{"id":19188,"date":"2011-12-22T04:27:33","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T04:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=19188"},"modified":"2011-12-22T04:41:50","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T04:41:50","slug":"miss-eurafrica-men-womens-sexuality-and-metis-identity-in-late-colonial-french-africa-1945-1960","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=19188","title":{"rendered":"“Miss Eurafrica”: Men, Women’s Sexuality, and M\u00e9tis Identity in Late Colonial French Africa, 1945-1960"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Miss Eurafrica”: Men, Women’s Sexuality, and M\u00e9tis Identity in Late Colonial French Africa, 1945-1960<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Journal of the History of Sexuality<\/a>
\nVolume 20, Number 3<\/a>, September 2011
\npages 568-593<\/p>\n

Rachel Jean-Baptiste<\/a><\/strong>, Assistant Professor of African History
\nUniversity of Chicago<\/em><\/p>\n

The 1960 issue of the magazine L’Eurafricain<\/em> (The Eurafrican) featured a cover photo of a woman announced as “Miss L’Eurafrique” (figure 1). Edited from Dakar under the auspices of the Union internationale des m\u00e9tis (International Union of Mixed-Race Persons), the magazine was written in French and printed in Paris. The membership of the union consisted of m\u00e9tis primarily from French-ruled sub-Saharan Africa. The primary mandate of the union was to advocate for financial, moral, and educational assistance to m\u00e9tis children. Published once or twice a year between 1945 and 1960, L’Eurafricain<\/em> was the public face of the organization. The publication was a medium through which contributors sought to cultivate a sense of common identity among m\u00e9tis persons across geographical boundaries, facilitate communication among members, report on various m\u00e9tis social and cultural events, and promote the organization’s lobbying efforts. Contributors to L’Eurafricain<\/em> included m\u00e9tis across French-speaking Africa as well as some black and white benefactors. It is not clear from extant records whether an actual pageant was held, what the criteria for judging were, who witnessed the pageant, how many contestants competed, and from where in French Africa these contestants hailed. The photo is a headshot of a caf\u00e9 au lait-toned woman identified as Miss Marie C\u00e9line, a “young m\u00e9tisse (mixed-race woman) of Niger.”<\/p>\n

A rather modest photo in comparison to those of post-World War II pageants in the United States, Miss L’Eurafrique looks at the camera in an unprovocative and grave manner. Her long hair is plaited into a single, neat braid without a stray hair in sight. Though her age is not indicated, she appears to be youthful, likely in her mid- to late teens. Her face is devoid of…<\/p>\n

Read or purchase the article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Miss Eurafrica”: Men, Women’s Sexuality, and M\u00e9tis Identity in Late Colonial French Africa, 1945-1960 Journal of the History of Sexuality Volume 20, Number 3, September 2011 pages 568-593 Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Assistant Professor of African History University of Chicago The 1960 issue of the magazine L’Eurafricain (The Eurafrican) featured a cover photo of a woman announced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,459,125,8,25],"tags":[8844,3141],"class_list":["post-19188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-history","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-women","tag-journal-of-the-history-of-sexuality","tag-rachel-jean-baptiste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}