How ‘natives’ ate at colonial exhibitions in 1889, 1900 and 1931

Abstract

A lot has been written on the cultural and ideological implications of French ‘human zoos’ and the ‘natives’ from the French colonies who were displayed in colonial exhibitions. Not much has been said, however, about what and how those ‘natives’ ate and drank as they were transported to Paris for the international exhibitions. In this article, I would like to draw attention to the politics of food consumption at the Paris colonial expositions of 1889, 1900 and 1931. Shared meals and official banquets were performances of colonial integration, and hygiene and food safety measures in connection with what the ‘natives’ ate and drank could be interpreted as part of the mission civilisatrice. However, I also want to show that food – exotic food – can also be an unruly object on the pacified space of the international exhibition: a generator of disgust or revulsion that may be a dissonant element within the smooth narratives of French colonialism.