The Dakar-Djibouti mission seen from Africa. Historical contexts and counter-investigations

Florence Bernault will be speaking on 16 and 17 April at a conference organised by the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirace and Sciences Po entitled :

The Dakar-Djibouti mission seen from Africa. Historical contexts and counter-investigations 

Conference organised as part of the exhibition Mission Dakar-Djibouti [1931-1933]: contre-enquêtes.

It will be held on Wednesday 16 April 2025 at Sciences Po (27 rue Saint-Guillaume, Paris 7) and on Thursday 17 April at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac.

Scientific Committee :

• Gaëlle Beaujean (musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac)
• Florence Bernault (Sciences Po Paris)
• Gaetano Ciarcia (CNRS/ IMAf)
• Benoît de l'Estoile (musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac)
• Mamadou Diouf (Columbia University)

Organised by  

• Anna Gianotti Laban, Head of Scientific Events, musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac
• Oumou Houmoud, International Affairs Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, Sciences Po

Conference organised by the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac and Sciences Po Paris as part of the exhibition Mission Dakar-Djibouti [1931-1933]: contre-enquêtes.

‘While the mission itself has been the subject of numerous studies, the challenge here is to focus attention on the local historical contexts and contemporary events in the territories traversed by the expedition, whether or not they were perceived by the European participants in the mission. Papers and round tables will address the administrative, military and ‘ethnic’ division of territories; reactions to colonisation, from arrangements to revolts; linguistic archives; the circulation of people, objects, goods, knowledge and images within the imperial socio-economic system - through, for example, the representations conveyed by photography; and the role of African intermediaries in the production of knowledge.

In dialogue with these historical investigations, this symposium will also look back at the experience of counter-investigations, carried out in particular by the African curators, who returned to the traces of the expedition in the territories traversed to question the various forms of presence of this past, based on the images in the collections brought back by the mission. This will provide an opportunity for comparative reflection on the practices used to produce knowledge, from the ethnography of the 1930s and archival research to contemporary oral surveys, and the status of these documents today.
 

The very form of these meetings, including a strong audiovisual dimension, will encourage dialogue and comparisons rather than monographic papers’. (Conference presentation on the Museum website)

Click here to download the provisional programme for the two days