Les recherches sur les compagnies françaises des Indes orientales connaissent depuis trois décennies un nouvel élan. Si aujourd’hui les volets économiques, administratifs et politiques du fonctionnement de cette aventure mercantile et de la présence française dans l’océan Indien sont bien connus, le cadre de vie quotidien de ses acteurs dans les comptoirs l’est beaucoup moins. Cette thèse propose de se concentrer sur la société française de Pondichéry et sur son environnement quotidien en prenant comme point de départ sa culture matérielle. À partir des archives notariales françaises de l’Inde au XVIIIe siècle, il est possible de redessiner cette société ultramarine et de saisir bien plus que le simple environnement matériel. Les modalités de l’implantation et de l’adaptation des Européens en Inde, peuvent ainsi être précisées. Ensuite, la structure proprement matérielle est identifiable : les approvisionnements des possessions françaises de l’océan Indien qui définissent la consommation, les choix et les logiques d’aménagement intérieur, etc. Enfin, l’environnement culturel dans lequel les européens évoluent dans les comptoirs de l’Inde est accessible, notamment grâce à l’étude du degré d’ancrage des individus dans la culture de l’océan Indien. Ont-ils cherché à préserver leur culture européenne, ou se sont-ils « indianisés » ? Des différences sont-elles visibles selon les époques, les catégories sociales et professionnelles étudiées ? Pour répondre à ces questions, les collections des musées européens et asiatiques, ainsi que le patrimoine architectural des comptoirs français de l’Inde du XVIIIe siècle, viendront enrichir et compléter les sources d’archives. / Over the last three decades research on the French East India Company has seen a new impetus. If today the economic, administrative and political functioning components of this mercantile adventure and the French presence in the Indian Ocean are well known, the milieu quotidian of its players in the trading posts are less such. The present thesis focuses on French society in Pondicherry and on its daily environment, material culture being its starting point. Using the French notarial archives of India in the XVIII century, it is possible to redraw this ultramarine society and to understand much more than the simple material environment. The methods of the establishment and of the European adaptation in India can thus be clarified. Afterwards, the strictly material structure is identifiable: the supply of French possessions of the Indian Ocean, which define the consumption, the logic and choices of internal organization, etc. Finally, the cultural environment in which Europeans evolve in the Indian trading posts is accessible, notably as a result of studying individual’s degree of integration into the Indian Ocean culture. Did they seek to preserve their own European culture or were they ‘indianised”? Are there some differences noticeable according to the period, social categories and professionals studied? To answer these questions, the European and Asian museum’s collections, as well as the French trading posts architectural patrimony of India in the XVIII century, will enhance and complete the archive sources.

[pt] Com a internacionalização da economia a partir dos anos 1950, década em que se conformava um padrão alimentar global, os africanos passaram a ser integrados no mercado de trabalho assalariado urbano. Por conseguinte, eram vistos como agentes econômicos sujeitos a novos hábitos de consumo e inseridos nas estratégias de enquadramento social, estas, ajustáveis a uma classificação colonial que se espelhava espacialmente, demarcando as linhas de uma territorialidade. Ao defendermos o consumo alimentar como expressão dinâmica de um vivido territorial, esta Tese tem como objetivo central apresentar de que forma os habitantes da cidade de Luanda reconstruíram cotidianamente as suas formas de ser, estar e comer em uma experiência social ambígua, porque entrecortada por fluxos múltiplos. Para tal, alicerçados em um referencial teórico-metodológico que se inscreve na geografia, antropologia e história social, cotejamos informações apresentadas em diferentes tipologias de fontes, incluindo-se periódicos, documentos médico-nutricionais e investigações sócio-antropológicas elaborados pelas autoridades coloniais. Ao apostarmos na metodologia da História Oral nos baseamos, também, em entrevistas realizadas com angolanos que experimentaram a vivência na Luanda daquele tempo. Os resultados da análise nos permitiram perceber como a população da cidade, apesar dos diferentes fatores de contingência social, teceram os fios de sustentação para a garantia de seus desejos alimentares e como, em diferentes campos, a agência feminina era um imprescindível sustentáculo. No movimento conflituoso de negociação para a realização desses desejos, pudemos notar a relevância das estratégias cotidianas fundamentadas em conhecimentos técnicos engendrados localmente, dentro das quais se tornou fulcral a interface com a materialidade dos alimentos para o dinâmico atar e desatar das redes comerciais e relações sociais tecidas, em especial pelas mulheres africanas, mas também por uma multiplicidade de agentes que buscavam fabricar uma cidade e fazer dela o seu território. / [en] As a result, to the internationalization of the economy started in the 1950s, decade in which a global food ingestion pattern was established, Africans began to be a part of the urban labor market. They became economic agents subject tonew consuming habits as well as to the strategic social frameworks adjustable to the colonial classification, therefore establishing territorial lines. This thesis, as we support the idea of food consumption as a dynamical expression of a given territorial experience, focuses on the presentation of how Luanda s inhabitants rebuilt daily their ways of eating and being as an ambiguous social experience due to the multiple fluxes that cross it. To accomplish our goal, we anchored our work in theorical, and methodological references derived from Geography, Anthropology and Social History. Furthermore, we analyzed information from different sources, journals, nutrition and medical documents, social-anthropological investigations carried by colonial authorities. Our work was also based on Oral History methodology through recorded interviews given by Angolans who lived in Luanda at that time. The results of this analysis allowed us to perceive how de population of the city, despite the different social contingency factors, weaved threads to support and guarantee their desires concerning food. We were also able to realize the precious role played by women to sustain that network. The conflicting movement to meet those desires showed us the importance of daily strategies founded on the knowledge of their local technical resources. Those strategies were crucial for the dynamic of weaving and unweaving commercial and social relations established around food products. Especially in what concerns the role of women, but also to other multiple agents that were in search to build a city where they could also create their own territory.

À la différence d’autres régions du tiers monde où l’influence de la France a été déterminante et ininterrompue (Moyen-Orient, Maghreb, les anciennes colonies françaises en Afrique centrale ou encore d'autres pays de l’Amérique latine), au Venezuela, il n’y a eu de véritable politique étrangère de coopération culturelle qu’à la fin des années 1950. L'avènement du boom pétrolier pendant l'entre deux guerres a fait décliner l'influence française. À la fin de la Seconde guerre, les diplomates français prennent conscience du potentiel énergétique du Venezuela, observant qu’il est possible de remédier la perte de l’influence économique en encourageant une véritable coopération culturelle. Cette coopération culturelle va utiliser les réseaux politiques intégrés par des élites francophiles, lesquelles revendiquent une histoire commune à la France et au Venezuela. L'étude sur la longue durée permet d'observer les permanences de l'histoire politique vénézuélienne, dans lesquelles s'insèrent les éléments qui ont servi à la construction du sentiment national vénézuélien et les influences des idées françaises sur le projet de modernisation de l’État. Notre étude soulève des questions telles que l'émigration, les échanges et les relations commerciales. Nous nous sommes particulièrement intéressés à l’étude des correspondances diplomatiques car la lecture minutieuse de celles-ci permet de soulever, en filigrane, bon nombre d’éléments liés aux représentations et à l’histoire politique des deux pays. De même, elle permet d’approcher ce que les élites considèrent comme identité et affinité culturelle. Nos sources se rapportent donc, pour la plupart aux correspondances diplomatiques conservées aux archives de La Courneuve et au Ministère des Relations Extérieures à Caracas. Nous les avons croisées avec d’autres sources documentaires, visuelles et littéraires ainsi qu’avec un certain nombre d’entretiens réalisés entre la fin de l’année 2010 et le début de 2011. Notre étude s’inspire des travaux de Pierre Renouvin et Jean Baptiste Duroselle en histoire des relations internationales, revisités par Robert Frank en 2011. Nous prenons en considération le poids des images, de la culture officielle et du rayonnement des modèles culturels, dans le but de tenter de mesurer « la puissance » des États (soft power). En ce sens, la valeur que les élites vénézuéliennes donnent au rayonnement culturel et scientifique français, au XIXe et au début du XXe siècle (1870-1935), permet d’expliquer en partie pourquoi la France a réussi à renforcer sa présence au Venezuela. En effet, le déclin de l'influence culturelle française, à une époque où les relations entre les deux pays s’étaient considérablement distendues (1936-1960), est concomitant à la perte de son influence économique et commerciale. Cette évolution a donné lieu à l'institutionnalisation progressive de la stratégie de la diplomatie culturelle (1961 à nos jours). Grâce à cette stratégie la France a récupérée le terrain qu'elle avait perdu devant la concurrence commerciale anglo-saxonne. Nous avons souhaité répondre à deux questions fondamentales : dans quelle mesure les élites vénézuéliennes, « influencées » par le modèle culturel français, ont réussi à opérer des appropriations/assimilations/adaptations de ce modèle au Venezuela ? Et, en contrepartie, dans quelle mesure la construction d’un « outil culturel » franco-vénézuélien a servi les intérêts de la politique étrangère française au Venezuela ? / Unlike other regions of the Third World, where the influence of France was decisive and uninterrupted (Middle East, Maghreb, former French colonies in Central Africa and other countries of Latin America), in Venezuela, there was only a real foreign cultural cooperation policy by the late 1950s. The advent of the oil boom during the interwar period caused the declining of French influence. By the end of the Second World War, French diplomats were aware of Venezuela’s energetic potential, remarking that it was possible to overcome the loss of economic influence by encouraging a genuine cultural cooperation.This cultural cooperation would use political networks joined by Francophile elites, who claimed a common history between France and Venezuela. The study on the long run allows observing the permanence of the Venezuelan political history, in which fits the elements used in the construction of the Venezuelan National sentiment and the influence of French ideas on the project of State modernization.Our study raises issues such as migration, trades and commercial relations. We are particularly interested in the study of diplomatic relationships, since a close up over these can highlight, watermark, many points related to their representations and the political history of both countries. Similarly, it allows approaching what the elite considered identity and cultural affinity. Our sources therefore relate mostly to diplomatic correspondence preserved in the files of La Courneuve and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Caracas. We cross checked with other documentaries, visual and literary sources as well as a certain number of interviews conducted by the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. Our study is based on the papers related to the history of international relations by Pierre Renouvin and Jean Baptiste Duroselle, revisited by Robert Frank in 2011. We take into consideration the contribution of images, official culture and the influence of cultural patterns, as an attempt to measure the "power" of States (soft power). On this matter, the value that the Venezuelan elites gave to the French cultural and scientific influence, in the XIX century and the beginning of XX (1870-1935), helps to explain to an extend the reason why France has managed to strengthen its presence in Venezuela. Indeed, the decline of the French cultural influence, at a time when relations between the two countries were considerably distended (1936-1960), is concomitant with the loss of its economic and commercial influence. This has resulted in the progressive institutionalization of the culturaldiplomacy strategy (from 1961 up to the present). Thanks to this strategy France has recovered part of the market share lost to the Anglo-Saxon competition.We wanted to answer two fundamental questions: To what extent the Venezuelan elites, "influenced" by the French cultural model, managed to operate appropriations / assimilation / adaptation of this model in Venezuela? And, in return, to what extent the construction of a "cultural tool" Franco-Venezuelan has served the interests of the French foreign policy in Venezuela?