2016 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize

 

Winner:

Emily Burrill, States of Marriage: Gender, Justice, and Rights in Colonial Mali (Ohio University Press, 2015.)

Based on a close scrutiny of court files in local archives as well as on oral testimony, States of Marriage: Gender, Justice, and Rights in Colonial Mali examines the institution of marriage in French Sudan from pre-colonial times to the end of the colonial period. The author provides a history of the ideological debates surrounding the meaning of marriage and the influence of the French presence in the region on the practice and legal norms relating to marriage. She argues persuasively that conflicts over power, access to property, religious authority, and ideologies of gender all centered on debates over marriage She raises important questions that are relevant not only to gender studies but also to the nature of French colonial rule and the social and cultural aspects of its policies. Although her book focuses on marriage, it also sheds light on other important aspects of French colonial rule, such as the concept of justice in the colonial context, the relentless attempts to codify African practices and legal norms, and the patriarchal and repressive nature of the colonial regime in spite of its pretense of defending African women's rights. States of Marriage is not only a superb, well-researched scholarly achievement; it is also wonderfully written and reads like a good fiction book. For all these reasons, the committee felt that it was appropriate to select this book as winner of this year’s Heggoy Prize.

 

Other Books Submitted:

Michael Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis. Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism (Cambridge UP, 2015)

Kelly Duke Bryant, Education as Politics. Colonial Schooling and Political Debate in Senegal, 1850s-1914 (U. of Wisconsin Press, 2015)

Ethan Katz, The Burdens of Brotherhood. Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France (Harvard UP, 2015)

Sung-Eun Choi, Decolonization and the French of Algeria. Bringing the Settler Colony Home (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

Margaret Cook Andersen, Regeneration through Empire. French Pronatalists and Colonial Settlement in the Third Republic (U. of Nebraska Press, 2015)

Caroline Campbell, Political Belief in France, 1927-1945. Gender, Empire, and Fascism in the Croix de Feu and Parti Social Français (Louisiana State UP, 2015)