Colonial Encounters in France, 1918-1946: Defining Identities through Colonial Space.

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I intend to research the relationships between French civilians and French colonial soldiers from the interwar period inFrance until the replacement of the French colonial empire system in 1946. My research first aims to analyze Frenchsocial and political debates surrounding French colonial soldiers and the racist "Schwarze Schande" campaign inGermany. These encounters, I argue, provoked a redefinition of colonial borders in response to which French colonialauthorities vacillated between the defense of colonial soldiers on European borders and the maintenance of racial andcolonial boundaries on colonial bodies. My second research interest encompasses the intersections of gender, body, andidentity through an analysis of French colonial soldiers' relationships with French citizens, particularly French women ofdiverse social strata. Since French colonial soldiers' and French women's bodies were viewed as crucial sites to promotethe state's gender, racial, colonial, and classist ideas, these relationships demonstrated the subversion of France's socialregulations and further disrupted the French empire's gendered, colonial, and racial boundaries. My research projectchallenges the asymmetry of the colonial archives by repositioning them as social actors in the formation of internal andexternal identification processes in France and its colonial space. It recenters voices previously silenced within Frenchhistory's broader discourse and provides a more exhaustive history.