Academic literature on the topic 'Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer'

Until the late 1970s the impact of the two world wars on Africa was a comparatively neglected area of its colonial history. In 1977 the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London drew attention to this neglect by organizing a symposium on the first of these two wars. A selection of the papers presented at that symposium was published in a special issue of this Journal in 1978. This proved to be a landmark in the study of the history of the First World War in Africa, which has since received much scholarly attention. By contrast, a survey written a few years ago of the Second World War in Africa could make relatively little use of original research. In 1983, however, the Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, Brussels, published a large collection of papers on the Belgian Congo in the Second World War, and in 1984 Richard Rathbone and David Killingray organized a further conference at S.O.A.S. on the impact on Africa of the Second World War. This elicited over thirty papers by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America; they not only provided extensive geographical coverage but also represented a wide variety of interests: political, economic, social and cultural. The conference organizers have since edited a selection of these papers in book form: the topics range from the impact of the war on labour in Sierra Leone to relations between the colonial government and Christian missions in southern Cameroons.

C’est une « certaine idée de la France » que cette thèse se propose de dépeindre à travers l’histoire de l’Académie des Sciences coloniales (ASC), aujourd’hui Académie des Sciences d’Outre-mer, de sa création en 1922 aux années 1970. Contribuant à l’étude des « sciences coloniales » et de leur rapport au pouvoir, l’examen de cette société savante est une porte d’entrée vers plusieurs champs relatifs à la pensée coloniale et ses prolongements. Généraliste, pluridisciplinaire et modelée par des personnalités parmi les plus influentes de l’ancien « parti colonial », l’ASC est représentative des milieux coloniaux de l’entre-deux-guerres. L’étude de sa composition permet de cerner les contours d’une véritable « classe coloniale », intégrée à la classe dirigeante française, farouchement souverainiste et chantre de la « notion d’empire ». La pensée qu’incarnent ces coloniaux associe intimement l’universalisme du messianisme républicain français, et le relativisme particulariste propre à la domination de l’Autre. Ces deux postulats théoriquement opposés ont longtemps été traduits par la formulation d’une contradiction dans l’idée d’une République colonisatrice. L’expression « République lointaine », qui décrit à la fois une réalité géographique et une approche conceptuelle, est forgée à l’occasion de ce travail pour récuser ce faux paradoxe. Il s’agit ainsi d’analyser les évolutions de cette pensée, dont les deux composantes caractérisent l’ensemble de la période étudiée.La résilience et les adaptations de cette Académie, qui survit à sa raison d’être et en devient le conservatoire mémoriel, méritent enfin une attention toute particulière. Par ce prisme, on parcourt les conversions terminologique, thématique et réticulaire de la classe coloniale dans son ensemble. Décolonisation des mots, introduction des thèmes fédérateurs que sont la coopération et la francophonie, dilution et ouverture internationale de l’ancienne classe coloniale sont au cœur de cette transition
This thesis proposes to study a “ certain vision“ of France through the History of the Académie des Sciences coloniales (ASC) now called the Académie des Sciences d’Outre-mer, since its formation in 1922 until the 1970’s. Contributing to the analysis of the “colonial sciences” and its connections with the centre of power, the research about this society of experts is a gateway towards several fields regarding the colonial thought and its developments.Generalist, multidisciplinary and created by some of very important personalities from the ancient “parti colonial”, the ASC is representative of the French colonial circles of the interwar period. The study of its composition allows us to outline a real “colonial class”, part of the French ruling class, fiercely sovereignist and promoting the “empire notion”. The thought which embodies these “coloniaux” combines closely the universalism of the French Republic messianism and the particularist relativism proper to the domination of “the Other”. Those two postulates are theoretically opposite. For a long time, the historiography has presented the fact that the colonisation by the French republic is contradictory to its original premise. The expression “République lointaine” (“Distant Republic”) which is both a geographic reality and a conceptual approach is forged to refute this false paradox. This work leads to an analysis of this thought evolution.The resilience and the adaptation of this Academy, which outlasts its fundamental purpose, becoming its “memorial repository”, deserve at least a specific attention. Through this research subject, we observe terminological, thematic and reticular conversions of the entire “colonial class”. Decolonization of words, introduction of the integrating themes of cooperation and francophonie, dilution of the former “colonial class” and its opening to the international networks, are indeed crucial to understand this transition