Graduate Sarah Westwood Wins GRAF!
Graduate student Sarah Westwood wins a Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship. She will be using the GRAF to conduct preliminary research in France for her dissertation on the development and evolution of the Senegalese army; the focus of her study is how Senegal became the only country in West Africa to avoid a military coup or civil war in the post-independence period and whether or not this is due in part to the internal organization and culture of the Senegalese forces.
Sarah will visit three archival centers in France: the Centre des Archives d’Outre Mer in Aix-en-Provence, the Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre at Vincennes, and the Centre d’Histoire et d’études des troupes d’outre-mer at Fréjus. She hopes this will provide background on the impact of French military training on indigenous tactics and organization, as the French developed the tirailleur sénégalais army from its colonial subjects in West Africa.
