Famine and the Science of Food in the French Empire, 1900–1939
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Abstract
Between 1900 and 1939, the French empire devoted increasing attention to the problems of hunger and famine in the colonies. Influenced by discoveries associated with the emerging science of nutrition and under pressure from international organizations such as the League of Nations, French colonial administrations accepted food security as their most basic responsibility to their territories overseas. French scientists and administrators applied nutritional insights first to individuals in the fight against deficiency disease, then to “races” in an attempt to increase labor productivity, and finally to colonial populations as a whole. But as increasingly sophisticated notions of nutrition and public health influenced colonial administration, it became clear that the lofty promises of nutrition science were empty in a context in which subjects struggled to achieve minimum subsistence. The inability of the French empire to fulfill its responsibilities undermined the ideological justification for colonialism.
Contributor Notes
Yan Slobodkin is a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University. He studies the history of modern France and its relationship to a globalizing world. His dissertation, “Empire of Hunger: Famine and the French Colonial State, 1867–1945,” uses archival material from France, Senegal, and Vietnam to trace changing conceptions of colonial famine and hunger. E-mail: yans@stanford.edu