58

In this article we analyse the position of civil servants from mainland France in Mayotte, a French overseas department since 2011. This territory has remained under French oversight in a range of different statuses following twentieth-century decolonization. What does it mean to represent the State there for someone who is a native of the former colonial metropolis and categorised as white? Mobilising the notion of whiteness, we examine the careers of agents transferred from France in connection with those of the Mahorans – natives of the island – and we show that the structural advantages enjoyed by the former hinges on symbolic privileges based on race. While the administrative hierarchy is characterized by a strong vertical segregation, the agents’ posture, made of virtuous exteriority, reinforces domination within the State services. Finally, the article examines the forms of disqualification that contribute to excluding Mahoran agents from the most qualified positions. We show that whiteness constitutes a discriminatory social attribute, within a postcolonial state that is nevertheless deemed to be blind to race.