“Dear Monsieur Administrator”: Student Writing and the Question of “Voice” in Senegal, 1890s–1910s

Abstract

Using students’ examination papers and requests for admission or scholarships linked to three French colonial schools in Senegal, this chapter wrestles with the methodological challenges of locating voices of African children and youth in colonial archives and of interpreting the intent and impact of their written words. It emphasizes the significance of such student writing, while also recognizing the formal conventions, educator expectations, and power imbalances that shaped and constrained it. The chapter contends that, despite these and other limitations, the content, tropes, tone, and even form of student writing can reveal how certain young people positioned themselves vis-à-vis the colonial state, how they understood the people and communities most familiar to them, and how they strategized to meet their own needs.