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Status: PhD Candidate

Adviser: Emily Burrill

Graduate Email: abwarch@ad.unc.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Education

BA, University of Richmond 2013
MA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2020
MA Thesis: ‘Caretaking as “Civilizing”: Catholic Orphanages and the Mission Civilisatrice in Saint-Louis, Senegal, 1936-1949’

Research Interests

I am a historian of modern Africa, with a particular interest in French West Africa. My research engages African history, histories of empire and colonialism, and theories of care ethics and humanitarianism.

My dissertation, “Burdens of Care: Children, Charity, and the Colonial Project in Twentieth-Century Senegal" traces how colonial officials, missionaries, private organizations, and local communities negotiated their responsibility to identify and care for “orphaned,” “unfortunate,” and “abandoned” children in colonial Senegal. Analyzing youth-produced magazines, interviews, and other non-government sources, I show how Senegalese children and their communities both embraced and challenged these discourses and practices of colonial caretaking. I argue that children were a unique collectivity within colonial African society, subjects through whom an array of European and African actors could continue to implement a fading civilizing mission—premised on the superiority of French culture to “uplift” and “develop” colonial populations—while also engaging in new conversations about reform, welfare, and humanitarianism. Ultimately, my work shows that care of the African child was an enduring component of colonial self-justification and state-building, problematizing assumptions about the neutrality and apolitical nature of charitable intervention concerning children today.

Some Notable Publications

  • “Investing in ‘Civilized’ Futures: Orphans and Colonial Caretaking in Saint-Louis, Senegal, 1930-49.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 25, no. 2 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1353/cch.2024.a935594
  • Jean-Baptiste, Rachel, Emily Burrill, and Abigail Warchol. “Marriage across Africa.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press, May 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.178.
  • Notable Awards and Fellowships

  • 2021-2022 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, Senegal
  • 2018-2020 U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship