Welcome to Francophone Africa: beyond archives. Bienvenue sur le site du projet l’Afrique francophone : au-delà des archives. Nous espérons que ce message vous trouve sain et sauf. We hope you are staying safe and well. Project events are on hold for the time being but there are plenty of activities to engage with on the site. News for researchers and professionals: our government-funded Global Challenges Research project on falling literacy levels among girls in the war zones of francophone Africa is accessible under Gender and Literacy on the RESEARCH page. The data examined at the recent Institute for Modern Languages Research training seminar in London are uploaded in the Gender & Literacy zone. While are own live events are suspended we are posting on related events and decolonising initiatives.
FA:ba
Francophone Africa: beyond archives
l’Afrique francophone: au-delà des archives
Welcome Nous vous souhaitons la bienvenue
Meet the team and learn about the origins of the project by clicking here.
You have arrived on a multidimensional digital platform housing a unique collection of historical and contemporary resources on areas of Africa occupied by France during the colonial era. Scholarly materials exploring the impact of French colonisation in Africa and multiple digitised resources related to the aftermath of colonisation are available here for you on OPEN ACCESS.
Archives are cultural objects where we uncover the silences as well as the dominant discourses that shaped colonial worlds and continue to shape the lives and futures of populations living in the aftermaths of empire. Archives are both historical and dynamic, both open to critical examination and a call to action.
The photo on this front page draws attention to key aspects in the making of the colonial world: its militaristic visual vocabulary, its gendered values, the nostalgic pull photos can exercise over current generations. Images provide us with a stepping stone into historical analysis and a window on the legacies these highly organised worlds hand down to us today. You will find an abundance of images, disturbing, subtle, powerful, and sometimes inspiring, including contemporary artworks, on this site.
A unique resource available here is a digital set of historical archives called the SAVINEAU REPORT. It was written by a white French woman about Black African women and families in the 1930s. The archives are interrogated in relation to the perception of inequalities of gender and race engendered by the colonial system, and the persistence of such inequalities into the present day.
Gender inequalities documented in the SAVINEAU REPORT are recognised today in the UN’s sustainable development goals 2030. In the Gender & Literacy zone located under RESEARCH we present the latest open access data on one particularly visible aspect of inequality: unequal access to literacy. You are welcome to use the resources uploaded here citing as your source: Francophone Africa: beyond archives www.francophoneafricaarchive.org.
Please use the CONTACT page to let us know if you found what you needed, if not please do not hesitate to get in touch, en anglais ou en français. Veuillez consulter la page CONTACT pour échanger avec nous et, le cas échéant, proposer des ressources ou fonctionnalités supplémentaires en vue d’améliorer votre utilisation de ce siteweb et de ses ressources. Merci.
For a short introduction to the website from the project director click play below.
BLACK LIVES MATTER LES VIES NOIRES COMPTENT
Martin Luther King I Have a Dream (sous-titres français): https://www.youtube.com/MartinLutherKing I have a dream sous titres francais
Recontrez les 3 femmes américaines qui ont lancé le mouvement BLM en 2013 (sous-titres anglais ou français): HTTP://YouTube/watch?v=tbicAmaXYtM
Ce qu’un ancien président des Etats-Unis en dit en 2020 [sous-titres français]: https://www.youtube.com/barack obama les vies noires comptent
Rédigé par Denise Savineau lors d’une tournée officielle effectuée en Afrique-Occidentale française entre octobre 1937 et mai 1938, le rapport Savineau comprend dix-sept rapports sur les régions et pays visités. A la difference de maintes missions et tournées entreprises par les agents du Ministère des Colonies durant l’entre-deux guerres, Savineau tourne son regard vers les femmes noires. C’est un geste essentiellement colonial, certes, comme toute tournée d’enquête d’ailleurs, mais ici nuancé par un regard radical et féministe.
Elle nous explique l’objectif primordial de son enquête en A.-O.F. : “le présent rapport envisage les principaux problèmes sociaux, en insistant sur tout ce qui concerne la femme et l’enfant. Selon les directives qui m’ont été données, j’ai signalé les difficultés, les erreurs [de l’entreprise coloniale] sans vaines circonlocutions mais sans malveillance. Ce rapport est le fruit d’une année d’études des coutumes africaines, de sept mois de voyage, et d’une expérience préalable de la vie villageoise. Il porte sur les colonies du Soudan, du Niger, du Dahomey, de la Côte d’Ivoire et de la Guinée.”
Running to over 800 pages, the SAVINEAU REPORT is the largest single archival resource stored in this website. The key reports are available in English translation. Written by French journalist Denise Savineau (also known as Denise Moran) in 1937-8, the observations recorded here are penned from a Socialist-Communist standpoint and constitute an unusual addition to the historiography of the colonial era. At times the Savineau Report resonates with a later postcolonial era as Savineau engages in a bitter denunciation of colonial practices, including what she sees as modern-day slavery. Other observations are very much of their time, over-valuing imported practices to the detriment of local culture. Reading with and against the grain, we can detect traces of African voices from the past through this colonial text; as the Mogho Naba of Ougadougou remarked to Savineau, “No-one has ever asked our opinion before”. The unique complete archive is available here.
A l’occasion du Forum mondial sur l’éducation pour tous, tenu à Dakar en 2000, les leaders des pays de l’Afrique francophone se sont engagés à éliminer l’analphabétisation enfantine dans la sous-région. Et depuis, sans aucun doute, la situation éducative dans ces pays a progressé dans le sens que des milliers de jeunes gens ont eu accès à une éducation formelle et de qualité pour la première fois, et de plus en plus jusqu’aux niveaux supérieurs.
Mais cette progression évolue de manière inégalitaire.
Les privilèges et les désavantages qui caractérisaient les systèmes éducatifs coloniaux en Afrique subsaharienne demeurent visiblement présents dans les taux d’alphabétisation nationaux. Les plus faibles taux du monde sont observés en Afrique subsaharienne parmi ses populations féminines. Pire encore, dans certaines regions ces taux déjà extrèmement faibles connaissent une déstabilisation voire une diminution causée par l’escalade de violence dans le Sahel. Une situation qui touche très particulièrement les pays francophones.
VIOLENCE IN THE SAHEL Low levels of literacy has long been recognised in West Africa as a huge challenge and area for priority action. However, over the past decade the situation for some girls has actually worsened in areas where heightened violence and instability has led to extended school closures.
COVID-19 Les communautés les plus vulnérables sont alors confrontées à “une crise dans la crise” empirant leur situation de marginalisation et de pauvreté. Partout dans la région du Sahel le COVID-19 risque d’exacerber les impacts des exclusions sociales, conflits politiques et catastrophes naturelles.
The team is bringing together new findings and producing infographics focusing on how many young women aged 15-24 years-in the French-speaking sub-region have acquired literacy skills this century, and crucially, how many have not.
Please click on caption under thumbnails to view these resources. Veuillez cliquer sur le texte en dessous des images pour accéder aux ressources.
Research tools designed to exploit specifically the Savineau archival holdings are uploaded on the SAVINEAU REPORT page. This part of the platform also contains bibliographies of published research on the main archival holding, the Savineau report, translations of the reports, and related documents from the interwar colonial era in French Africa.
Research tools and findings on contemporary social development issues and gender justice in the former French African colonies are uploaded on the RESEARCH page. The replication of themes and lines of enquiry from the colonial to the postcolonial eras is deliberate and reflects our view of history not as an inevitably progressive journey but rather as a set of continuous, at times cyclical, and always multiple, realities.
In addition to materials for use by students, scholars, and teachers, and research findings being used by development professionals in sub-Saharan West and Central Africa, we have sources translated from French into English to help bridge the divide that separates non-speakers of French from the wealth of scholarship published in French.
Veuillez trouver les outils de recherches adaptés à l’expoitation des archives historiques, tel Voyant, sur la page SAVINEAU REPORT. Les données et analyses portant sur les questions de justice sociale et du genre en Afrique francophone sont à votre disposition sur la page RESEARCH.
FA:ba is a resource for students and teachers interested in the histories and cultures of the richly multilingual regions of West Africa that share French as an international language of communication.
Teaching materials are tagged for AS/A level French, History and Geography on the LEARN page. A wide variety of interactive ideas for classes and workshops are accessible on the ACTIVITIES page.
Activities for students to consider life under colonial rule and aspects of life in African postcolonial nations today. An interactive map of West Africa maps Savineau’s journey. Art and creative writing activities are proposed alongside an Interactive language space inviting African language translations and key terms in African languages to enhance the archival glossary. Thinkspace invites contributors to start a conversation about challenges facing young people in today, en français, en anglais, ou en langues africaines, à vous de choisir vos langues de communication préférées. Bon jeu à tous et à toutes!
from the archive…
Amadou Hampaté Ba
Malian writer and ethnologist (1901-1991) , first African scholar at the Institut français de l'Afrique noire (IFAN).Report 1
Amadou Ba met Denise Savineau in October 1937 in Bamako. She writes about their encounter in Report 1, describing Ba as well educated, a devout Muslim, and influential in the local Peul community. She also identifies the writers that occupy his bookshelves, noting that his books include works by Pascal, Dumas and A Thousand and One Nights.
Call the Midwife
Graduates from the 1939 intake of the Midwifery College in Senegal, French West AfricaColonial Health Services
French health services in colonial times were first provided by the Navy, and then by a civilian service headed by male French doctors. Gradually African professionals were allowed entry in assistant positions. Initially women were excluded completely, but then midwives and community nurses gained access in the inter-war era, and, as Savineau reports, were making their mark in the 1930s.
Dim Delobsom
One of the first African colonial administrators (1897-1940)Report 8
Dim Delobsom was the son of a local notable from Ouagadougou in the Mossi country. He was a published scholar and won a major prize for his book entitled ‘Les Secrets des sorciers noirs’ in 1934. He was also criticised in some quarters for strongly opposing the influence of the local, powerful Catholic mission. He died at a relatively young age, the cause of which is not entirely clear.