on social development allowed the construction of hospitals, clinics, and schools in various cities of the territory.25
MAP 1.1. Key FIDES operations in colonial Ivory Coast. Adapted from Ambassade de France (USA), French Africa: A Decade of Progress, 20. Cartography by author.
There is a basis to argue that FIDES gave a decisive boost to the modernization drive in postwar Ivory Coast. By creating a network of transportation systems, it contributed to a smoother circulation of people, goods, and ideas—a process not unlike the impact of Sarraut’s colonial policy after the First World War. While such circulation transformed the territory, it should not be forgotten that the purpose of the grands travaux undertaken by the late colonial state was to create a network of communication and transportation facilities that would expedite the delivery of colonial raw materials and foodstuffs to the metropole and beyond. In that, it resembled the interwar colonial policy of mise en valeur, which labored to extract the resources of the forest regions even as it forced northerners to migrate south and work on the budding tree-crop economy.26 Similarly, the postwar mobilization of colonial experts and their knowledge was reminiscent of the interwar period, when the first web of France’s tropical research organizations was consolidated in the hope that they would help the metropole to better exploit its overseas territories.
POSTWAR REMOBILIZATION OF COLONIAL SCIENTISTS
Arguably, the need for more intense practical knowledge emerged after the Second World War at the time when the French economy had to be reassembled. In fact, science, technology, and social engineering played a critical role in this postwar drive toward both reconstruction and modernization. In metropolitan France, for instance, the rise of applied science at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) proved to be a most opportune conjuncture in assisting the government in its efforts at revitalizing an economy that the war had crippled.27 Authorities in charge of France’s overseas territories anticipated a similar scenario. Consequently, they set up the Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer (ORSTOM) in the 1940s, strategically disseminating its network of regional/territorial centers (see map 1.2) throughout the empire.28
If the late interwar mise en valeur projects relied on the research expertise of such institutions as the Institut National d’Agronomie Tropicale (INAC), its experimental gardens, and the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (IFAN), the French colonial modernizers of the late 1940s and 1950s mobilized the epistemic power of a new crop of institutions that produced tropical knowledge, including the Institut de Recherches des Huiles et Oléagineux (IRHO), Institut de Recherches du Coton et des Textiles Exotiques (IRCT), the Institut de Recherches sur le Caoutchouc (IRCA), the Institut d’Elevage et de Médecine Vétérinaire Tropicale (IEMVT), and ORSTOM.29 In a context dominated by a search for a better means to exploit the resources of the outre-mer and make its populations more productive, ORSTOM’s agenda was updated to include not only applied ecological experiments but also social science research. In this regard, and echoing a practice already in place among their fellow sociologists in metropolitan France, the imperial authorities called upon the expertise of the colonial social scientists to guide postwar development policies. Within the international context of the emergence of new tools to measure poverty and an ever-incessant refinement of statistical methods, survey teams were immediately dispatched to various parts of the outre-mer, including French Equatorial and West Africa, Madagascar, and New Caledonia.30
MAP 1.2. ORSTOM’s global reach. Cartography by author.
To the satisfaction of the local authorities, the colonial social scientists, now equipped with presumably better measurement tools, re-highlighted the supposed mentalités of the “natives” with regard to their economic, social, and agronomical practices.31 This was the case with Jean-Louis Boutillier, who co-led a study mission in the Bouaké region to survey the foodways and agricultural mores of the Baule in Central Ivory Coast.32 In the wake of the FIDES modernization drive, ORSTOM was also contracted to train agricultural extension agents for the overseas territories. On the assumption that the colonial farmers would better produce only if they were guided appropriately, the FIDES managing directorate (comité directeur) granted substantial funds to ORSTOM to establish a training program for extension agents.33
It was perhaps in the earth sciences (pedology, entomology, plant sciences, and other related disciplines) that the early Orstomians associated with Adiopodoumé made their lasting impact on the field of development in postwar Ivory Coast. During the negotiations for the establishment of the Ivorian branch of ORSTOM, Professor Raoul Combes, the chairman of the research agency, told the governor-general of French West Africa that his institution would not fail to serve the interest of any territory willing to host ORSTOM’s facilities and research centers.34 A little earlier, he had pitched a similar argument to the territorial governor of Ivory Coast, emphasizing specifically that his organization would “render innumerable services” to Ivory Coast if it were allowed to open its leading tropical branch in the territory.35
Turning this promise into a reality, Orstomians carried out soil research in various regions of the French-ruled territories of West Africa in the late 1940s to determine soil types and suggest the corresponding best agricultural uses for them.36 Sometimes the contributions of ORSTOM researchers were at the request of private, if influential, individuals. This was certainly the case when Raymond Desclers—a leading voice in the white planter community—asked ORSTOM scientists to conduct pedological prospection on his plantation in view of helping him extend his coffee farm.37 Similarly, the Compagnie Bananière et Fruitière de la Côte d’Ivoire (COBAFRUIT) appealed to the organization when it planned on expanding its activities.38 In other instances, it was the public authorities themselves who mobilized the expertise of ORSTOM, directing the attention of its researchers to specific agricultural issues. Convinced that ORSTOM research might be useful in the agricultural development of the territory and given that the Bingerville agronomic research center was technically a federal institution directed from Dakar, colonial authorities in Abidjan requested in the early 1950s that an autonomous bureau be created within Adiopodoumé whose role would be to focus uniquely on Ivorian agronomic research. The request was granted, and a Section Autonome de Recherche Agronomique (Autonomous Agronomic Research Section, or SARA) was established in 1953 with its funding coming exclusively from Ivory Coast.39
ORSTOM’s practical involvement in Ivorian agronomic development was wide-ranging. While some of its researchers worked on ways to improve the cutting and grafting techniques of commercial tree plants, others mapped out the various pathologies affecting tropical plants, including coffee and cocoa trees. In addition, there was research done on the best feeding practices of commercial tree plants.40 Given that the early reputation of ORSTOM was built on soil science, it came as no surprise that the pedological expertise of the Orstomians was a “hot commodity” among planters and colonial bureaucrats in charge of agricultural development in Ivory Coast.41 In fact, even before the creation of SARA, the Orstomians had been pushed to map out the pedological profile of the Ivorian territory as a whole. In this regard, Jean-Marie Brugière and Maurice Schmid surveyed the soil characteristics of farmlands at La Mé experimental station as early as 1947.42 Subsequently, a sizable amount of research was conducted to determine the best soil types for growing coffee beans, cocoa beans, bananas, sugarcane, and other cash crops suitable for the colony.43
It is not a leap of imagination, therefore, to argue that the work of the Orstomians contributed to the Ivorian agricultural boom that came in the aftermath of the Second World War. Through their research on soil types, parasites, and plant pathologies, they helped make sense of farm management in a tropical setting. By developing pest-resistant breeds, they equally assisted in preventing outbreaks of plant diseases. In a sense, then, the activities of the Orstomians confirmed that knowledge production