Race and Sociological Reason in the Republic: Inquiries on the Métis in the French Empire (1908-37) |
Race and Sociological Reason in the Republic: Inquiries on the Métis in the French Empire (1908-37)
International Sociology
Volume 17, Number 3 (September 2002)
361-391
DOI: 10.1177/0268580902017003002
Emmanuelle Saada, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies
Columbia University
This article compares two collective surveys on the métis conducted in 1908 and 1937 in the French colonies. Métis was a category used mostly to describe children born out of wedlock to indigenous mothers and European fathers. The first inquiry was sponsored by anthropologists of the Société d’anthropologie de Paris; the second was an administrative survey that brought together social scientists, administrators and a variety of other experts. The comparison sheds light on the specific trajectory of the ‘métis problem’ in the French Empire, and on the process of construction of a social category. More broadly, it invites a reappraisal of the signification and role of race in both the construction of French citizenship and the history of French social thought in the first half of the 20th century.
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Tags: Emmanuelle Saada, France, International Sociology