Hélène d'Almeida-Topor

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Hélène d'Almeida-Topor (born October 2, 1932 in Paris ) is a French historian and specialist in African economic, social and cultural history.

biography

Hélène d'Almeida-Topor was born in Paris in 1932 as the daughter of the Polish artist Abram Topor and his wife Zlata Binsztok. She completed her education as a secondary history teacher in 1959 and taught from 1960 to 1970 in Porto-Novo , the capital of Benin, at the Béhanzin High School and at the Institute of Graduate Studies, then for several years in Lomé in Togo .

She worked as a lecturer at the Université Paris 12 Val-de-Marne . In 1987 she completed her habilitation under the direction of Jean Ganiage with the title "Economic History of Dahomey (1890–1920)" at the Sorbonne Université . From 1988 to 1994 she was a professor at the University of Metz , after which she moved to the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne , where she worked until her retirement in 2003. She is a member of the African Research Center and the Laboratoire Mutations Africaines .

Research priorities

In her habilitation thesis submitted in 1987, D'Almeida-Topor dealt with the economic changes that triggered the colonization of Dahomey , today's Benin . In doing so, she examined the pre-colonial conditions with the current trading situation, in particular the almost complete dependence on palm cultivation for export and the influence of European wholesalers. The colonization had led to a division of tasks. The slightly more than 800 Europeans who, according to them, existed in the region before the outbreak of World War I, took over the supervision of the local population and trade, while the locals were responsible for production. D'Almeida pointed to the increasing share of taxes in the economy, intended to compensate for losses in customs revenue after 1904. She emphasized the difficulties that arose from Dahomey's dependence on the palm monoculture , especially when markets are lost, such as Germany during the First World War. At that time, forced recruitment had provoked uprisings and the flight of many men.

As part of their research, they also investigated the effects of the world economic crisis of 1929/1930 on the economy of the African continent, where she focused on the export of several monoculture products that had enabled the countries concerned to apply the required taxes and to buy consumer goods.

In 1985, Hélène d'Almeida-Topor published a treatise on the "Amazons of Dahomey", female elite military units that had been in service from the 17th century until the surrender of the last King of Dahomey, Behanzin, in 1894.

In 1994 she published a large study on traffic routes in Africa.

In 2004, together with Josette Rivallain, she organized a conference on June 18, 1940 in honor of the 60th anniversary of the first meeting of the French-Guiana colonial politician Félix Éboué with Charles de Gaulle .

Together with her colleague Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Hélène d'Almeida-Topor is organizing a symposium in 2010 on the subject of “Fifty Years of African Independence” with a focus on the francophone countries. Both the intensity of the struggles on the way to independence, as well as the wave of enthusiasm that accompanied independence, which was also embedded in a "global wave of emancipation" with echoes in America and the Caribbean, and which ultimately through the The arrival of new independent states led to a new balance of power on the world stage.

On a wide variety of topics, her aim has always been to question conventional views of Africa.

Private

Her brother Roland Topor , also an artist, is a writer. Her son Fabrice d'Almeida is a historian.

Awards

  • In 2011 she was appointed honorary president of the Société française d'histoire des outre-mers , of which she was president for many years.

Publications

  • Les Amazones. Une armée de femmes dans l'Afrique précoloniale , 1984 Gallica [7] , new edition 2016, La Lanterne magique editions, ISBN 978-2-91618022-9
  • Les transports en Afrique, XIXe-XXe siècle , L'Harmattan, 1992, ISBN 978-2-73841442-7
  • L'Afrique au XXe siècle , 1993, Armand Colin (ed.), ISBN 978-2-20021417-3
  • L'Europe et l'Afrique, un siècle d'échanges économiques , with Monique Lakroum, Armand Colin (ed.), 1994, ISBN 978-2-20021528-6
  • Histoire économique du Dahomey. 1890-1920 , L'Harmattan, 1995, ISBN 978-2-73843578-1
  • Le travail en Afrique noire. Représentations et pratiques à l'époque contemporaine , with Monique Lakroum and Gerd Spittler, Karthala, 2003, ISBN 978-2-84586429-0
  • Le Goût de l'étranger, les saveurs venues d'ailleurs depuis la fin du XVIII siècle , Armand Colin (ed.), L'Histoire à l'oeuvre, 2006, ISBN 978-2-20026764-3
  • L'Afrique , Editions Le Cavalier Bleu, 2006, ISBN 978-2-84670265-2
  • L'Afrique du XXe siècle à nos jours , Armand Colin (ed.), 2013, ISBN 978-2-20028893-8

bibliography

  • Pascale Barthélémy: "Hélène d'Almeida-Topor" in Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices , Béatrice Didier, Antoinette Fouque, Mireille Calle-Gruber (eds.), Éditions des femmes, Paris, 2013, ISBN 978-2-72100631-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kehayoff, Stölzl: Topor, Tod und Teufel. 1985, p. 7
  2. ↑ http://www.sfhom.com/spip.php?article87 accessed on July 15, 2019
  3. ↑ Pascale Barthélémy, "Hélène d'Almeida-Topor", in Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices , Béatrice Didier, Antoinette Fouque, Mireille Calle-Gruber (eds.), Paris, Éditions des femmes, 2013
  4. ↑ [1] Odile Goerg: Hélène d'Almeida-Topor, Histoire du économique (1890-1920) Dahomey (Benin) accessed on 19 July 2018th
  5. ↑ [2] Hélène d'Almeida-Topor: Crise commerciale et crise du colonial en Afrique noire , pp. 538-543, accessed on July 19, 2018.
  6. ↑ Hélène d'Almeida-Topor: Les Amazones. Une armée de femmes dans l'Afrique précoloniale , p. 490.
  7. ↑ [3] , Les transports en Afrique XIXe -XXe siècle , pp. 631–632, accessed on July 19, 2018
  8. ↑ [4] , Publications de la SFHOM, 2008, ISBN 978-2-85970039-3
  9. ↑ Coquery-Vidrovitch Catherine, d'Almeida-Topor Hélène: Présentation: Cinquante ans d'indépendances africaines , Outre-mers , Vol 97, pp 368-369, 2010/2.
  10. ↑ Odile Goerg: Hélène d'Almeida-Topor , L'Afrique , Le Cavalier bleu, Coll. Idées reçues , 2006, p. 127, in Outre-mers , Vol. 93, pp. 352-355, 2006/2
  11. ^ [5] , Publications de la SFHOM, 2008, ISBN 978-2-85970039-3
  12. ↑ [6] Outremers , Vol. 98, pp. 337-338, 372-373, 2011/2
personal data
SURNAME Almeida-Topor, Hélène d '
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French historian and Africanist
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris