Scale di comparazione del ‘lavoro indigeno’ tra colonia e metropoli (Impero francese, 1900-1940)

Ferruccio Ricciardi (1)

1 LISE - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire pour la sociologie économique

The notion of colonial or indigenous labour, i.e. the historical forms of employment of indigenous and migrant non-European populations within the colonial territories and the metropolis, has been the subject of categorisation since its diffusion in the period between the two world wars. The case of the French Empire, particularly the territories of sub-Saharan Africa, accounts for the transformations of indigenous labour norms and practices during the first half of the 20th century in close relation to the metropolis. Far from opposing each other head-on, the different forms of labour that developed in the French Empire (engagisme, forced labour, contract labour, etc.) fed the process of the 'institution' of labour that accompanied, and complicated, the construction of the capitalist production system in the colonial context. Based on a multi-scalar and multi-archival analysis, indigenous labour represents here one of the historical forms of brindling wage labour and challenges the historical model of wage labour experienced in the Western world.

Mots clés: indigenous labour; categorization; dependency; wage labour; French Empire

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Ferruccio Ricciardi. Scale di comparazione del ‘lavoro indigeno’ tra colonia e metropoli (Impero francese, 1900-1940). Cartografie sociali. Rivista di sociologia e scienze umane, 2023, Lavoro, mobilità, migrazioni : ripartire dal concetto di salariato imbrigliato, 15, pp.23-47. ⟨hal-04383489⟩