Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou © MQB-JC

Doctoral scholarship for the study of colonial slavery

and its consequences and legacies

Content

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS ACADEMIC YEAR 2024 - 2025

A partnership between the Fondation pour la mémoire de l'esclavage and the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac

For the academic year 2024-2025, the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac and the Fondation pour la mémoire de l'esclavage are offering a doctoral scholarship designed to help a young doctoral student carry out original and innovative research projects.

Since opening its doors in June 2006, the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac has endeavoured to question the meaning, use and significance of the collections in its care. This work also involves ambitious, multi-faceted programming on these issues. Numerous exhibitions, meetings, conferences and screenings have provided an insight into the history of slavery, colonisation, racism, the fight for equal rights and independence.

The research grant offered with the Fondation pour la Mémoire de l’esclavage is part of this dynamic.

The Fondation pour la mémoire de l'esclavage, created in November 2019, has the following missions :

  • to develop knowledge and the transmission of the history of slavery, the slave trade and its abolition as an integral part of the history of France and the world (France, Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean);
  • bring memories together by highlighting the cultural, artistic and human heritage of this history, in all its richness and variety;
  • promoting the republican values of freedom, equality and fraternity and France's commitment to combating racism, discrimination and contemporary forms of slavery.

In line with these missions, the strategic orientations of the Foundation's research programme are to ‘connect’ research on subjects relating to slavery and its legacies with social and civic action, and to encourage bridges between territories in Europe and outside Europe (in particular overseas collectivities).

Within the framework of their partnership, the grant concerns research projects in the following disciplines: history, social anthropology, ethnomusicology, art history, archaeology, sociology and the performing arts.

It encourages research on specific themes or approaches: cultural history and representations, museology and heritage, the study of post-slavery societies and their tangible and intangible social and cultural heritage, African perspectives on slavery, the study of social dynamics and resistance.
Projects that are particularly likely to benefit from the environment of the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (collections, archives, media library, scientific community) will be examined with the greatest attention.

During the course of the year, the selected candidate will present a chapter of his/her thesis or an original article as part of the internal seminar of the Research and Teaching Department of the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, and will present his/her approach and a selection of his/her results, as part of a ‘research seminar’.

How to register your application

Applications for doctoral grants must be made on a downloadable form during the period of the call for applications.

Application forms can be downloaded by clicking here.

In order to be registered, the complete application file must be sent twice before midnight on Thursday 11 July 2024:

  • electronically, to the following address bourses@quaibranly.fr: applicants are asked to combine the various documents in the application file into a single pdf file, no larger than 5MB. The file should be named as follows: NOM_candidatureDOCFME_2022.pdf

By post (marked ‘Candidature Bourse doctorale FME/mqB-JC) to the following address

Research and Teaching Department
Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac
222, rue de l'Université
75343 Paris Cedex 07

 

Winner of the 2023-2024 doctoral scholarship

  • Camille CORDIER, doctoral student in history, Université Lyon Lumièr
     ‘Food consumption and markets in Cap-Français, Saint-Domingue, 1695-1789’.

Supplementary list

1.    Marie SEBILLOTTE, doctoral student in history, EHESS
‘Abolition, emancipation and dependence in Kongo. La longue sortie de l'esclavage (1861-1920)’.

2.    Noémie MARIE-ROSE, doctoral student in history, EHESS
‘Libérer l'esclave, attacher le travailleur: une histoire du travail en Martinique post-esclavagiste (1848- 1900)’.

3.    Thais TANURE, doctoral student in history, Université Paris 1
‘Transatlantic memories: the heritage of slavery in Nantes and Rio de Janeiro (1984-2018)’.

 

Winner of the 2022 doctoral scholarship

Jessica BALGUY, doctoral student in history, EHESS
‘Les libres de couleur: des propriétaires comme les autres? Prosopographie des bénéficiaires de l'indemnité coloniale de 1849 à la Martinique’.

 

Winner of the 2021 doctoral scholarship

Antoine GUEGAN, Film Studies, Université Paris Est
‘The representation of slavery in American cinema: From Uncle Tom's Cabin to 12 Years a Slave (1903-2013)’.