Olivia CockingGraduate Student

I am a third-year doctoral student studying twentieth-century France. My research examines how migrants from the French empire navigated municipal courts and social welfare programs in the metropole between 1919 and the 1960s. I aim to understand the ways in which the presence and claims of these migrant populations informed the operation of social services and revealed the influence of empire on the practice of citizenship in the metropole. I am particularly interested in the experiences of women and the role of gender in shaping colonial migrants’ access to social benefits.

My research is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Education

• B.A. University of British Columbia & Sciences Po Paris
• M.S.t. University of Oxford

Research Interests

Modern France
Empire
Gender

Faculty Advisors

Judith A. Miller
Tehila Sasson