FORwARD – Force Publique
Analyzing the Remains and Dynamics of Military Culture between Colony and Metropole (ca. 1878-1994)
ID
MSCA_PF-RVanderHulst01
Supervisors
About the research Group
SHOC
The core objective of SHOC (Social History of Capitalism) is to study the social history of capitalism from a bottom-up point of view. We conceptualize capitalism as a social process that exponentially boosted material production but also generated structural inequalities throughout the medieval, early modern and modern world. We aim to engage with the interactions and negotiations which shaped these outcomes, incorporating non-human, technological, and subaltern perspectives. Considering different contexts across the world allows us to disentangle the relationship between specific social configurations and the effects of capitalist expansion on welfare, social relations, migration and the environment in the long run, from the late middle ages until the 20th century.
Project description
FORwARD
Today, militarism and armed violence remain part of everyday life for many people in (eastern) Congo and the Great Lakes region. However, the structures and institutions that sustain these deadly dynamics did not emerge in a postcolonial vacuum. By taking the Force Publique – colonial Congo’s army and police forces (1885-1960) - as its central research focus, this project helps rooting ongoing armed violence in Central Africa in a (post)-imperial framework.
While the Force Publique is well known for its brutal role in the Red Rubber atrocities under Leopold II, its longer social and cultural history has rarely been examined as part of a wider ‘Belgian’ military culture. Traditionally, this racialized colonial force has been portrayed either as a simple replica of the Belgian Army or as an idiosyncratic curiosity in the tropics . This project aims to move beyond these simplistic, binary interpretations by asking a straightforward but often overlooked question: did the Belgian Army and the Force Publique influence one another—and if so, in what ways?
To answer this, the research follows the movements of soldiers, ideas, and military practices between Belgium, Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. By tracing these circulations in personnel files, military journals and court cases and by examining the custodial history of the army’s archival remnants, the project critically assesses the Force Publique’s self-representation as a ‘Belgian’ army. It focusses on how colonial realities, local conditions, African collectivities and individual soldiers shaped the “national” meaning of this military institution far beyond the reach of the metropole.