Ethnology gained a university home France only through colonial funding in 1925

Evidence

Beyond Delafosse’s contribution, a more professional and scientific interest in traditional African society was emerging among members of colonial and academic circles in Paris in the 192o’s. An important sign of this change was the Colonial Ministry’s decision in 1925 to help fund a new Institut d’Ethnologie at the University of Paris, jointly founded by Delafosse, the Durkheimians Marcel Mauss and Lucien Levy-Bruhl, and the liberal anthropologist Paul Rivet. 43 For the first time in France, the discipline of ethnology was associated with a university. … These initiatives confirm that the new valorization of African institutions taking place in Dakar was also occurring at the highest level of the colonial administration, not to mention the university milieu itself. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 689

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the pattern of colonial science serving administration mise en valeur — resonates with how the Frankfurt School later traced knowledge institutions to their patrons.