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The Politics of Popular Music and Youth Culture in 21St-Century Mauritius and Réunion

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The Politics of Popular Music and Youth Culture in 21St-Century Mauritius and Réunion 1 The Politics of Popular Music and Youth Culture in 21st-Century Mauritius and Réunion Natalia Katherine Bremner Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures and Societies September, 2014 2 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Natalia Bremner to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2014 The University of Leeds and Natalia Bremner 3 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the help, support, and encouragement of many people strewn across two hemispheres. In Leeds and the UK, I would firstly like to thank Andy Stafford for being such a wonderful supervisor. I’d also like to thank Karen Priestley, Jenni Rauch, and all other members of staff in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies who have assisted in various important ways throughout the course of my studies. Thanks are also due to Matthew Philpotts, Barbara Lebrun, and Joe McGonagle at the University of Manchester for nurturing my love of research and for recognising some kind of potential in my former undergraduate self. Thanks too to Héloïse Finch‐Boyer for the encouragement and for representing Indian Ocean research in the UK. I apologise that I can’t name everybody, but many thanks to all those who have stimulated my thoughts at conferences, reading groups, and over cups of tea/coffee. Thanks too to my friends who have kept me sane when my thoughts have been over‐stimulated. In Mauritius, there are too many people to thank. Thank you to all those who filled my seven months in Mauritius with music: Alain, Marou, and everybody at Abaim; Yann and Yannick and everybody who was in some way involved in events and concerts at Le Sapin. Thank you to everybody at ELI Africa in Pamplemousses, and special thanks to those who took part in my somewhat experimental theatre group. Thanks to all those who helped shaped the ideas which are expressed in this thesis, including but not limited to Daniella Bastien, Ashish Bissoondial at the Mauritius Institute of Education, Fahrad Khoyratty and Bruno Cunniah at the University of Mauritius, Catherine Boudet and Jeff Lingaya, Ram Seegobin, Lindsey Collen and other members of Lalit. Mersi sirtou a tou dimounn ki’nn ed mwa aprann kreol. In Réunion, many thanks to Jonathan, Pierre, and Daniela and Julien for not leaving me homeless and for being there. Un grand merci à Donadieu et Titan Maloyèr, au Centre du Cœur saignant, et à Lekol Moring Le Port de m’avoir accueillie si chaleureusement. Thanks to Jacqueline Andoche and Yu‐Sion Live at the Université de La Réunion for productive discussions about music and tradition. In another part of France, many thanks are due to Catherine Servan‐Schreiber and Julie Peghini for, amongst many other things, managing to discuss Mauritian cultural politics without finding my Mauritian‐inflected French too strange. Finally, I would like to thank my family and especially my parents for making all this possible. Philip and Krystyna Bremner, I dedicate this thesis to you. 4 Abstract This thesis examines the politics of popular music and youth culture in two geographically close but socioculturally distinct Indian Ocean islands: Réunion (a French overseas département) and Mauritius (independent from Britain since 1968). Neither island has an indigenous, pre‐colonial population: the respective societies have thus formed through successive waves of immigration, including the importation of slaves and indentured workers from Madagascar, Africa, and Asia, resulting in extremely ethnically diverse populations, on both a communal and individual level. The island societies both began the twentieth century as sugar‐producing plantation colonies, but by the beginning of the twenty‐first century, their socioeconomic landscapes had been dramatically transformed: independent Mauritius was proclaimed as an ‘African tiger’ thanks to astute state management of limited resources, and Réunion became a French département d’outre-mer, with living standards now similar to those of metropolitan France. Although both island societies experienced dramatic and rapid transformation, however, modern‐day Réunion and Mauritius have come to represent opposing postcolonial experiences. This has resulted in the adoption of opposing approaches to the question of ethnic and racial difference: whereas the Mauritian Constitution officially acknowledges the existence of ethnoreligious ‘communities’, ethnic difference is not officially recognised in Réunion due to colour‐blind French Republican policy. The following analysis seeks to show that the study of contemporary popular culture can provide particular insights into the workings of these two creolised, postcolonial societies. Considered here principally through the lens of popular music and youth culture, it will be argued that contemporary Réunionese and Mauritian popular music and youth cultures engage with political and social issues specific to each context. This is discussed in Part II in relation to Kreol language politics, which shows that popular music can be said to work towards changing mentalities still influenced by colonial language prejudices; and in Part III as concerns popular culture’s engagement with discourses of inclusion and exclusion within the national community. 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction: Pop Music, Youth Culture and Politics in the Indian Ocean .............................. 8 The Indian Ocean: Isolation and Obscurity ............................................................................... 8 Popular Music, Youth Culture, and Academics ....................................................................... 12 Historical Context: The Colonisation of Île Bourbon (Réunion) and Île de France (Mauritius) ................................................................................................................................................ 16 The Postcolonial Era: Departmentalisation, Independence and Socioeconomic Transformation ....................................................................................................................... 24 Departmentalisation in Réunion ......................................................................................... 25 Mauritian Independence .................................................................................................... 31 Evolution of Attitudes Towards Kreol Languages ............................................................... 35 Popular Music in Mauritius and Réunion: A History ............................................................... 38 Mauritian sega .................................................................................................................... 41 Seggae ................................................................................................................................. 42 Réunionese Sega and Maloya ............................................................................................. 42 World Music ........................................................................................................................ 44 Creolisation: Transformation, Mixing, and Cultural Globalisation ......................................... 45 The Position of the Researcher ............................................................................................... 59 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 61 Methodology II: Comparative or Multi‐Sited? .................................................................... 63 Part I: The Politics of Research ........................................................................................... 69 1. Conducting ‘Thick Participation’ Research: Some Methodological Reflections ................. 70 Reformulating Participant Observation: What is ‘Thick Participation’? ................................. 73 Thick Participation: Conducting Research, Being Human ....................................................... 80 Limits of shared experience: Ethical issues in thick participation research ........................... 87 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 92 6 Part II: Pop Music, Youth Cultures, and Kreol Language Politics .......................................... 93 2. ‘Zot tou konn pik sega’: Abaim’s Musical Engagement with the Politics of Language and Ancestrality in Mauritius ................................................................................................... 94 Abaim and their Engagement with Post‐Independence Mauritian Society: A History ........... 96 Contemporary Mauritian Cultural Politics: Cultural Recognition and Auto‐Ethnicisation ...... 98 The Creole Population of Mauritius: Issues
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