Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire

Description

Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel mines published writings and untapped archives to reveal the anticolonialist endeavors of seven women. Though often overlooked today, Suzanne Césaire, Paulette Nardal, Eugénie Éboué-Tell, Jane Vialle, Andrée Blouin, Aoua Kéita, and Eslanda Robeson took part in a forceful transnational movement. Their activism and thought challenged France's imperial system by shaping forms of citizenship that encouraged multiple cultural and racial identities. Expanding the possibilities of belonging beyond national and even Francophone borders, these women imagined new pan-African and pan-Caribbean identities informed by black feminist intellectual frameworks and practices. The visions they articulated also shifted the idea of citizenship itself, replacing a single form of collective identity and political participation with an expansive plurality of forms of belonging. Acknowledgments Prologue Introduction 1. Suzanne Césaire: Liberation beyond the Great Camouflage 2. Paulette Nardal: Martinican Women as Political Protagonists in the Overseas Department 3. Eugénie Éboué-Tell and Jane Vialle: Refiguring Power in the French Union 4. Andrée Blouin: Métissage and African Liberation in My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria 5.Aoua Kéita: Rural Women and the Anticolonial Movement in Femme d’Afrique: La vie d’Aoua Kéita racontée par elle-même 6.Eslanda Robeson: Transnational Black Feminism in the Global South Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index