Revue Indigène et Coloniale

Revue Indigène et Coloniale
Title	Revue Indigène et Coloniale
Discipline	Colonial studies; African studies; Asian studies
Language	French
Publisher	Éditions variées
Country	France
History	1919–1927

Revue Indigène et Coloniale

The Revue Indigène et Coloniale was a French-language periodical published in Paris in the aftermath of World War I, associated with intellectuals from Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Indochina, Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. Founded by activists and writers connected to networks in Paris Commune-era socialist circles, expatriate student groups at the Sorbonne, and veterans of the Battle of Verdun and the Gallipoli campaign, the journal sought to address the status of colonized peoples within the orbit of the French Third Republic. Contributors included scholars with ties to the Comité de l'Afrique Française, the Ligue des droits de l'homme, the Cercle d'études coloniales, and cultural figures from the milieu of the Montparnasse artistic scene.

History and Founding

The journal emerged amid postwar debates shaped by the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, the rise of the League of Nations, and anticolonial agitation following campaigns such as the Senussi Campaign and uprisings like the Rif War. Its founding circle brought together veterans of colonial administration from the École coloniale, activists associated with the African Democratic Rally and the Pan-African Congress (1919), and intellectuals influenced by thinkers such as Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Blaise Diagne, Tahar Haddad, and critics of the Sykes–Picot Agreement. The editorial launch coincided with debates over the Mandate for Mesopotamia and the role of the International Labour Organization in shaping labor conditions in overseas territories.

Editorial Mission and Contributors

The editorial board drew on networks that included writers, jurists, journalists, and artists with connections to institutions like the Musée du quai Branly, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the École des Langues Orientales, and the Institut Français d'Afrique Noire. Contributors ranged from poets influenced by Surrealism and Negritude—echoes of Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Valéry, Jean-Paul Sartre, and André Breton—to ethnographers trained under Claude Lévi-Strauss precursors and legal scholars versed in the Code de l'Indigénat debates. Names associated with the pages included proponents and critics linked to the Comintern, the French Section of the Workers' International, the Parti communiste français, the Radical Party (France), and intellectual salons frequented by figures like Modigliani and Pablo Picasso.

Content and Themes

Articles covered colonial administration issues tied to the Code de l'Indigénat, labor disputes connected to the Suez Canal Company, and cultural pieces on traditions from the Wolof people, Berber people, Akan people, Merina people, Cham people, and Taíno people. The journal published debates on land tenure referencing the Treaty of Algiers (1830), analyses of missionary activity linked to the Société des missions africaines, and literary translations of works by authors in the orbit of Cheikh Anta Diop, Édouard Glissant, Frantz Fanon, and Albert Londres. It featured polemics about conscription policies tied to the French Colonial Forces, reflections on diasporic identity shaped by voyages via the SS France (1871) and the Fabre Line, and visual essays influenced by exhibitions at the Exposition coloniale internationale (1931).

Publication History and Format

Published intermittently between 1919 and 1927, the review issued numbered cahiers with typographic designs recalling periodicals like La Revue Blanche and Mercure de France. Each issue combined serialized fiction, poetry, ethnographic notes, legal commentary, and illustrated plates produced by artists associated with the Salon des Indépendants, the Académie Julian, and studios near Rue d'Odessa. Distribution channels included subscriptions reaching libraries such as the British Museum, the Library of Congress, the Bibliothèque de l'Université de Montréal, and colonial administrative centers in Dakar, Fort-de-France, Nouméa, and Saigon.

Reception and Influence

Contemporaneous reactions ranged from approbation in circles tied to the Société des Américanistes and the Royal Anthropological Institute to criticism from proponents of assimilation in the Chambre des députés (France), colonial proprietors, and French settler politicians in Algeria. The journal influenced debates in assemblies such as the Assemblée nationale (France) and the Senate of France, and it engaged with anticolonial organizing that later fed into movements like the Mouvement pour l'émancipation africaine and the Independence movement in Vietnam. Its pages were cited by authors addressing uprisings such as the Mau uprising and referenced in policy discussions about the Mandate for Palestine.

Legacy and Modern Scholarship

Modern historians and scholars of colonial studies, including those at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Harvard University, University of Oxford, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Columbia University, University of Cape Town, and the University of Lagos, examine the journal for insights into early 20th-century networks linking figures like Léon Blum, Georges Clemenceau, Charles de Gaulle, Ho Chi Minh, and Marcus Garvey. Archival research in repositories such as the Archives nationales (France), the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture situates the review within trajectories leading to decolonization, the formation of United Nations mandates, and the intellectual currents that shaped postcolonial theory advanced by thinkers like Edward Said and Homi K. Bhabha. Contemporary exhibitions and symposia at institutions like the Musée du quai Branly' and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme revisit its contributions to debates on representation, law, and cultural exchange.

Category:French magazines Category:Colonialism studies