DOCSLIB.ORG

Re-Imagining Diversity and Connection in the Chaos World an Interview with Patrick Chamoiseau

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Re-Imagining Diversity and Connection in the Chaos World an Interview with Patrick Chamoiseau Re-ImagInIng DIveRsIty anD ConneCtIon In the Chaos WoRlD an Interview with Patrick Chamoiseau by Janice Morgan We have all heard the rhetoric of politicians and corporate leaders on the topic of global- ization. Meanwhile, fierce controversies are arising all around the planet about just what, exactly, globalization means, what its implications are, and who it serves. And then, there is the ugly paradox: even as global cultures seem to be merging more closely together, we see ethnic/racial/linguistic conflicts erupting on nearly every continent. With the old identity structures breaking down and amid ardent appeals to maintain the boundaries by returning to religious and cultural fundamentalisms, what progressive alternatives do we have? How do we, both individually and collectively, re-conceive our identities and our places in the world? For a group of forward thinking Caribbean writers who grew up within a post-colonial society with a history of slavery going back to the 17th century, returning to the past is neither possible nor desired. So it is not surprising that some of today’s boldest thinkers on the subjects of diversity and re-imagining cultural identities should come from tiny islands located between worlds. Both Patrick Chamoiseau and Edouard Glissant (cited often in the interview) come from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, situated geographically between the two Americas; demographically between Africa, Europe, and Asia; and historically between a genocidal past and an uncertain future. In this region of the world, which has seen two Nobel laureates in literature recently–V. S. Naipaul (Trini- dad, 2001) and Derek Walcott (Saint Lucia, 1992)—issues of racial/ethnic identities, native territories, and linguistic communities have never been easy. Yet, while keeping their eyes open to present dangers, writers like Chamoiseau and Glissant believe that it is possible to persuade a troubled world with the beauty of another vision. Patrick Chamoiseau (b.1953) is a novelist and essayist, known internationally especially for his multi-generational fictional history of Martinique,Texaco , which won the Prix Gon- court in 1992. With a style as rich and thick as a Creole gumbo, Chamoiseau writes tales of working class struggle, unrequited love, marronnage, sorcery, zombies, and politics. Though many readers associate him with the créoliste movement, the writer’s ideas have evolved to become more complex on the subject of identities that are both post-colonial and transnational, as can be seen in his essay, Ecrire en pays dominé/ Writing in a Dominated Land (Gallimard, 1997). The author lives in Fort-de-France, where besides working full- time as a counselor for young adults in the court system, he is a public spokesperson and activist for the preservation of local culture and the environment. Callaloo 31.2 (2008) 443–453 16_31.2morgan.indd 443 8/28/08 8:35:29 AM © 2008 Photo by Janice Morgan Photo of Patrick Chamoiseau 444 16_31.2morgan.indd 444 8/28/08 8:35:29 AM C a l l a l o o Throughout the interview, Chamoiseau refers to terms and ideas by Edouard Glissant. Born in Martinique, trained in Paris, Edouard Glissant (b.1928) is a novelist, poet, and es- sayist who has emerged as an influential theorist of transcultural hybridity and complex relational identities, frequently inventing his own poetic vocabulary—such as the “Tout- Monde” [Whole World] or the “Chaos-Monde”[Chaos World] —to describe the changing cultural landscapes of our time. Specifically, Glissant adapted Deleuze and Guattari’s no- tions of root/verticality versus rhizome/horizontality to re-examine the ways we define our identity. Do we define ourselves through the idea of rootedness, a connection to a single line of ancestry, a single place of origin? If so, then we will tend to exclude the Other, maintaining a fundamental sense of separation between ourselves and those whose origin is elsewhere. Or, do we define ourselves in rhizomatic terms; that is, our identity arises out of an unfolding series of connections across places and times? This view of identity privileges contact and relationship with the Other; it acknowledges travel and exchange. It is this “poetics of relation”1that both Glissant and Chamoiseau write about, seeing it as providing a new, more positive framework for both speaking about our individual identi- ties and for solving our collective problems. The interview that follows deals with these ideas in a Caribbean context, but it is evident that they are applicable everywhere. ***** moRgan: As well as being a writer, you work within the legal system here in Martinique. You work with young people on parole. What kinds of changes or trends in society have you observed over the years in this role? 2 ChamoIseaU: Family structures, social structures receive more and more influenc- es—structures, value systems that come from everywhere. That’s modernity: modernity is entering into perspectives from outside the community, from everywhere. An example of a powerful cultural code here is matrifocality—that is, the family is organized around the mother and women relatives—grandmother, sisters, etc.—so families in Martinique have traditionally been maternal families, only women, men were peripheral in popular culture here. Since slavery, the symbolic father was the master, so there wasn’t a place for the father for multiple reasons; the father remained peripheral and the family was struc- tured around the mother, the grandmother, and women—that’s the foundation. Now today, through immigrations of families from India, which are patriarchal, through the influence of French families—and the subsidized housing systems we have built by the French—we have also single parent households: in that case, because of limited living space, there isn’t room for the extended female family members; the family is reduced to its smallest expression from the type of lodging. In any case, today we have all the pos- sible types of families: father-centered, mother-centered, single parent, nuclear family, also homosexual families which are starting to appear—and all these types of families, we are choosing to create them not in a collective manner but in an individual manner. 445 16_31.2morgan.indd 445 8/28/08 8:35:29 AM C a l l a l o o What constitutes modernity—and we are not escaping it here in Martinique—is that we are moving away from traditional models, from community models, from what is culturally defined here, locally, in terms of language and identity, too. And what is hap- pening? It’s that the individual is more and more alone; it isn’t the collectivity anymore that is giving the fundamental code to follow; that is to say one is more and more alone in deciding one’s sexuality, one’s family type, the place where he or she is going to live, behavior, clothes, etc. Even fashions today—sure, there are still big fashion trends, but if you look around, you see ways of dressing and hairstyles that recapitulate styles from every era practically—so individuals are alone and each one must construct his own scale of values—from which comes our contemporary anxiety, because we no longer have the kind of collective comfort that gives us the key to our behavior. Before, when one was a Sioux Indian in a Sioux tribe, there was no metaphysical problem. Today when one is born, one has to define oneself personally, and neither the family nor the place where one lives is sufficient to give me the overall model of the behavior that I should have. Not to mention that women today are moving out of the traditional behavior for women and that the differentiations between males and females are no longer sufficient to give the roles that people should follow. It is not the sex that determines; more and more we are simply human beings between a feminine pole and a masculine pole, and each one positions himself or herself between the two poles as he/she sees fit according to personal history, one’s potential. So, everything is becoming much more complex, more situational. moRgan: For you, what is the link between your role as a social worker and as a writer? ChamoIseaU: For me, the writer that I am today—in fact, those of my generation—the problem for us is not to try to establish a traditional community. You know, literature has always accompanied the solidification of a community; all traditional communities cre- ated a genesis story, an explanation of the creation of the world. Under this genesis story the community tells itself how it was founded, a founding History with a capital H from which flows all the literature that explores human nature, creates bonds, helps to better understand human passions, to guess what is going to happen next. We Caribbeans, however, we are a Creole, hybrid people; we don’t have a genesis story, we don’t have a founding myth. Therefore, in order to understand where we came from, we would have to have all the genesis stories, all the founding myths—of the Amerindi- ans, of the Africans, of the Europeans. However, what has happened, instead, is that one system, one History has been imposed on us—that of the conquest, of colonization. Today we know that under this history of colonization there are histories of the Amerindians, of the slaves, of immigrations—a complex history that isn’t in books and is only in verbal form. Look at the monuments around Martinique: “Empress Josephine, the slave owner” on the Savane (a city park in Fort de France); another monument is “D’Esnambuc, the Discoverer”. When you do the tourist circuit, 80% of the edifices come from colonization, and it’s that which serves us as an apparent cultural heritage.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • PROLOGUE Josephine Beheaded
    PROLOGUE Josephine Beheaded Marble like Greece, like Faulkner’s South in stone Deciduous beauty prospered and is gone . —Derek Walcott, “Ruins of a Great House,” Collected Poems There is a spectacle in Martinique’s gracious Savane park that is hard to miss. The statue honoring one of the island’s most famous citizens, Josephine Tascher, the white creole woman who was to become Napoleon’s lover, wife, and empress, is defaced in the most curious and creative of ways. Her head is missing; she has been decapitated. But this is no ordinary defacement: the marble head has been cleanly sawed off—an effort that could not have been executed without the help of machinery and more than one pair of willing hands—and red paint has been dripped from her neck and her gown. The defacement is a beheading, a reenactment of the most visible of revolutionary France’s punitive and socially purifying acts—death by guillotine. The biographical record shows Josephine born of a slaveholding family of declining fortunes, married into the ranks of France’s minor aristocracy, and surviving the social chaos of the French Revolution, which sentenced countless members of the ancien régime to the guillotine. In the form of this statue, she received her comeuppance in twentieth-century Martinique, where she met the fate that she narrowly missed a century earlier. Scratched on the pedestal are the words—painted in red and penned in creole— “Respe ba Matinik. Respe ba 22 Me” [Respect Martinique. Respect May 22]. The date inscribed here of the anniversary of the 1848 slave rebellion that led to the abolition of slavery on Martinique is itself an act of postcolonial reinscription, one that challenges the of‹cial French-authored abolition proclamation of March 31, 1848, and 2 CULTURAL CONUNDRUMS Statue of Josephine in Fort-de-France, Martinique, today.
    [Show full text]
  • Duquesne Studies, Spiritan Series 1: a History of the Congregation of The
    ; CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE WEST INDIES 1. HAITI a. The End of the Schism Rosati of St. Louis, cf . pp. 148 ff. In Chapter VI we saw how Archbishop Missouri, and Father Eugene Tisserant, Prefect Apostohc of Haiti, had been forced to abandon their efforts to heal the schism in which nearly all the priests and most of the people in Haiti were B. G. 2, 592 fi. living. Subsequently, the Holy See tried to remedy the situation H. R. H. by working through the Archbishops of Trinidad. Successively 427 ff. Archbishops Smith, Spaccapietra and Etheridge were given juris- diction over the island, but all their efforts to reconcile the schis- matics failed. Their lack of success was in great part reducible to one factor : the three dozen recalcitrant priests who were living ibid., 358 ff. on the island. With few exceptions, they were refugees from ecclesiastical discipline in France, Italy and Spain and they justly feared that the Holy See would put an end to their disorders if it regained control over the Church in Haiti. A few of these notori- ous characters, such as Fathers Cessens and Moussa, were old acquaintances of the Spiritans and did their utmost to prevent a ibid., 375 ff., restoration of Church discipline. They and their followers suc- 451 ff. ceeded in doing so as long as Emperor Soulouque (Faustin I) ruled Haiti. ibid., 475 ff. In 1860, however, when Haiti became a Republic, its President signed a concordat with the Holy See. At once the Propaganda asked the Congregation to lend its support to the delicate negotia- B.
    [Show full text]
  • History of Squamate Lizard Dac
    History of Squamate Lizard Dactyloidae from the Eastern Caribbean, Origins of Anolis from Martinique, Zanndoli Matinik (Dactyloa roquet) Marcel Bourgade To cite this version: Marcel Bourgade. History of Squamate Lizard Dactyloidae from the Eastern Caribbean, Origins of Anolis from Martinique, Zanndoli Matinik (Dactyloa roquet). 2020. hal-02469738 HAL Id: hal-02469738 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02469738 Submitted on 6 Feb 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Martinique, January 2020 History of Squamate Lizard Dactyloidae from the Eastern Caribbean Origins of Anolis from Martinique, Zanndoli Matinik (Dactyloa roquet) by Marcel BOURGADE 56 islet of Pointe Marin, 97227 Sainte-Anne, Martinique, Eastern Caribbean [email protected] 1 Summary – The Anolis of Martinique, Zanndoli (in Martinique), the species of reptile lizard Dactyloa roquet represents with the species of amphibian Hylode of Johnstonei, Eleutherodactylus johnstonei, the two species of herpetofauna endemic to the eastern Caribbean, the most widely widespread and present in large numbers throughout the territory of Martinique. The history of the Dactyloidae of the eastern Caribbean that we retrace is based on the most recent data publications, in terms of research in molecular systematics, crossed with the data of the geological history of this geographical region of the Eastern Caribbean.
    [Show full text]
  • Narrating (Post) Colonial Caribbean Spaces: Geographies of Power and Resistance in Martinique and Guadeloupe
    Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2012 Narrating (Post) Colonial Space: Geographies of Power and Resistance in Martinique and Guadeloupe Randolph Turnbull III Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES NARRATING (POST) COLONIAL SPACE: GEOGRAPHIES OF POWER AND RESISTANCE IN MARTINIQUE AND GUADELOUPE By RANDOLPH TURNBULL III A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2012 Randolph Turnbull III defended this dissertation on October 29, 2012. The members of the supervisory committee were: Jose Gomariz Professor Directing Dissertation Rafe Blaufarb University Representative Alec Hargreaves Committee Member Aimée Boutin Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii For all those who’ve loved and supported me through this process. A special word of gratitude to Verna Araujo. You were the one who changed my life by instilling in me a love for the French language. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of this dissertation is without doubt the single most significant academic accomplishment I have ever achieved. This would not be possible without the love, support, guidance, and patience of many people. Special thanks are extended to Dr. Gomariz, my major professor, and to my other committee members for their patience and words of encouragement during this process.
    [Show full text]
  • A. Arnold the Erotics of Colonialism in Contemporary French West Indian
    A. Arnold The erotics of colonialism in contemporary French West Indian literary culture Argues that creolité, antillanité and Negritude are not only masculine but masculinist as well. They permit only male talents to emerge within these movements and push literature written by women into the background. Concludes that in the French Caribbean there are 2 literary cultures: the one practiced by male creolistes and the other practiced by a disparate group of women writers. In: New West Indian Guide/ Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 68 (1994), no: 1/2, Leiden, 5-22 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl A. JAMES ARNOLD THE EROTICS OF COLONIALISM IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH WEST INDIAN LITERARY CULTURE The créolité movement has inherited from its antecedents, antillanité and Negritude, a sharply gendered identity. Like them, it is not only masculine but masculinist. Like them, it permits only male talents to emerge within the movement, to carry its seal of approval. And, like them, it pushes literature written by women into the background. This characteristic is not, however, unique to the French West Indies. It can be found, mutatis mutandis, across the Caribbean archipelago with its variations on the "repeating island," in Antonio Benitez-Rojo's (1992:1-29) felicitous expression. In a word, créo- lité is the latest avatar of the masculinist culture of the French West Indies, which is being steadily challenged by the more recently emerged, less theo- retically articulated, womanist culture, to borrow a term from the Anglo- phone West Indies. These two sharply gendered cultural visions are cur- rently in a state of competition and struggle.
    [Show full text]
  • Two Years in the French West Indies
    I iil: lllllllllllljili CORNELL UNIVERSIT*Y LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Digitized by Microsoft® 4p 2s^ WTE DUE JUN2 3iy43 ^'4lltlHiA»^^^ M. 4)9«!r -M/\R 1 195^^ f l»Jt£SLlB£l*WM=OW^ a« lIlMMil!™.''^* '''*"'='' West Indies, 116 466 This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Corneii University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in iimited quantity for your personai purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partiai versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commerciai purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archiY,e.^or^^dgajls^u31 924021 1 1 6466 A MARTINIQUE METISSE. (In "douillette" and "madras.') Digitized by Microsoft® TWO YEARS IN THE vs.: FRENCH WEST INDIES By LAFCADIO HEARN AUTHOR OF "CHITA""eTC. ILLUSTRATED } '\^l(o^l '•La fafon d'etre du pays est si agrjable, la temp&ature si que je n'aye bonne, et Von y vit dans une libertd k honnHe, en soient fas vu un seul homnie, ny une seule femme, qui revenus, en qui je n'aye remarqu^ une grande tassion d retourner."—Le PiRE DUTERTRE (1667) Copyright, 1S90, by Harper & Brothers. A II rights reserved. Digitized by Microsoft® A MON CHER AMI LEOPOLD ARNOUX NoTAiRE A Saint Pierre, Martinique Souvenir de nos promenades,—de nos voyages, —de nos causeries,- des sympathies ichangies,—de tout le charme d^une amitii inalterable et inoubliable, —de tout ce qui parle a Vdnie au doux Pays des Revenants.
    [Show full text]
  • Edouard Glissant in Theory and Practice: a Diasporic Poetics of Politics
    Edouard Glissant in Theory and Practice: A Diasporic Poetics of Politics by Mamadou Moustapha Ly A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Romance Languages and Literatures: French) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Professor Jarrod Hayes, Chair Professor Frieda Ekotto Associate Professor Jennifer Wenzel Professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Columbia University © Mamadou Moustapha Ly 2014 DEDICATION To my late Mother Arame Ly ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Jarrod Hayes, the chair of my committee, for his my kind and enthusiastic support throughout all the stages of my graduate education. I thank him for his valuable suggestions and careful editing of this dissertation. I extend my gratitude to Professors Frieda Ekotto and Jennifer Wenzel for being exceptional mentors from the very first stages of this project during my preliminary examinations to its completion. I thank Professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne for accepting to be part of this committee and for his gracious advice. I also thank my former professors at Cheikh Anta Diop University and Kansas State University namely Professors Gorgui Dieng, Mamadou Gaye, Amy Hubbell, Claire Dehon, Robert Clark, and Robert Corum. My special acknowledgements to my family, my father, Amadou Hamath Ly, my brothers and sisters, my uncles Souleymane Ly, Amadou Haby Ly, Mamadou Moustapha Ly, Amadou Moustapha Sow, Mamadou Moussa LY, my aunts Soukeyna Guèye, Halima Ly, my friends Grand Sana Camara, Grand Aly Dramé, Grand Ababacar Seck Grand Moustapha Diop, Grand Sara Camara, Soukeyna Sène Camara, Ndeye Pauline Ly, Mamadou Touré, Mère Adama Ndiaye, Grand Moussa Ndiaye, and Grand Abdoulaye Dièye for their persistent encouragements and precious duas.
    [Show full text]
  • Arguin, Gorée, Cape Verde and São Tomé, 1590–1670
    IJH0010.1177/0843871414543447International Journal of Maritime HistoryRibeiro da Silva 543447research-article2014 Forum IJMH The International Journal of Maritime History African islands and the 1 –19 © The Author(s) 2014 formation of the Dutch Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Atlantic economy: Arguin, DOI: 10.1177/0843871414543447 ijh.sagepub.com Gorée, Cape Verde and São Tomé, 1590–1670 Filipa Ribeiro da Silva Abstract The role played by Atlantic islands in the formation of European overseas empires, and the development of coastal and intercontinental commercial routes and business networks is relatively well studied for the Iberian Atlantic. Few scholars have, however, examined the functions of isles in the building of Dutch maritime connections. This paper partially fills this void in the literature by looking at the African Islands of Arguin, Gorée, Cape Verde and São Tomé, and highlighting their significance within the seventeenth- century Dutch Atlantic. Using information from the notarial archives of Amsterdam, the collection of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) and journals of voyages, we examine the role played by these islands in the formation and operationalization of Dutch commercial circuits in the Atlantic, and emphasize their geo-strategic importance for the achievement of the colonial aspirations and military ambitions of the Dutch Republic and the WIC. Keywords Africa, Cape Verde, commerce, defence, islands, navigation, São Tomé Introduction The role of islands in the European maritime expansion into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans has been widely recognized by scholars, particularly specialists dedicated Corresponding author: Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, Department of History, University of Macau, SAR China.
    [Show full text]
  • Colby College Catalogue 1999 - 2000
    Colby College Digital Commons @ Colby Colby Catalogues Colby College Archives 1999 Colby College Catalogue 1999 - 2000 Colby College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/catalogs Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, and the Higher Education Commons Recommended Citation Colby College, "Colby College Catalogue 1999 - 2000" (1999). Colby Catalogues. 66. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/catalogs/66 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Colby College Archives at Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Catalogues by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Colby. Colby College Catalogue SEPTEMBER 1999--AUGUST 2000 Waterville, Maine 2 INQUIRIES Inquiries to the College should be directed as follows: Academic Counseling MARK R. SERDJENIAN, Associate Dean of Students: 207 ,872,3106; fax: 207 ,872,3076; [email protected] Admission PARKER j. BEVERAGE, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid: 207,872,3168; fax: 207,872,34 74; [email protected] Business Matters RUBEN L. RIVERA, Controller: 207,87 2,3160; fax: 207,87 2,3216; [email protected] Grants, Loans, and Student Employment LUCIA WHITTELSEY, Director of Financial Aid: 207,872,33 79; fax: 207,872,3474; [email protected] Health and Medical Care MELANIE M. THOMPSON, M.D., Medical Director: 207 ,872,3394; fax: 207,872,3077; [email protected] Public Affairs STEPHEN B. COLLINS, Directorof Communications: 207,872,3549; fax: 207,872,3280; sbcollin@colby .edu Records and Transcripts GEORGE L. COLEMAN
    [Show full text]
  • Compatriotism, Citizenship, and Catastrophe in French Martinique (1870 – 1902)
    The Politics of Disaster in a Colony of Citizens: Compatriotism, Citizenship, and Catastrophe in French Martinique (1870 – 1902) By Christopher Michael Church A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Tyler Stovall, Chair Professor James P. Daughton Professor Thomas Laqueur Professor Percy Hintzen Spring 2014 The Politics of Disaster in a Colony of Citizens: Compatriotism, Citizenship, and Catastrophe in French Martinique (1870 – 1902) © Copyright 2014 Christopher Michael Church Abstract The Politics of Disaster in a Colony of Citizens: Compatriotism, Citizenship, and Catastrophe in French Martinique (1870 – 1902) By Christopher Michael Church Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Tyler Stovall, Chair As politicians of France’s Third Republic vied to build a democratic consensus and distance themselves from France’s recent autocratic past, they projected a fantasy of assimilation onto Martinique—one of France’s oldest colonies where the predominately non-white population had received full citizenship and universal manhood suffrage with the ratification of the Constitution of 1875. However, at the close of the nineteenth century, a series of disasters struck the French island of Martinique that threatened the republican fantasy of seamless assimilation: (1) the 1890 fire that destroyed the island’s capital of Fort-de-France; (2) the 1891 Atlantic hurricane that devastated the island’s economy and prompted a reevaluation of the place of the colony within the French nation; (3) the first general strike in 1900 wherein civil unrest in the colonies caused a political disaster in the metropole; and (4) the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée that killed over 30,000 people nearly instantaneously and cemented a postcolonial relationship characterized by dependence.
    [Show full text]
  • La Gestion Des Déchets À Mayotte
    Express Note N° 273 – July 2014 Martinique at a Glance STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS Capital Fort-de-France Surface area 1,128 km² Geographic location Antilles Arc - New-York at 3,150 km, Paris at 6,900 km, Pointe-à-Pitre at 200 km Languages spoken French and Creole Currency Euro (€) Status Overseas Department and Region (DROM) and Outermost Region (OMR) Global HDI ranking (2010) 34 National representation 4 MPs, 2 senators and 1 representative at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council State representation Prefect Historical background The history of Martinique is closely linked to the European colonial expansion in the Caribbean. However, the P first settlements were made by Amerindian populations and date back to 2,000 B.C. The first residents are thought to be the Arawaks, who came from what is now Venezuela in around 100 B.C. Between the 10th and 14th century, a new civilisation arrived on the island: the Carib or Kalina Indians. Christopher Columbus O discovered Martinique on 15th June 1502 and called it Madinina (“the island of flowers”). The island became French in 1635 and belonged to the Compagnie des Isles d'Amérique (Company of the American Islands) created by Richelieu. It had the institutional status of a French territory administered and run R by a trading company. Indigo, coffee and sugarcane were progressively cultivated on the island as arable land was taken over to the detriment of the Caribbean people, and within an economic system based on slavery. The French Revolution (1789) brought the egalitarian ideal to the colonies. In 1793, the Governor of T Rochambeau imposed the civil rights of the “free men of colour” on the island.
    [Show full text]
  • 2017 LAS Noticias
    LAS Noticias THE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER Bowdoin College, June 2017, #9 Photo courtesy of Robin Derby Rendering Dominicans of Haitian Descent Stateless See page 18 2 Bringing Brazil 6 Homage to 8 Art and Identity 12 Ian Yaffe and to Bowdoin Genie in Martinique Mano en Mano Wheelwright bowdoin.edu/latin-american-studies • [email protected] BRINGING BRAZIL TO BOWDOIN JAY SOSA By Krista Van Vleet Bowdoin College welcomed Jay Sosa in Fall 2016 as Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. His dissertation “São Paulo Has Never Been Pinker” examines the aesthetics of LGBT activism and the political public sphere in Brazil’s largest city. He comes to Bowdoin with a PhD in Anthropology (Chicago, 2016), MA in Social Sciences (Chicago 2010), and a BA in History of Art, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Cultural Anthropology (Michigan 2003). We are so happy to have you here at How does your focus on Latin America Bowdoin! What have you taught and shape your understanding of gender what have you learned during your and sexuality? first year? This will be a major focus of a new course that I’ll teach in the This year, I taught “Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and fall of 2017, “Carnival and Control: Race, Gender, and Sexuality Women’s Studies,” “Queer Theory,” and in Brazil.” Brazil is known as a country of “Sex and the State.” Generally, my courses contradictions. São Paulo’s LGBT pride use different theoretical lenses to examine I called my parade is reported to be the largest of its kind contemporary politics and culture.
    [Show full text]