to vote but rather had only to prove five years' permanent residency. Eligible voters, moreover, did not have to renounce their personal Islamic or "customary" status in order to qualify. The voting laws thus created an opening that gave originaires the right to carry out the duties of French citizens without conforming to the requirements of the French civil code.
Although the Second Republic established electoral institutions in Senegal, Napoleon III suspended the practice of local representative offices in the colony. In 1871 the Third Republic recognized the role of the urban population as voters and elaborated on the republican institutions in Senegal's towns. The municipal decree of 1871 established the communes and specified management by an elected municipal council headed by a mayor and deputy mayor chosen from the top of the winning slate of candidates. In addition to Gorée and Saint-Louis, Dakar and Rufisque completed Senegal's Four Communes. At the request of métis and French Saint-Louis residents, the Third Republic also reestablished the General Council, which was similar to departmental assemblies in metropolitan France. In 1879 the Third Republic completed the group of electoral institutions in the colony by reestablishing Senegal's seat in the Chamber of Deputies.
Between 1871 and 1900 the electoral campaigns revolved around candidates with close ties to French military, commercial, or administrative interests and factions who opposed these imperial interests. French and métis men dominated electoral politics in this period by relying on patron-client networks to mobilize the African vote in favor of their slate of candidates. After 1900 the political winds began to shift as the African urban community pushed for greater representation in the republican institutions. Additionally, the consolidation of French power in the interior led officials to suppress the black vote in the towns and to question the legitimacy of their claim to be "citizens," not subjects. For colonial authorities, the electoral institutions interfered with their ability to implement arbitrary policies or impose authoritarian practices on the Protectorate population with little or no oversight from Paris or Saint-Louis. According to French officials, influential individuals within the urban community at times acted as a "meddlesome elite" who sought to use the republican institutions as a means of surveillance over abuses of power in the colony. The idea that town residents had special status carried particular meaning for originaires who worked in the interior as clerks for the colonial administration or as traders in the peanut basin and Senegal River trade depots, where they were often mistaken for or subjected to the same treatment as Africans who lived under the Protectorate administration. In the early 1900s the Jeunes Sénégalais, a group composed of French-educated African town residents, began articulating originaire interests in their newspapers and organizing to actively support black African candidates for elected office.
The emergence of black politics, as historian G. Wesley Johnson termed the struggle for political equality in Senegal's colonial towns, involved the internecine struggles of "electoral clans" and the racial politics of French colonialism, which practiced a de facto exclusion of the majority of black African male voters from holding office. Historians have paid very little attention to the gendered nature of political life or the ways in which women entered into political debate despite the fact that they did not have the right to vote or hold public office. Where and when did women enter into the politics of the Senegal colony? What notions of the art of politics did they bring with them? The following section addresses these questions by considering notions of female power in urban and rural locations of precolonial Senegambia.
Women and Political Power before French Rule
Originaire women's ideas about power and politics did not merely stem from French systems but were also grounded in African ideas about female power and the art of politics that informed the states and societies of precolonial Senegambia. For instance, the Wolof kingdoms relied on both patrilineal and matrilineal principles to determine royal succession. In the Wolof kingdoms of Waalo and Kajoor, the linger (princess or queen) represented the matrilineal line of succession. As the mother or sister of the king, the linger served as the leader of the community of women of the country. She controlled key territories in the kingdom, and she presided over judicial issues related to marriage and the punishment of young girls who entered into sexual relations outside of marriage. Although men held the right to rule, the linger played a key role in determining succession. As keeper of the meen, or representative of the matrilineage, she was responsible for negotiating between the noble lineages to determine the ruler of the kingdom. According to Boubacar Barry, these women gave lavish feasts and offered elaborate gifts in order to convince the nobles to vote for their candidate. Indeed, the last two lingers of Waalo, Njömbot and Ndate Yalla, understood the power of patronage for political ends. Both lingers transformed the office by becoming de facto rulers in the place of weakened kings. In the mid-nineteenth century, they used strategic marriage alliances and developed networks of patronage to achieve power and to maintain the sovereignty of Waalo in the face of threats by the Moors on the right bank of the Senegal and French invasion from Saint-Louis.
The Lebou population of Ndakaru (Dakar) organized politics among the twelve villages according to a community assembly, or peñc. Traditionally fishermen and farmers, the Lebou recognized a male leader (seriñ) but practiced politics through group discussion among elders and people of the village. While men played a dominant role in community meetings, elder women held a special position. The Wolof notion of saani ci sa kaadu, meaning "to throw in the last word," has a particular connotation when related to women's speech during group meetings. Aissatou Diop-Hashim explains that saani kaadu indicates the space reserved for the elder women of the community to give the last word in making the case for a marriage between families or during the community meeting. Indeed, the idea that women are given the right to launch the last appeal may have originated among the original Wolof speakers of the Lebou villages on the Cap-Vert peninsula. It is, therefore, not surprising that Blaise Diagne (Lebou on his father's side) recognized the importance of campaigning in Wolof by speaking to the Lebou community assemblies and addressing key issues of community well-being that must certainly have resonated with Lebou women of Dakar and Rufisque.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
Foreword T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting,
Introduction: Marianne Is Also Black,
Félix Germain and Silyane Larcher,
Part 1. Black Women in Politics and Society,
1. Originaire Women and Political Life in Senegal's Four Communes Hilary Jones,
2. Christiane Taubira, a Black Woman in Politics in French Guiana and in France Stéphanie Guyon,
3. A Passion for Justice: The Role of Women in the Aliker Case Monique Milia-Marie-Luce,
Part 2. Feminist and Postcolonial Movements for Equality,
4. French Caribbean Feminism in the Postdepartmentalization Era Félix Germain,
5. The End of Silence: On the Revival of Afrofeminism in Contemporary France Silyane Larcher,
6. Gerty Archimède and the Struggle for Decolonial Citizenship in the French Antilles, 1946–51 Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel,
Part 3. Respectability, Resistance, and Transnational Identities,
7. A Black Woman's Life in the Struggle: Jean McNair in France Tyler Stovall,
8. Am I My Sister's Keeper? The Politics of Propriety and the Fight for Equality in the Works of French Antillean Women Writers, 1920s–40s Jacqueline Couti,
9. Domination during the Second Half of the Twentieth Century Stéphanie Mulot and Nadine Lefaucheur,
Part 4. The Dialectics between Body, Nation, and Representation,
10. Media and the Politics of "Re-presentation" of the Black Female Body Sarah Fila-Bakabadio,
11. Shaking the Racial and Gender Foundations of France: The Influences of "Sarah Baartman" in the Production of Frenchness Robin Mitchell,
Part 5. Black Women Critique the "Empire",
12. Discourse on Immigration: Fatou Diome's Commitment to Human Rights in The Belly of the Atlantic Joseph Diémé,
13. Remapping the Metropolis: Theorizing Black Women's Subjectivities in Interwar Paris Claire Oberon Garcia,
14. Social Imaginaries in Tension? The Women of Cameroon's Battle for Equal Rights under French Rule at the Turn of the 1940s–50s Rose Ndengue,
Contributors,
Index,