Conversations in Atlantic Theory • Sarah J. Zimmerman on Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers' Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire

'This discussion is with Dr. Sarah J. Zimmerman, an Associate Professor of history at Western Washington University and is the Vice President of the French Colonial Historical Society. Her research focuses on women and gender in West Africa, French Empire, and the Atlantic World. Her current research attends to the gendered production of history and memory on Gorée Island–a UNESCO World Heritage site in Senegal. She has published articles in the International Journal of African Historical Studies and Les Temps Modernes. In this conversation, we discuss her first monograph,  Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire, published in 2020 by Ohio University Press. The conversation here focuses on the key concepts and arguments in the book where she historicizes militarization, marriage, and colonialism by focusing on tirailleurs sénégalais households in West Africa and across French Empire.'