La bibliothèque et les archives de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient : de la constitution à la crise de la décolonisation (1898-1959)
Author: Capot, Cécile
Under the direction of: Andrew David Hardy and Christine Nougaret
Paris Sciences et Lettres University
Texte français
Keywords: History, Indochina, Libraries, Archives, Heritage, Indochina, Colonization, Decolonization.
Abstract
In 1898, the orientalists’ need to collect and study materials in situ led to the creation of the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO). This institute is founded in Hanoi in a context of colonization and of renewal of the scientific methods. The work carried out by the EFEO, directed for a long time by the "archiviste paléographe" Louis Finot (1864-1935), followed by the decolonization of Indochina, have contributed to creating new documentary landscapes, as well as a new approach of the written word. From the end of the Second World War until its departure from Hanoi in 1959, the EFEO is in crisis. The study of its scientific, social and political role at that time demonstrates the library’s key role as a provider of legitimacy, for the institution, its agents, the French state and emerging new states. Through the case study of the EFEO’s library and archives, this work leads us to wonder how France acquired its political and scientific legitimacy in Indochina. The first part of this thesis deals with the construction of the EFEO and its library. It studies the way the collections were created on the underlying logic and the strategies at play. It also focuses on the new institution’s place in Indochina’s administrative, cultural and scientific environment, as well as in the city of Hanoi, and in colonial society. After the military conquest, the EFEO, as an organ of the colonial administration, is part of a political effort to conquer the population through culture, education and science. In this effort to consolidate the new regime in power, the institution is far from a simple tool : it also has a political agenda, in its field of expertise - science - and the quest for documents can serve a certain power. The second part offers an inside view of the library and archives, by studying its administration, from the people involved (staff and patrons) to its documentary practices. It gives an account of the intellectual work carried out in the library, and of the nuanced relations between researchers and their Asian auxiliaries. It also questions the researchers’, but also the institution’s and the public’s relation to the archives and bibliographical documents. The third part focuses on the library and archives’ management in times of crisis, and highlights the political and diplomatic issues at stake regarding the documents. During the troubled times from the Second World War’s bombings in Indochina to the EFEO’s final departure from Hanoi in 1959, its collections turn patrimonial. They are invested with identity concerns by the territories seeking their independence. On the French side, keeping the library means keeping part of the institution in place, and therefore the possibility of political negotiations. Although the EFEO’s collections and library are subject to several disputes, and a manifestation of the rift between France and Vietnam, they are also a source of continuity. They are a symbol of institutional permanence, notably at the arrival of the collections moving to Paris with the new headquarters, and the possibility of a scientific continuity in Vietnam, where part of the library is transferred, and where some of the previous librarians remain. Finally, this thesis is an opportunity to put libraries and archives in perspective. What does the history of the library of the EFEO, an institution far from France, where professional practices are formalized, and whose central concern is research, contribute to the history of libraries and archives ? How much did it contribute to the dissemination of these professional techniques in Indochina ?
