Mediating Coolies
Les intermédiaires dans l'organisation du travail migrant au sein de l'Empire colonial français d'Asie et en métropole, de la fin du XIXe au milieu du XXe siècle : enquête historique en cours, perspectives de recherche
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6188670 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Éric Guerassimoff (Université Paris Cité, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 23-24 |
| Pages | 1-18 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | French Colonial History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1539-3402 • E-ISSN: 1543-7787 |
| Publisher | Michigan State University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.14321/frencolohist.23-24.2025.0001 |
| OpenAlex | W7104725488 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 41 |
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the French imperial network resulted in the creation of multiple migration routes between various French colonies and dependencies in Asia-Pacific region, thus reshaping mobility in the area. Although the French government actively promoted migration by organizing and subsidizing travel and establishing systems of indentured labor, recruitment operations were often carried out by coolie brokers, who became important social and political actors in labor relations. Analyzing and defining their contributions to the expansion of migrant networks within the French Empire remains crucial not only for colonial and post-colonial studies but also for understanding contemporary labor migrations in the Asia-Pacific. The term “mediating Coolies” refers to the organization of labor migrations —including recruitment, passage, management, repatriation or return— by a range of intermediaries, whether native, migrant or foreign, operating under various colonial labor regimes. This collection of articles examines different forms of “coolie” brokerage in France's Empire in Asia and seeks to address a gap in the scholarship on links between political and social contexts and transnational labor migration in the region. The articles compare specific recruitment practices of labor brokers across different migration regimes and assess the relationships between state structures and labor brokers within the French colonial system
Colonialism · Empire · Labor history · Labor relations · Politics · Scholarship · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · International Labor and Employment Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics
When Women Come First
“As Always, The Trouble Is With The French." Britain, France, The Netherlands And The Colonial Labor Market In The 19th Century
Colonialism and Migration; Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery
Migration History in World History
Proletarian and Gendered Mass Migrations
Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century
The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration
Transnational Japan as History
Contracting Margins? Liquid International Migration in the Pacific
Space of Mediation
From Asia to the World
Les Subaltern Studies
Migrants japonais dans le Vietnam colonial
Theories of International Migration
Asian Indentured Labor in the 19th and Early 20th Century Colonial Plantation World
Conceptualizing International Labor Migration
Oceans without Borders”
Mediating Labour
Migration as a Business
Globalising Migration History
On Coerced Labor
Bound Coolies’ and Other Indentured Workers in the Caribbean
Connecting Seas and Connected Ocean Rims
Xénophobie business
Slaves, Convicts, Abolitionism and the Global Origins of the Post-Emancipation Indentured Labor System
Sardars, Jobbers, Kanganies
The Internal Dynamics of Migration Processes
Entrapped Entrepreneurship
New directions in exploring the migration industries
Concessionnaires et sous-traitants
Postscript
Opening the Black Box of Migration
How the Box Became Black
Brokers as Assemblers
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |