This dissertation provides a comparative and connected political history of taxation and inequality in the French colonial empire between 1900 and the 1950s. It explores the archives of the French metropolitan state and of various French colonial states in North Africa, Southeast Asia and West Africa, parliamentary debates, the writings and personal papers of colonial officials and theorists, the publications of imperial watchdog organizations, settler, reformist, and anticolonial press outlets as well as literary production in order to probe the ways in which colonial tax regimes were established, debated, resisted and transformed. This political history of colonial taxation thus follows two complementary analytical strategies: it describes the workings of imperial fiscal power and it captures a sense of political possibility.The imperative to preserve the precarious and highly unequal fiscal bargain of fin-de-siècle metropolitan France led to the transfer of the tax burden of empire onto colonized populations. This dissertation argues that this turn to colonial “financial autonomy” in 1900 spawned decades of endemic austerity in the empire, setting the tone for future debates about the legitimacy of taxation and tax fairness in the French imperial state. It also recovers the violence of colonial fiscal seizures and examines the performative role of racial constructions and colonial knowledge in the concrete deployment and justification of French colonial fiscal power. This dissertation ultimately seeks to destabilize the category of “colonial taxation” and argues that at least until the First World War, colonized populations mostly perceived French taxation as the “price of defeat” rather than any sort of legitimate contribution to the common good. Furthermore, the imposition of direct and indirect taxes was often a highly violent endeavor. Early political activists sometimes sought to advance their own vision of fair taxation but they were firmly stonewalled by colonial authorities. Colonial fiscal power only “normalized” overtime. New potentialities arose after the conflict. The war reconfigured the world order and opened the way for a renovated politics of colonial taxation both in France and in the empire. Fiscal inequities became increasingly politicized, especially as reliance on private investment effectively gave greater bargaining power to European settlers and firms operating in the empire. French colonial authorities responded by brandishing the virtues of corporatism and this re-organized but did not curtail the influence of economic elites on the making of tax policies. Fiscal modernization was timidly debated in various colonies in the 1920s and 1930s and income taxes were sometimes implemented. Yet colonial solutions to the “problem” of colonial fiscal inequities (repression, the doling out a modicum of “representation”, corporatist anti-politics) faced significant backlash as the economic upheavals of the Great Depression began to kick in. The synchronous and empire-wide tax revolts of the 1930s considerably raised the stakes of tax politics as tax resistance became a prime tool for early nationalist groups eager to enter colonial public spheres on their own terms. Despite reformist efforts, WWII and the postwar period saw the continuity of this system of imperial fiscal exception exemplified for instance by the tax avoidance practices of colonial firms who used the empire as a tax shelter.

Through a historical perspective, this study highlighted significant events and milestones about multilingualism, cultural identity, and mathematics education in Morocco pre-, during, and post-French Protectorate. Prior research in this area has typically focused on the effect on education of multilingualism and cultural identity in general, involving mathematics education only in passing. This study’s purpose was to explore Morocco’s attempt to restore its cultural identity post-French Protectorate and how that attempt influenced the Moroccan mathematical educational system. In addition, this study focused on the Arabic and indigenous Berber (Tamazight) languages of instruction in mathematics in Morocco to investigate if teaching and learning mathematics in the Arabic and Tamazight languages in secondary schools is preparing students adequately for the tertiary level. Finally, this study attempted to see if multilingualism and cultural identity are at the heart of mathematical educational reform and to offer insight into the state of mathematics education reforms suggested by the Moroccan government to remedy this challenge. In order to develop a comprehensive picture of how multilingualism and cultural identity have historically influenced the mathematics education system in Morocco and answer the research questions of the study, a historical research methodology was employed based on views of numerous scholars about bilingual education, cultural identity, diglossia, and how they affect cognition and learning/teaching of mathematics. Supplementary knowledge about students’ achievements, retention, and dropout rates at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels by gender and grade were acquired and supported by quantitative available data in the official archives supplied by the Ministry of Education, UNESCO, and other organizations. After independence, the establishment of an educational system that would take into consideration the deeply rooted Arab-Islamic culture and language and, at the same time, make use of the imposed Western system was a priority. Arabisation received more attention, and the selection of Arabic as a national language was a form of countering the colonizer’s language policy. Morocco has a particularly complex language situation, where French predominates in most postsecondary institutions, despite attempts to restore Arabic. The indigenous Berber language also plays a role in local culture and education. This work reveals a great number of attempted reforms by the Moroccan government and also demonstrates serious flaws in recent past attempts to reconcile the language issues, but offer ways forward in relation to mathematics instruction.

The emergence of Indochina in the French imagination was articulated in both representational and institutional modes. Representation involves the transmission of colonial ideals through more obtuse means; that is, through literary texts, travelogues, exhibitions, film and advertising. However, these textual sites feed from and invest in a material situation, which was the institutional arm of colonialism. Indochina was institutionally articulated in cartographic maps and surveys, in the new social spaces of cities and towns, in architectural and technological forms, through social technologies of discipline and welfare and in cultural and religious organisations. The aim of this thesis is to analyse, across a number of textual sites, the representation and institutionalisation of Otherness through the politics of space in the French colony of Indochina, Indochine in this sense becomes a spatial discourse. The French constructed a mental and physical space for Indochina by blanketing and suffocating the original cultural landscape, which in fact had to be ignored for this process to occur. What actually became manifest as a result of this projection stemmed from the French imagination. Just as the French manipulated space, language also underwent the same process of reduction. The Vietnamese script was latinised to make it more 'useable' and ‘accessible’. Through christening the union of Indochina; initiating a comprehensive writing reform; and renaming the streets in the colonial cities, the French used language us another tool for 'making transparent'. Furthermore, the colonial powers established a communication and transport network throughout the colony in an attempt to materialise their fictive (artificial) vision of a unified French Indochinese space. The accessibility and design of these different modes of transport reflected the gendered, racial and class divisions inherent in the colonial establishment. At the heart of representing and institutionalising Indochina was the desire to control and contain. This characterised French imperial ordering of space in the city and the rural areas. In rural areas land was divided into small parcels and alienated to individuals or worked into precise grids for the rubber plantation. In urban centres the native quarter was clearly demarcated from the European quarter which functioned as its modern, progressive Other. The rationale behind this segregation was premised on European, nineteenth century discourses of race, class, gender and hygiene. Influenced by Darwinian and neo-Lamarkian theories of race, this biological discourse identified the 'working class', 'women' and 'the native' as not only biologically but also culturally inferior. They were perceived as a potential, degenerative threat to the biological, cultural and industrial development of the nation. In the colonial context, space was thus ordered and domesticated to control the native population. Coextensively, the literature which springs from such a structure will be tainted by the same ideas, and thus the spaces it formulates within the readers mind feed on and reinforce this foundation. Examples of gender and indigenous narratives which contest this imaginative, transparent topography are analysed throughout this thesis. They provide instances of struggle and resistance which undermine the ideal/stereotypical level of architectural and planned space and delineate an alternative insight into colonial spatial and social relations. The fictional accounts of European women and indigenous writers both challenge and reaffirm the fixity of some of these idealised colonial boundaries. In various literary, historical, political, architectural and cinematic discourses Indochina has been und continues to be depicted as a modern city and exotic Utopia. Informed by the mood of nostalgia, exotic images of Indochina have resurfaced in contemporary French culture. France's continued desire to create, control and maintain an Indochinese space in the French public imagination reinforces the multi-layered, interconnected and persistent nature of colonial discourse.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität zu Köln. / Includes added t.p. without thesis statement. Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-353).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität zu Köln. / Includes added t.p. without thesis statement. Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-353).

This dissertation is a history of efforts to develop the Litani River in Lebanon. Under French rule (1920–43), development projects shaped an unequal distribution of infrastructure that privileged Christian and urban regions. A cohort of nationalist Lebanese engineers advocated developing the Litani River, in Lebanon’s Shi‘a-majority southwest, as a means to foster national unity by resolving inequalities among Lebanon’s religious communities. The resulting Litani project (1955–65) was Lebanon’s first grand-scale hydroelectric project. The United States, France, and the World Bank made the project central to their respective strategies in the decolonizing Middle East. Lebanese engineers competed and collaborated with European and American experts to design infrastructure that connected the Litani, and Lebanon’s hinterland, with the capital, Beirut. Economists, religious leaders, farmers, and communists debated infrastructure designs in Beirut’s bourgeoning public sphere. The completed infrastructure generated electricity for Beirut’s consumers by extracting water from the impoverished rural margins. The World Bank deemed the project a qualified success as an investment. But most in Lebanon considered it a monumental failure because the infrastructure did not meet urgent needs. Rather, the infrastructure materialized preexisting inequalities between Beirut and its peripheries, which provided a visible injustice that a rural Shi‘i political-religious movement mobilized to demand equal rights. Unlike familiar histories of development in which rural communities resist state intrusion, in Lebanon, rural actors and engineers sought to build a larger and more equitable state by constructing socially just infrastructure.

France and Australia possess such distinctive national traits that they are not habitually compared in relation to their history, identity and culture. However, their national cinemas reveal that they have much in common. A significant number of recent films from both nations bear the mark of a similar obsessional quest for national identity that is linked to the exploration of a troubled colonial past. This shared preoccupation constitutes the starting point for this thesis, which compares the representation of colonial history in the cinema of France and Australia since 1970. It is of course evident that the two nations have had widely differing experiences of colonisation. Modern France is among the ranks of the major empire builders, and Australia is the product of one of Great Britain's most successful colonies. If neither nation can forget its colonial past, it is also for different reasons: France is the principal destination of migrants from her former colonies, and Australia faces landrights claims from her indigenous populations. If these differences provide the distinct social, political and geographical contexts of French and Australian cinema, they do not, however, impinge upon the stylistic and ideological analysis of their colonial thematics. For the purposes of this thesis, three fundamental criteria determine the inclusion of a film in the corpus: it must have an historical colonial setting; its narrative must focus principally on aspects of the colonisation process; and its director must be a descendant of the former colonisers. Around a dozen films released since 1970 in each country have been identified as matching these criteria and, for the purposes of the thesis, have been called postcolonial films. The content and structures of the films dictate the analytical approach and theories are drawn upon as tools when needed. These theories are widely varied across the disciplines and the theorists include Pierre Sorlin, Edward Saïd and Albert Memmi. The approach to representing colonial issues varies widely, with the majority of the films in the corpus neither appearing to confront openly nor to support the ideology of colonialism. Two exceptions are Coup de torchon (Tavernier, France, 1981) and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Schepisi, Australia, 1978). More typical of the ambivalent treatment of colonialism are the popularly attended films such as Indochine (Wargnier, France, 1991) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, Australia, 1975). In the first chapter an analysis of the relationship of the films to documented history demonstrates that French films are frequently set during the period between 1910 and 1950, and Australian films during the last half of the nineteenth century. The following chapter examines the relationship of the colonisers to their colonised lands and asks if the exceptional attention paid in all the films to the colonial geography has the effect of assimilating an alien landscape into the Western settlers’ culture and mythology. The following two chapters address the core element of colonial life - in Franz Fanon's terms - its division into two worlds. The first of these chapters examines the interaction between the coloniser and the colonised through individual relationships between the two, and addresses the problem that all of these relationships end in permanent separation. The following chapter explores the interaction between coloniser and colonised as social groups that are divided by notions of race and discusses the general epistemological problem of the representation of the Other. The fifth chapter analyses the symbolic mechanisms being used to structure the films and manipulate the unconscious effect on the viewer. For example, there are a number of films with journeys of some kind, orphan-like characters and characters with strong noble savage qualities. Finally, the sixth chapter compares two of the films to the books from which they are derived. The object of this double comparison is to isolate differences in the films which are better explained by changing colonial politics than by inherent differences between cinema and literature. In the conclusion, it is argued that there appear to be few sustained attempts at confronting and resolving the problematic aspects of colonialism’s legacy. This is especially evident from the predominance of fictitious stories over the depiction of actual documented events. This tendency in both the French and Australian cinemas to contain the representation of the colonial past within a fictional framework has the inevitable consequence of masking history and thus avoiding the necessity of dealing with it. A further notable tendency was the preference for selecting certain periods and avoiding others, hence stripping the colonial past of its most embarrassing aspects. For example, no film could be found which showed the initial phase of the establishment of a colony. Despite the rarity of films released in France and Australia that openly challenge colonialism as a whole, many signs are evident throughout these films that the practices and values defending or justifying colonisation are nevertheless being questioned. / Thesis (Ph.D) -- School of Humanities, 2003

France and Australia possess such distinctive national traits that they are not habitually compared in relation to their history, identity and culture. However, their national cinemas reveal that they have much in common. A significant number of recent films from both nations bear the mark of a similar obsessional quest for national identity that is linked to the exploration of a troubled colonial past. This shared preoccupation constitutes the starting point for this thesis, which compares the representation of colonial history in the cinema of France and Australia since 1970. It is of course evident that the two nations have had widely differing experiences of colonisation. Modern France is among the ranks of the major empire builders, and Australia is the product of one of Great Britain's most successful colonies. If neither nation can forget its colonial past, it is also for different reasons: France is the principal destination of migrants from her former colonies, and Australia faces landrights claims from her indigenous populations. If these differences provide the distinct social, political and geographical contexts of French and Australian cinema, they do not, however, impinge upon the stylistic and ideological analysis of their colonial thematics. For the purposes of this thesis, three fundamental criteria determine the inclusion of a film in the corpus: it must have an historical colonial setting; its narrative must focus principally on aspects of the colonisation process; and its director must be a descendant of the former colonisers. Around a dozen films released since 1970 in each country have been identified as matching these criteria and, for the purposes of the thesis, have been called postcolonial films. The content and structures of the films dictate the analytical approach and theories are drawn upon as tools when needed. These theories are widely varied across the disciplines and the theorists include Pierre Sorlin, Edward Saïd and Albert Memmi. The approach to representing colonial issues varies widely, with the majority of the films in the corpus neither appearing to confront openly nor to support the ideology of colonialism. Two exceptions are Coup de torchon (Tavernier, France, 1981) and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Schepisi, Australia, 1978). More typical of the ambivalent treatment of colonialism are the popularly attended films such as Indochine (Wargnier, France, 1991) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, Australia, 1975). In the first chapter an analysis of the relationship of the films to documented history demonstrates that French films are frequently set during the period between 1910 and 1950, and Australian films during the last half of the nineteenth century. The following chapter examines the relationship of the colonisers to their colonised lands and asks if the exceptional attention paid in all the films to the colonial geography has the effect of assimilating an alien landscape into the Western settlers’ culture and mythology. The following two chapters address the core element of colonial life - in Franz Fanon's terms - its division into two worlds. The first of these chapters examines the interaction between the coloniser and the colonised through individual relationships between the two, and addresses the problem that all of these relationships end in permanent separation. The following chapter explores the interaction between coloniser and colonised as social groups that are divided by notions of race and discusses the general epistemological problem of the representation of the Other. The fifth chapter analyses the symbolic mechanisms being used to structure the films and manipulate the unconscious effect on the viewer. For example, there are a number of films with journeys of some kind, orphan-like characters and characters with strong noble savage qualities. Finally, the sixth chapter compares two of the films to the books from which they are derived. The object of this double comparison is to isolate differences in the films which are better explained by changing colonial politics than by inherent differences between cinema and literature. In the conclusion, it is argued that there appear to be few sustained attempts at confronting and resolving the problematic aspects of colonialism’s legacy. This is especially evident from the predominance of fictitious stories over the depiction of actual documented events. This tendency in both the French and Australian cinemas to contain the representation of the colonial past within a fictional framework has the inevitable consequence of masking history and thus avoiding the necessity of dealing with it. A further notable tendency was the preference for selecting certain periods and avoiding others, hence stripping the colonial past of its most embarrassing aspects. For example, no film could be found which showed the initial phase of the establishment of a colony. Despite the rarity of films released in France and Australia that openly challenge colonialism as a whole, many signs are evident throughout these films that the practices and values defending or justifying colonisation are nevertheless being questioned. / Thesis (Ph.D) -- School of Humanities, 2003

La guerre de course européenne connaît son apogée au XVIIIe siècle, en particulier durant la guerre de Succession d’Espagne (1701-1713). Cette activité a des répercussions jusque dans les colonies, qui sont éventuellement dotées des institutions nécessaires au jugement des prises ramenées par les corsaires, les amirautés. Le fonctionnement de ces dernières est géré par l’Ordonnance de la Marine de 1681, autant en France que dans les colonies françaises. Alors que le jugement des prises en métropole a été l’objet d’étude de quelques auteurs, il n’y a pas d’étude qui explore en détail ce sujet dans les colonies. Ce mémoire pose alors la question suivante : comment se déroule le jugement des prises dans les amirautés coloniales au XVIIIe siècle, plus précisément de 1690 à 1760 dans les ports de Plaisance, Québec et Louisbourg ? Pour répondre à cette question, les réponses de l’Amiral de la sous-série G5 ont permis la construction d’un portrait statistique préliminaire pour commencer à faire ressortir les éléments qui caractérisent les procédures des amirautés coloniales (chapitre 1). Ensuite, les procès-verbaux du port de Plaisance ont servi à reconstituer en détail ces procédures et à identifier les similarités et les différences avec les procédures menées dans la métropole (chapitre 2). Finalement, on a voulu chiffrer l’importance des jugements relatifs à la course dans la charge des amirautés dans son ensemble. Pour cela, on s’est appuyé sur le fonds de l’amirauté de Québec et de Louisbourg et le fonds d’archives notariés de Plaisance. Cette analyse nous a permis de voir le rôle de l’amirauté dans chaque port, un rôle fortement influencé par le caractère socio-économique et géographique du port (chapitre 3). Ce qui ressort de l’étude, c’est la similarité des procédures suivies dans les amirautés coloniales par rapport à leurs homologues métropolitains ainsi que l’adaptation de certaines caractéristiques au contexte colonial. / Privateering was at its all-time high in the eighteenth century, specifically during the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1713). The increase in this activity had particular consequences in the colonies and, in fact, precipitated the foundation of the first admiralty in French North America, at Plaisance. Colonial admiralties were to follow the instructions of the Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681, just like their French counterparts. While there are a few studies of the judgement of prizes in metropolitan admiralties, there are no studies that examine in detail how this procedure unfolded in colonial admiralties. This thesis asks, therefore, the following question: how did the colonial admiralties judge prizes in the eighteenth century, specifically from 1690 to 1760, in the ports of Plaisance, Québec and Louisbourg? To answer this question, the responses of the Admiral of France in the subseries G5 were used to make a preliminary statistical portrait to illuminate the main characteristics of captured prizes and their adjudication in the colonies (chapter 1). Then, records of proceedings of the Admiralty of Plaisance from the subseries G5 were used to reconstitute the judgement of prizes in detail and to identify the similarities and differences between colonial and metropolitan adjudication. Finally, in order to better understand the place of privateering in the admiralty’s overall activity, we examined how the volume of these cases compared to that of other types before the same institution. To do so, we consulted the fonds de l’amirauté de Québec and the fonds de l’amirauté de Louisbourg, with the notarized records of Plaisance. This analysis allowed us to see the particular role played by the admiralty in each port, a role shaped by the latter’s socioeconomic and geographic character (chapter 3). Main findings of the study include the similarity in procedures in metropolitan and colonial admiralties as well as the specific adaptations that were made to the colonial context.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.