Social Science Research Council

"Colonial Suspects: Suspicious Persons and Police Surveillance in French West Africa, 1920-1958"

This project uses the concept of "suspicious persons" as a category of analysis to understand French colonialism and urban culture in French West Africa. It explores the identification and surveillance of "suspects" by a wary French colonial state from the height of colonial power following WWI to the period of decolonization in the 1950s. The project examines how French authorities constructed "suspicion" and surveillance, how such activities altered French West African society, and how suspects themselves participated in this process. This research project touches on several threads of academic inquiry including: the relationship between "suspicion" and surveillance; French colonial historiography; transnationalism and empire; and urban African studies. By studying the ideas and institutions that underpinned surveillance the research sheds new light on the French colonial project. It probes the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of a state that tried, and often failed, to maintain authority over a colonial population. Although the project underlines the specific historical and political context within which surveillance in French West Africa unfolded, it also aims to understand how modern systems of surveillance function to identify and monitor enemies of the state. The project also looks at the network, ideas, and lives of "suspects," as a window into French colonial urban culture. I argue that a "culture of suspicion" emerged in French West Africa that involved a combination of the "exotic" lure of Africa, the actions of "suspects," as well as the paranoia of the state. Research on this project will be conducted in two phases: first a period will be spent in the Archives d'Outre Mer in Aix-en-Provence, followed by a five-month research visit to Dakar, Senegal to work in the Archives Nationales du Sénégal.