1. The CSRS had been responsible for steering research since April 1933. Its mandate was expanded by the Popular Front. which also saw the existence of a Secretary of State’s Office for Scientific Research, occupied successively by Irène Joliot-Curie (June to September 1936) and then by Jean Perrin (October 1936 to June 1937). The CSRS was devoted essentially to basic research conducted in its own laboratories or in university laboratories, and to the recruitment of researchers. Alongside this institution, the Caisse Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, created in October 1935, managed the available credits. A Service Central de la Recherche Scientifique within the National Education Ministry took care of the administrative implementation. In May 1938, to reinforce the “scientific mobilization” for economic recovery and national defense, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Appliquée (CNRSA) was created, supported by a “Haut Comité de Coordination de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique”, presided by Jean Perrin. The CSRS, the CNRSA, the Caisse and the Service Central merged on 19 October 1939 to make up the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). See: Jean-François Picard (1990), La République des savants. La Recherche française et le CNRS (Paris, Flammarion).
2. The Office de la Recherche Scientifique Coloniale (ORSC) changed its name to the Office de la Recherche Scientifique Outre-Mer (ORSOM) on 28 August 1949, and became the ORSTOM (a change of structure and goals, addition of the “T” — “et Technique”) on 17 November 1953.
3. Michel Margairaz agreed with this choice of a chronological framework that went beyond a political or military periodisation, in his study of State action in the area of economics,as did Claudine Cotte in her study of France’s African economic policy. See Michel Margairaz (1991), L’État, les finances et l’économie. Histoire d’une conversion. 1932–1952 (Paris, Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France); Claudine Cotte (1981), “La Politique économique de la France en Afrique noire. 1936–1946” (Thèse de troisième cycle, Université de Paris 7). See also Jacques Marseille (1984), Empire colonial et capitalisme français (Paris, Albin Michel); Richard F. Kuisel (1977), “Vichy et les origines de la planification économique (1940–1946)”, Le Mouvement social, no 98, pp. 77–101; Philippe Mioche (1987), Origines et démarrages de la planification en France (194/-1946) ( Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne).
4. Throughout this text, we have kept in mind that the use of such terms as “colonial sciences”, “sciences for the colonies, for colonisation”, etc., may have different meanings depending on the periods and the actors involved.The first half of the twentieth century, and especially the years covered in this text, saw deep transformations in “science”, not only in the emergence and evolution of disciplines and their content but also in scientific practices, the organization of science and its place in the socio-economic system (Big Science), the development of scientific policies, etc.In the Colonies, this involved notably the emergence of so-called “tropical” disciplines, the role of genetics and microbiology with respect to the “old” disciplines based on observation and classification, the involvement of multiple social actors from outside the new colonial scientific communities, the recurring debate on experimentation vs. surveys, etc.The colonial situation brings out two more specific features:— Most of the actors (including scientists) tended to subordinate what passed for “colonial research” to “harnessing” colonial wealth and more generally to direct economic utility. For this reason, the differentiation between the technical services and scientific research (in today’s sense of the word) was particularly long in coming about, and even longer than in metropolitan France. This differentiation occurred only during the period examined in the article, much later than in the British and Dutch empires.— The organization of scientific activities, as components of a colonial policy, was done by and for the metropolis, without consulting the local populations, including scientists. The way research was conducted in the Colonies, the objectives assigned to fundamental research were therefore much more dependent on elements and interests outside the Colonies than on eventual local dynamics.The content and eventual specificity of a “colonial/tropical science” were the constant subject of discussion, and we will refer to these several times in the course of the text, while keeping in mind that the content of the terms used was changing during this period.
5. Lewis Pyenson (1993), Civilizing Mission, Exact Science and French Overseas Expansion, 1830–1940 (Johns Hopkins UP); Anne-Marie Moulin, “Patriarcal Science: the Network of the Overseas Pasteur Institutes”, in P. Petitjean, C. Jami & A.-M. Moulin (1991), Science and Empires (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers), pp. 307–322; Michael A. Osborne (1994), Nature, the Exotic and the Science of French Colonialism (Indiana UP); Christophe Bonneuil (1991), Des savants pour l’empire (Paris, ORSTOM); Christophe Bonneuil & Mina Kleiche (1993), Du jardin d’essais colonial à la station expérimentale. 1880–1930 ( Paris, CIRAD ).