Introduction

Abstract

This chapter provides context on 20th century history and politics in the French empire in the Caribbean and Africa. It also defines the central concept of citizenship and argues that black women’s decolonial citizenship disrupts the tiered, exclusionary modes of belonging imposed by the French state on overseas France. The chapter situates this study within the field of French and francophone studies and highlights black French women’s contributions to both anticolonial politics and black transnational feminism. It also introduces briefly the lives and works of the seven women at the center of the book.