Sciences Po, a colonial history

Unveiling a little-known history

• Return to a project from March 2017

Like other institutions of higher education, Sciences Po played a significant role in the colonial history of France and Europe. 
 
In order to provide training for the future leaders of the French colonial Empire, Emile Boutmy, founder of the École libre de sciences politiques, created a Colonial Section in 1886, fifteen years after the founding of the school. Although the section was closed three years later, due to competition from the newly created Colonial School, colonial questions did not disappear from the teaching at the École libre.  On the contrary, through teaching and through the role of its professors, the Ecole libre des Sciences Politiques became one of the main places for developing the ideology of “liberal colonialism”, a project close to the economic circles of the Third Republic and perfectly integrated into the networks of European “colonial sciences”.
 
The exhibition presented in the Sciences Po Library in March 2017, and the documentation published on the Library website, are based on the research work of students of the Master of History from the Sciences Po History Department, under the direction of the professors Pap Ndiaye and Jakob Vogel, with the collaboration of the Sciences Po Library.
 
Based on documents from the archives and collections of Sciences Po, the exhibit presents a little-known dimension of the history of the institution.  It provides an overview of the different stages of the colonial history of the institution, from the 1870s to the decolonization period of the 1950s and 1960s. Highlighting the extent to which the École libre des sciences politiques participated in France's colonial work, the exhibit also shows how, from the Second World War onwards, a new criticism of colonization emerged at the École libre, initiating important changes to come. If the idea of France’s "civilizing mission," and a certain racism were still present in the teaching of some professors, the École libre became one of the places where post-colonial elites of the new independent states also came to be trained. 

See the documentation file on the pages of the Sciences Po library