How to become an ivorian « old teacher » (1930s-1970s)

Itinerancy, mobility and pedagogical cosmopolitanism: the case of teacher Koutia Lémon

Abstract

This article plunges into the path of an unknown Ivorian rural teacher, from his primary education to his retirement, between the 1930s to the 1970s, i.e at the crossroads between colonial and post-colonial situations. Koutia Lémon initially trained at the Rural Normal School of Dabou as an indigenous “instituteur-paysan”. Spanning successive postings to in-service trainings, his career took him across colonies, the emerging State of Côte d’Ivoire, and even to France, for an internship in the eve of independence. Upon his return, he was assigned to positions of authority within the post-colonial educational system. To what extent is professional and geographic mobility inherent to the career of Ivorian “old teachers”? How does the mesh of “imagined communities” (i.e the Empire, the colony, the independent State, the village) contribute to building the ethos of a colonial civil servant who later became a postcolonial civil servant? How are the professional skill sets and methods acquired under the colonial situation repurposed in the independent State? The study addresses those questions through a connected microhistory of the Ivorian “old teacher”. The findings of this research contribute to framing the conceptual category of “old teachers”, based on a common though vague
expression, widespread in Côte d’Ivoire. It also brings to light some channels of mobility and professionalization pathways that have long remained little known because they were subordinate, specifically rural, and less prestigious than the normal schools of William Ponty and Rufisque, which have been well covered by historiography over the past decade.