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| Title: | The French Colonial Policy of Assimilation and the Civility of the Originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A Nineteenth Century Globalization Project |
| Author: | Diouf, Mamadou |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Periodical: | Development and Change |
| Volume: | 29 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Period: | October |
| Pages: | 671-696 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Senegal France |
| Subjects: | colonial policy acculturation colonialism nationality History and Exploration Ethnic and Race Relations Politics and Government Development and Technology |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00095 |
| Abstract: | This article analyses French assimilation policy towards the four 'communes' of the colony of Senegal, placing it in a new conceptual framework of 'globalization' and 'postcolonial studies'. In the 19th century, the four cities of Saint-Louis, Gorée, Rufisque and Dakar were granted municipal status, while their inhabitants acquired French citizenship (Saint-Louis and Gorée in 1872, Rufisque in 1880 and Dakar in 1887). However, the acquisition of these political privileges went together with a refusal on the part of these 'citizens' to submit themselves to the French 'code civil'. Their resistance manifested itself in particular in the forging of an urban culture that differed from both the metropolitan model and the Senegambian models of the independent kingdoms on the colony's fringes or the societies integrated as protectorates. The article argues that, at the very heart of this colonial project, and despite its marked assimilationist and 'jacobin' overtones, a strong project of cultural and political hybridization developed. The inhabitants of the 'quatre communes' forged their own 'civilité' which enabled them to participate in a global colonial culture on the basis of local idioms. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. |
