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| Title: | Troubles at the Office: Clerks, State Authority, and Social Conflict in Gabon, 1920-1945 |
| Author: | Rich, Jeremy |
| Year: | 2004 |
| Periodical: | Canadian Journal of African Studies |
| Volume: | 38 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 58-87 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Gabon France |
| Subjects: | colonialism office workers History and Exploration Labor and Employment Politics and Government |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/4107268 |
| Abstract: | African office workers, particularly those working for private companies, played a crucial role in the history of late colonial Gabon because they straddled colonial divisions between European institutions and local society. Their lives and actions provide insight into everyday interactions between educated Africans and Europeans, as well as into the formation of the Gabonese political elite. This article first explores the context in which clerks lived and worked in Libreville from the end of World War I to World War II. It then reviews the array of clerks' political negotiations outside the capital. While some white-collar employees acted to guard the interests of rural people, others tried to exert control over others on behalf of their bosses. The third section examines the risks encountered by African clerks in manipulating their location as middlemen, especially the charges of fraud often mounted against them by Europeans. Finally, the case of the Gabonese clerk Benoit Anghiley is considered to demonstrate how clerks used their connections to protect their interests. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
