National Identity and Shifting Imperial Frontiers: Whiteness and the Exclusion of Colonial Labor After World War I

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ABSTRACT This article addresses both the specific history and the broader implications of France's expulsion of colonial labor after World War I. The article also considers questions of race, immigration, and exoticist culture during the interwar years, showing that the French fascination with the Other reflected a determination to confirm a national identity as white. The use and expulsion of colonial labor in effect transferred a central colonial focus, racial identity, to the metropole.