Algeria, France, Mexico, UNESCO: a transnational history of anti-racism and decolonization, 1932–1962

Two crucial terms in discussions about racial or ethnic relations – ‘discrimination’ and ‘integration’ – first appeared in official French documents in the 1950s. They quickly became key references in the government’s pioneering efforts, in response to the Algerian revolution, to recognize the importance and fight against the effects of French racism on ‘Muslim French citizens from Algeria’. This policy was named ‘integrationism’; its premises and measures had overseas inspirations and it was bureaucrats from an international organization who made such policy models available for French adoption. All of this was possible because of transnational networks of social scientists, which included some who helped author them as well as others who studied and wrote about them. More specifically, it was projects and claims from Mexico that provided the most direct references for French integrationist policies and it was through the efforts of UNESCO that French integrationists gained detailed knowledge about them.