Institut français d’Afrique noire (IFAN)
Founded in Dakar in 1936, the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) was a key centre for the development of science in colonial France. Its director, the naturalist Théodore Monod, saw it as an African offshoot of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris. From 1942, he set up local IFAN centres in all the colonies of French West Africa (AOF), known as Centrifans. French researchers were recruited under various statutes, as well as African professionals. A large number of disciplines from the natural, human and social sciences were represented, with ethnology at the top of the list. A number of museums, zoological and botanical gardens, libraries and photo libraries were set up in Dakar and other local centres. After decolonisation, the local centres retained their renown and formed the first research institutes in independent states. The federal centre in Dakar was renamed the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire in 1966, allowing it to keep its acronym, to which Cheikh Anta Diop’s name was added twenty years later (IFAN-CAD).
Keywords: Applied anthropology | Applied science | Colonial sciences | French colonialism | Colonialism | 20th century | French West Africa | Colonial situation | Institut français d’Afrique noire
Secondary sources
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« Les collections photographiques de l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire. Ressaisir la géographie d’un patrimoine dispersé »
Anaïs Mauuarin, 2022
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« L’onirothèque de l’IFAN. Collecter les rêves à la fin de la période coloniale »
Julien Bondaz, 2022
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