UCLA

This doctoral dissertation traces how local organizing groups and municipal entities faire oeuvre de mémoire [make work of memory] to advance the recognition of the history of the transatlantic slave trade in Nantes, France. Unlike many metropolitan cities in Europe, the city attempts to reconcile its colonial past. However, I argue that the city still falls into discursive traps and utilizes distancing mechanisms through exhibits and memorials to avoid acknowledging the ongoing legacies of racism and anti-blackness in the afterlife of slavery. This dissertation demonstrates that the fight for memory in Nantes is a crucial intervention since the concept of race and the memory of colonial hierarchies do not correspond with the core tenets of French republicanism and secularism. France’s distancing mechanisms allow a dismissal of racial rhetoric in the country, reflecting a global amnesia that continually harms Black and brown communities. This analysis is centered on Nantes, due to its extensive shipbuilding activities, which was the primary hub of the transatlantic slave trade in the country. Although often overlooked, Nantes’ unprecedented steps towards recognizing its colonial history make the city a crucial case study for understanding French debates and silences about enslavement, racial violence, and contemporary structures of inequality. I engage with cultural sites in Nantes to analyze the discursive structures and practices that shape how the history of slavery is officially presented in Nantes. I delve extensively into Nantes’ local archives to uncover how local organizations in Nantes attempt to shift the representation of slavery within French public space. “Mémoire et Patrimoine: The Present-Day Impact of the History of Slavery in France” contributes to ongoing conversations on how to address the ongoing legacies of racism in the afterlife of slavery.