La Belle Africaine

The Sudanese Giraffe who went to France

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2140653
AutoresHeather J Sharkey (0000-0002-1847-0639, University of Pennsylvania, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen49
Número1
Páginas39-65
Fecha de publicación2015-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCanadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0008-3968 • E-ISSN: 1923-3051
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00083968.2015.1043712
OpenAlexW1566191125
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas36

In 1826, Mehmet Ali of Egypt sent a giraffe from somewhere in what is now the Republic of the Sudan to King Charles X of France. The first live giraffe ever to reach France, she arrived when public museums and zoos were emerging, inspiring scholarly and popular interest in science and the world beyond French borders. This article studies the career and “afterlives” of this giraffe in France and relative to giraffes at large in the Sudan, in order to trace a Franco-Sudanese history that has stretched from the early nineteenth century to the present. At the same time, viewing this connected history in the aftermath of the 2011 secession of South Sudan, when colonial and national borders appear contingent and subject to change, this article approaches the Sudan as a zone (as opposed to a fixed country) within global networks of migration involving people, other animals, things, and ideas

Ancient history · Archaeology · Colonialism · Geography · Order (exchange) · Political science · African history and culture studies · American History and Culture · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History