BMET 26A04 - Colonial experts in the era of decolonization – a historical atelier

European and international scientists and experts played a major role in the process of decolonization by shaping essential social and economic policies and practices applied in the non-European world. They were legitimized by the new academic field of “development studies” which presented a positive picture of the goals and measures implemented by the late colonial state and international organizations. Even after decolonization, a great number of former colonial experts held important positions in international development agencies or other counseling bodies where they continued to intervene in the political and economic affairs of the newly independent countries. The atelier will introduce into the historical analysis of this (post)colonial expertise by discussing major historiographical studies and analyzing selected sources that shed light on the historical contexts in which these experts worked. With his “hands-on” orientation, the course will give an insight in the multiple dimensions of the historian’s work about an important topic which still very much influences North-South relations.

Descriptif des séances

Séance 1: Introduction

Dossier Sciences Po colonial, éd. Pap N’Diaye/Jakob Vogel, online : https://dossiers-bibliotheque.sciencespo.fr/sciences-po-une-histoire-coloniale/

Séance 2: The formations of colonial experts: institutions and knowledge

Pierre Singaravélou, “Colonial Sciences. A Means of Legitimizing Colonial Work (19th-20th centuries)”, in: EHNE Digital Encyclopedia of European History, online: https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/europe-europeans-and-world/governing-populations-in-colonies-17th-20th-centuries/colonial-sciences

Séance 3: Transnational networks of expertise

Ulrike Lindner, New Forms of Knowledge Exchange Between Imperial Powers: the Development of the Institute Colonial International (ICI) Since the End of the Nineteenth Century, in: Volker Barth, Roland Cvetkovski (dir.), Imperial Cooperation and Transfer (1870–1930). Empires and Encounters, London 2015, pp. 57-78.

Séance 4: Colonial anthropology and colonial governance

Emmanuelle Sibeud, A Useless Colonial Science? Practicing Anthropology in the French Colonial Empire, circa 1880–1960, in: Current Anthropology 53/5, (2012), pp. S83-S94.

Séance 5: The US and the debate about global development

Gilbert Rist, The history of development : from western origins to global faith, London/New York 4th ed. 2014, pp 69-92.

Séance 6: The role of International Organizations

Marc Frey et al., Introduction: International Organizations, Global Development, and the Making of the Contemporary World, in: ibid. (eds.), International Organizations and Development, 1945–1990, Basingstoke 2014, p. 1-22.

Séance 7: The invention of “Development Sciences”

Corinna Unger, Development knowledge. A twentieth-century perspective, in: Corinna Unger et al. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook on the History of Development, Basingstoke 2022.

Séance 8: Agricultural experts and the politics of rural development

Ruth Jachertz, “To Keep Food Out of Politics”: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 1945–1965, in: Marc Frey et al. (eds.), International Organizations and Development, 1945–1990, Basingstoke 2014, 75-100.

Séance 9: Colonial economy and technical modernization

Julia Tischler, Negotiation Modernization: The Kariba Dam Project in the Central African Federation, ca. 1954-1960, in: P. J. Bloom et al (dir.), Modernization as Spectacle in Africa, Bloomington/Indiana 2014, p. 159-183.

Séance 10: Colonial expertise after independence

Joseph M. Hodge, British Colonial Expertise. Post-colonial Careering and the Early History of International Development, in: Journal of Modern European History, 8/1 (2010), pp. 24-46

Séance 11: Colonial experts and the building of the European Union

Véronique Dimier, Brussels or the Last French Colony: French Colonial Officials’ Leadership in Designing DG8, in: ibid., The Invention of an European Development Aid Bureaucracy Recycling Empire, Basingstoke 2014, p. 22-42.

Séance 12: A “decolonization” of expertise?

Jonathan Jansen, The problem with decolonization: entanglements in the politics of knowledge, in: Journal of Modern African Studies 61/1 (2023), p. 139-156.

None

Atelier méthodologique

1.) Discussion of an article/source, organized by 2/3 students

2.) A written final exam (comment of a source in the light of the historiographical debate)

every session: preparation of the session’s discussions on the basis of the reading of 1 or 2 texts posted on the moodle platform