Between Problematisation and Invisibilisation

Abstract

This dissertation researches how and why interracialised intimacies between the white French population and (post)colonial migrants from the African continent were regulated during and after the decolonisation of French departments and territories on the African continent (1956-1979). Examining the regulation of different types of interracialised intimacies in the postcolonial French metropolitan context allows for a contextualised and historicised analysis of how and why the French government and society constructed and protected racial boundaries, at their intersection with class, gender and sexuality. Primarily based on critical archival research and complemented by testimonial biographies and interviews with individuals and couples about their interracialised relationships, this dissertation shows how interracialised intimacies were not regulated through direct and explicit legislation and regulation per se, but rather, by turning certain intimacies into problems by defining, categorising and regulating them as such. This justified, and was motivated by, the administration’s desire to exclude postcolonial migrants from the French community.