The question of Mobile Field Brothels (Bordels Militaires de Campagne or BMC) is not new, nor of course is it specific to contemporary colonial contexts, as we see in the global history of prostitution dating back times of antiquity. Moreover, it goes without saying that militaries (in times of both peace and war) and prostitution are intimately connected, yesterday, today and doubtless tomorrow, as we currently see in certain contemporary situations in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Balkans, including within the United Nations Peace Corps. Nevertheless, the BMC have a particular connotation within the racialized contexts of the French Colonial Second Empire (1830-1962), as much as in French Algeria during colonization and the Algerian war (1954-1962) as in metropolitan France and the occupied zones during the Second World War (1939-1947). This is as a result of the presence within the army of colonial troops from the Maghreb (especially those of the Algerian “Tirailleurs” and the Moroccan “Goumiers”), as well as in French Indochina during the decolonization war (1946-1954) in which these same soldiers were also largely mobilized for « peacekeeping » operations which quickly dissolved into armed conflict. Using these three different colonial situations and these three territories – Algeria, Metropolitan France, and French Indochina—within the above time frames, we will attempt to shed light on the BMC systems of the French army.

About the Speaker

Christelle Taraud is a historian and feminist specializing in women, gender and sexuality in a colonial context, and in gender-based violence (GBV) and feminicide from a global perspective, which has led her to coin the concept of the “feminicide continuum”. She is Senior Lecturer at NYU Paris and associate member of the Centre d'histoire du XIXe siècle (Paris I-Paris IV). Her books include La Prostitution coloniale (Payot, 2003 and 2009) and Amour interdit. Prostitution, marginality and colonialism (Payot, 2012). She has also co-edited Sexe, race et colonies (La Découverte, 2018) and Sexualités, identités et corps colonisés (CNRS Editions, 2019) and edited Féminicides: Une Histoire mondiale (La Découverte, 2022). Her next book, Histoire des sexualités en France, XIXe-XXIe siècle, will be published by Armand Colin in autumn 2024.

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, UCLA Center for the Study of Women