Abstract
During the post–World War II boom, France implemented a comprehensive urbanism program intended to modernize and rationalize the nation by putting the city, the home, and the citizen in order. Local modernization efforts were part of the state’s broader postwar reconstruction initiatives implemented in both the metropole and the colonies. Local techniciens (technocratic experts such as urban planners and public health officials) were charged with assessing and classifying diverse populations in terms of centrally defined standards of need. By situating local modernization efforts in a broader imperial context, this article examines how government officials produced and reinforced social and racial hierarchies within developing postwar welfare institutions.
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