Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris

COLONIAL METROPOLIS: THE URBAN GROUNDS OF ANTI-IMPERIALISM AND FEMINISM IN INTERWAR PARIS Jennifer Anne Boittin Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2010 320 pages, hardcover, $45.00In the years after World War I, Paris became a "colonial metropolis" - a space in which men and women, blacks and whites, interacted with each other and discussed and shaped perceptions of French colonial policy, race, gender, class, imperialism, and equality. In this ambitious study, Jennifer Anne Boittin tries to weave together a number of disparate but related threads that ran through interwar Paris. This is a challenging task given the number of groups involved, their diverse perspectives, and the various venues in which they operated.The book begins with an examination of Josephine Baker, the AfricanAmerican entertainer who not only took Paris by storm in the 1920s and 1930s, but came to "both reflect and influence French attitudes regarding colonialism and race in interwar Paris." (p. 2) Neither French nor colonial, she nonetheless was seen as a "colonial representative." (p. 2) Baker understood the complex nature of Parisians' views of their African and Caribbean colonies and sold herself as representing both the fearful "savage" and the possibility of being "civilized" through colonization. As such, she represented to white Parisians "a safe version of the other." (p. 3) In particular, the Surrealist Movement was fascinated by her and by black culture in general (African, Antillean, African-American). Though this fascination started prior to World War I, it was strengthened after the war. "The vision this group [Surrealists] held of a lush, naive, sensuous, and spiritual black culture contrasted with the perceived cold rationalism - and sheer terror - of the Great War." (p. 13) Boittin points out the paradoxical ways in which many people saw both indigenous culture in the colonies and modern Western culture. The former was seen as being both fearful and savage as well as a source of vitality. But at the same time, modern culture was terrifying in its use of technology - as shown in the bloodbath of World War I - but also necessary to "civilize" the rest of the world.Boittin then explores some of the spaces of racial interaction the city. There were many opportunities for blacks and whites to come into contact with each other. Black men lived in most of the city's 20 arrondissements and interracial couples lived in half of them. Black associations met in all but 4 arrondissements. Blacks came into contact with other Parisians in their work as lawyers, cab drivers, shop workers, window washers, students, bar tenders, and performers. World War I brought a large number of colonial men to fight for France, who then stayed on after the war ended. Moreover, night clubs and jazz clubs allowed for interracial socializing and romance. Police reports reveal the concerns of white French men that interracial unions would reverse the colonial order in the colonies if European women became objects of colonial men's desires. There were also fears of colonials marrying and then abandoning white French women, leading to "racial and sexual destabilization" (p. 68), turning the tables on the usual colonial power structure.The postwar period also saw a rise in black anti-imperial organizations especially among colonial veterans who argued that France owed them a "blood debt" of freedom and citizenship for their services in World War I. These groups included the Union Inter coloniale, the Comite de Defense de la Race Negre (CDRN), the Ligue de Defense de la Race Negre (LDRN) and the Union des Travailleurs Negres (UTN). They attracted police surveillance, indicating their significance in the city. Their responses to the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris, the 1931 Scottsboro Affair in Alabama, and the 1935 Italo-Ethiopian War demonstrate their concerns not only with anti-imperialism, but also racism in the US and the rise of fascism in Europe. …