Undesirable

Drawing on police archives in France, Senegal and Cambodia, Jennifer Boittin recovers the stories of hundreds of women whom French colonial officers recorded as undesirable in the early twentieth century. Many of them travelled alone, many were poor or sick, many were women of color, and many had private relationships that the authorities judged disorderly.

Faced with this label, these women fought back in writing and speech. Some sent emotional letters that played up the very traits marking them as undesirable, arguing that they needed the state's care and protection in order to move about. Others turned the empire's own laws on Frenchness and mobility against officials who tried to restrict them. Boittin calls this blend of appeal and petition, in which women used intimate personal details to slip past, resist or confuse surveillance, "passionate mobility." By following how ordinary women pursued independence, safety, companionship or simply a more livable life under watch, the book connects these historical records to present-day questions about migration and violence.