Paper short abstract:

At the eve of Senegalese independence, this proposal examines the survival of forced labour practices after its official abolition in 1946. This presentation will highlight the legacies of these practices and behaviours and analyse the ruptures and the continuities created from 1946 and beyond.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to examine the structures of forced labour, within the Senegalese context, as a coercive institution employed by the colonial and the postcolonial state. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the brutality of the labour system became the target of widespread criticism and, in 1946, the Houphouët-Boigny law abolished the official use of any forms of forced labour in French colonial Africa. Nevertheless, there are indications pointing to the survival of diversified forms of involuntary labour, which continued to exist after the official abolition and even beyond the Senegalese independence. A main interest of this proposal is to take into account the legacies of these practices and behaviours and to understand the ruptures and the continuities created from 1946.

It is generally established that forced labour practices are a particular expression of the persistent problem that colonial powers were experiencing with regard to the mobilization of labour in the colonial territories. Thus, this paper will shed a light on the analysis of the reconfiguration of labour strategies by the colonial and postcolonial state in order to minimize the labour cost at any price. Centered on some form of survival or persistence of forced labour in Senegal (convicts labourers, military labour for both private and public purposes...), this presentation will, more broadly, highlight the social changes and crisis of labor at the eve of Senegalese independence. This paper intends to combine archival research and oral testimonies.