Book Abstract:

Disintegrating Empire examines the entangled histories of three threads of decolonization: the French welfare state, family migration from Algeria, and the French social workers who mediated between the state and their Algerian clients. After World War II, social work teams, midlevel bureaucrats, and government ministries stitched specialized social services for Algerians into the structure of the midcentury welfare state. Elise Franklin reveals the belated collapse of specialized services more than a decade after Algerian independence. The welfare state’s story was not one merely of rise and fall but of winnowing services to “deserving” clients. Defunding social services—long associated with the neoliberal turn in the 1980s and beyond—has a much longer history defined by exacting controls on colonial citizens and migrants of newly independent countries. Disintegrating Empire explores the dynamic, conflicting, and often messy nature of these relationships, which show how Algerian family migration prompted by decolonization ultimately exposed the limits of the French welfare state.

Author bio:

Elise Franklin is a historian of France with an interest in the history of gender, colonialism, and decolonization. Before becoming an assistant professor of European history at UofL in 2019, she was an assistant professor and Jamie & Thelma Guilbeau/BORSF Endowed Professor in History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her first book, Disintegrating Empire: Algerian Family Migration and the Limits of the Welfare State appeared in 2024 with the University of Nebraska Press. Her work has been supported by the American Philosophical Society, the Social Science Research Council, the American Historical Association, the Society for French Historical Studies, the Western Society for French History, as well as UofL's Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society, and the University of Louisiana’s Guilbeau Charitable Trust.

The book launch will include a presentation about the book, Q+A with the author, and a catered reception.