2 - Kocoumbo, l'étudiant noir: Foreign Studies

Summary

This chapter underscores the link between education and travel in a colonial context. In the West, travel has long been associated with educational benefit and, more recently, has become virtually enshrined as a fundamental element of the student experience. Indeed, quite apart from the various organizations and institutions that promote and support student mobility, international travel itself, for whatever purpose, has become so inextricably associated with the acquisition of cultural capital that to remain at home has come to be seen by many as an intellectually and professionally limiting choice. Needless to say, the link made between travel and intellectual benefit is a feature found in many cultures and is not simply confined to the West. Once again, however, the particular material and historical circumstances of Western students – and indeed those from other materially advantaged points of origin – mean that although the symbolic value of their travels may have a universal significance, the manner in which they travel differs profoundly from their materially less advantaged counterparts.

Since the emergence of a specifically francophone African literary tradition, the African student in France has remained one of the most well-known and emblematic figures of the intercontinental African travelling experience. As was noted earlier, this is due in part to the significant role played by Paris-based African students such as Ousmane Socé, Léopold S. Senghor and Bernard Dadié in the emergence of early twentieth-century anti-colonialist discourse, and in the affirmation and development of Africa's own literary and cultural tradition.