The articles in this issue did not come to us as a set. Some were proposed in the context of conversations around global labor; others were submitted independently. They also examine very different sites in metropolitan France and the French empire, as well as different chronological turning points. These include the sugar plantations and courtrooms of the Caribbean before the second abolition of slavery in 1848; steamships crossing the Indian and Pacific Oceans in the late nineteenth century; displays of Sara men and women from Chad and Kanak actors from New Caledonia in metropolitan France; women's artisanal workshops in interwar Algeria; and sites of prophecy and unrest in Senegal during World War II.
We were, however, struck by how these articles resonated with one another. Drawing on previously overlooked or inaccessible archives and bringing together materials from dispersed collections, they call attention to racial and gendered capitalisms. The authors emphasize...
