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'Notre peuple a perdu le sens de la danse honnête'. Danses africaines, catégories légales et (re)définitions de l'obscénité dans le Congo colonial

par Lauro, Amandine
Référence Cahiers - Centre de Recherches en Histoire du Droit et des Institutions, 38
Publication Publié, 2016

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

From the early 20th century, colonial authorities in the Belgian Congo became worried about Congolese dances described as « obscene » and presented as threats for the moral (and public) order of the colony. This article aims precisely at interrogating these discursive and normative evolutions as well as the projects of legal regulation born of the anxieties. It analyses the evolutions of colonial definitions of « morality » through the interwar period and the ways in which they reflected in the moving boundaries of the official category of « obscene dances ». It underlines that the renewal of European concerns about these recreational practices testifies to the existence of larger anxieties linked to the limits of colonial control in urban spaces and in their developing places of (nightlife) sociabilities. These questions offer a particularly interesting base to explore the limits of colonial surveillance of spaces of feasts and celebrations in Central Africa in the first half of the 20th century and to study how colonial law has been used, in evolutive and flexible ways, to try to counter these limits.