Undesirable : Passionate Mobility and Women’s Defiance of French Colonial Policing, 1919–1952

**Archival research into policing and surveillance of migrant women illuminates pressing contemporary issues.** Examining little-known policing archives in France, Senegal, and Cambodia, Jennifer Anne Boittin unearths the stories of hundreds of women labeled “undesirable” by the French colonial police and society in the early twentieth century. These “undesirables” were often women traveling alone, women who were poor or ill, women of color, or women whose intimate lives were deemed unruly. To refute the label and be able to move freely, they spoke out or wrote impassioned letters: some emphasized their “undesirable” qualities to suggest that they needed the care and protection of the state to support their movements, while others used the empire’s own laws around Frenchness and mobility to challenge state or societal interference. Tacking between advocacy and supplication, these women summoned intimate details to move beyond, contest, or confound surveillance efforts, bringing to life a practice that Boittin terms “passionate mobility.” In considering how ordinary women pursued autonomy, security, companionship, or simply a better existence in the face of surveillance and control, __Undesirable__ illuminates pressing contemporary issues of migration and violence. "Examining little-known policing archives in France, Senegal, and Cambodia, Jennifer Boittin unearths the stories of hundreds of women labeled "undesirable" by the French imperial police in the early twentieth century. These undesirables were often women traveling alone, women who were poor or ill, women of color proclaiming their "Frenchness" to move throughout the empire, or women whose intimate lives were deemed unruly. Undesirability often brought alongside it immobility or imposed migration; French officials routinely either denied passage throughout the empire or attempted to relocate women as they saw fit. To refute the label, women wrote impassioned letters to police and ministers throughout France, French West Africa, and French Indochina. Some emphasized their "undesirable" qualities to suggest that they needed the care and protection of the state to support their movements. Others used the empire's own laws around Frenchness and mobility to challenge state interference, illustrating their independence. Tacking between advocacy and supplication, these women summoned intimate details to move beyond, contest, or confound surveillance efforts and the intrusions of imperial policing, bringing to life a practice that Boittin terms "passionate mobility." In considering how ordinary European, Southeast Asian, and West African women pursued autonomy, security, companionship, or simply a better existence in the face of police surveillance and control, Undesirable illuminates pressing contemporary issues of migration and violence"-- Provided by publisher Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Introduction -- 1 "I Refused": Undesirable Immobile Vengeful -- 2 Traversing Movements of Embarking, Crossing, Disembarking, Circulating, Dispersing, and Reconstructing -- 3 "Man- Woman": Siting Frenchness, Sites of Frenchness -- 4 "The Law Has Been Violated in My Person": On the Anatomy of Intimate Violence -- 5 They "Allegedly Had Intimate Relations": Gossip, Desire, and Companionship -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index