Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea (Jun 2014)
Expositions provinciales et identités coloniales au XIXe siècle
Abstract
Is it possible to construct a history of France’s ‘colonial exhibitions’ without mentioning those organized in the Nineteenth Century at Bordeaux, Nantes, Metz, Le Havre, Lyon, Rochefort, Cherbourg, Beauvais, Nice, Montauban, Rouen and Tours? By studying the scenography of these little-known provincial exhibitions, this paper seeks, firstly, to understand the economic, political and especially symbolic issues for these towns (especially the ports) around the construction of their colonial identities; secondly, it wants to determine the role of the State in the dissemination and gradual popularization of a unified national discourse.