Call for Papers: Annual Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society
Université des Antilles, Martinique
May 4-6, 2023
The 47th annual meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society (FCHS) will take place at the Université des Antilles in Martinique. Conference events will take place on the Schoelcher Campus of the Université des Antilles.
Proposals on any topic related to French colonial history are welcome.
We especially welcome papers related to this year’s theme, “The Color of Slavery: Construction and Deconstruction of a Colonial System.” This includes contributions on the racial legacies of slavery in French colonial and post-colonial societies in the Caribbean, the Atlantic, and Indian Ocean worlds. From the fifteenth century, Europeans built their global economic enterprises on African slavery, making racism and white supremacy centerpieces of new colonial orders. To further this goal, colonizers built legal systems and sociocultural hierarchies that justified and maintained Africans’ enslavement and their descendants’ enslavability. Gendered violence was integral to this hierarchical order. As a result of the intensive cross-cultural contact in colonial settings, multiracial societies emerged in urban and rural spaces throughout French Empires. Racialized social hierarchies shaped colonial societies and continue to have salience in post-emancipation and post-colonial spaces. Challenges to systemic racism demonstrate the durability of sociocultural systems forged in the era of slavery. Literary production and artistic representations convey the complex legacies of slavery. In addition to historically oriented proposals, the program committee welcomes papers and multi-modal presentations that examine the multicultural dimensions and legacies of African slavery in the past and the present.
Possible topics include: