Visiting the ruins of the colonial exhibition: A settler parody of a colonial propaganda trip

In 1924, a group of French female students were sent on a sponsored trip to Indochina to experience colonial tourism with the hope that they would become promoters of colonialism. This article studies the reactions to this high-profile mission in the local colonial settler press, which focuses on metropolitan ignorance of colonial realities and the incompetence of the colonial government. Through the study of a very elaborate parody of the students’ trip, which uses the Persian Letters trope, this essay offers new methodological insights, and through the particular figure of the “settler travellee” seeks to enhance our understanding of travellee/traveller dynamics.