Minayo Nasiali
Associate Professor
I received my bachelor’s degree in History from Stanford University in 2003 and began graduate training at the University of Michigan in 2004. I completed my doctoral studies in 2010, specializing in Modern French History and Empire. From 2010-2011, I was a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the UC Berkeley Department of History.
My book, Native to the Republic: Empire, Social Citizenship, and Everyday Life in Marseille since 1945, was published by Cornell University Press in 2016. It shows how local-level debates about belonging and the built environment have shaped a discriminatory system of welfare in Modern France.
My new project builds upon my scholarly interest in Modern European empires, but shifts focus from landscapes to seascapes. Currently titled, Sea Traffic: A Clandestine History of Shipping, Exploitation, and Rebel Sailors Across Empires, this study explores the maritime world of colonial African seafarers in the first half of the twentieth century. Focusing in particular on their trans-imperial mobilities, my research explores how sailors from French and British Africa engaged with and circumvented systems of economic and political coercion.
Selected Publications:
Book
Native to the Republic: Empire, Social Citizenship and Everyday Life in Marseille since 1945. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2016.
Articles
"An Inconvenient Expertise: French Colonial Sailors and Technological Knowledge in the Union Française," French Politics, Culture, & Society 37, No. 1 (Spring 2019): 117-138.
“Trouble on the Docks: Strikes, Scabs and the Colonial Question in Marseille’s Port Neighborhoods,” Special Issue, Sex and the Colonial City, Journal of Urban History 42, Issue 5 (September 2016): 900-918.
“Citizens, Squatters and Asocials: The Right to Housing and the Politics of Difference in Post-Liberation France,” The American Historical Review 119, Issue 2 (April 2014): 434-459.
“Ordering the Disorderly Slum: ‘Standardizing’ Quality of Life in Marseille Tenements and Bidonvilles, 1953-1962,” Journal of Urban History 38, Issue 6 (November 2012): 1021 – 1035.