tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/french-guiana-24356/articlesFrench Guiana – The Conversation2021-04-01T18:47:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1581052021-04-01T18:47:35Z2021-04-01T18:47:35Z‘Godzilla vs. Kong’: Monster movies evoke adventure but also ‘dangers’ of tropics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393182/original/file-20210401-19-kx3hwy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C12%2C1349%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hollywood movies have historically represented the tropics as lush green coasts but lurking underneath is disease and danger.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Warner Bros.)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For audiences stuck in their living rooms, the new monster film <em>Godzilla vs. Kong</em> offers an opportunity to do some armchair travelling. But before you imagine a tropical island getaway — perhaps a lounge-chair by a beach soaked in sunshine — this is a monster movie and so you must also make room for a scary lurking creature. </p>
<p>The duality of these images are with us partly because <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/hollywoods-hawaii">Hollywood movies have long leaned into colonial representations</a> of the tropics: imagined as romantic palm-fringed coasts full of abundance and natural fertility, but also scary places full of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9493.00060">pestilence, disease and primitiveness</a> and previously “undiscovered” creatures. </p>
<p>Through stories of colonial exploration, tropical landscapes become places where the western explorer can experience the unbridled sensuality of nature as well as the thrill of danger from the unknown. In this view, the tropics become a landscape where nature towers over man, a power imbalance that monster films seek to address. </p>
<p>Though these films start with tropical locales, the threat posed by mega-creatures does not become real until they cross into the realms of the western world. For example, Godzilla’s journey begins with former colonies and ends in New York. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book Cover: Contagious: Cultures, Carriers and the Outbreak Narrative" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393148/original/file-20210401-15-dk362f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Monster movies are about protecting western lands and people from exposure to strange lands, people and disease.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Duke Press)</span></span>
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<p>The problem in these monster movies then becomes one of protecting western lands and people from <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/bioinsecurities">exposure to strange lands</a> and the “aberrant” creatures and people contained in those lands. Non-western landscapes and people thus become endowed with the burden of embodying these threats, magnified many times over in monster films. The same trajectory is also invoked with narratives of disease transmission: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822390572">from a “primitive” space to the metropolitan centre</a>. </p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/godzillas-island-origin/">Godzilla originated out of Japanese history and culture</a>, when it crossed over into Hollywood, the setting of the films relied on tropes from colonial history. So while monster films may be entertaining, they build on structures with long imperial histories and have implications for the way <a href="http://www.siupress.com/books/978-0-8093-2624-2">Hollywood audiences perceive the tropics</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Savage wilderness’</h2>
<p>The narratives of tropics simultaneously containing possibilities for paradise and pestilence can be traced back to the beginning of colonial scientific exploration.</p>
<p>These ideas come alive in <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/61933b5a4492e779/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2599">a 19th-century explorer’s account of a journey </a> to French Guiana. He writes about “virgin forests,” “tropical luxuriance,” “wild denizens” and their “gloomy recesses” and “the poetry of savage wilderness.”</p>
<p>The 19th-century British explorer, Joseph Banks, who accompanied cartographer James Cook on his voyage to the South Pacific, marvelled <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/joseph-banks-endeavour-journal">how nature had provided for the inhabitants of these lands in abundance. He even said the tropical land yielded fruit without labour</a>. These perceptions shaped the idea of tropics as a place of natural abundance, and gave rise to the trope of <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14096.html">tropical bounty</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/earth-day-colonialisms-role-in-the-overexploitation-of-natural-resources-113995">Earth Day: Colonialism's role in the overexploitation of natural resources</a>
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<p>The “discovery” of new lands was combined with the impulse to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/ca/academic/subjects/history/regional-history-after-1500/green-imperialism-colonial-expansion-tropical-island-edens-and-origins-environmentalism-16001860">recreate the Biblical idea of an Eden, or paradise on Earth</a>, a phenomenon which played out with colonial explorers on tropical islands. </p>
<h2>The yellow filter</h2>
<p>Hollywood’s monster films like <em>Godzilla</em> (1998, 2014) and <em>Kong: Skull Island</em> (2017) have used similar ideas. In all three films, the tropical island is an important setting, a place where the story is set in motion. All three films fall into similar patterns and use similar techniques to depict the tropics versus the west.</p>
<p>The opening sequences in the 1998 and 2014 versions of <em>Godzilla</em> rely on footage of sepia-toned palm lined beaches, Indigenous Peoples and a warmly lit mine next to a lush forest in the Philippines. </p>
<p>The sepia tone in the 1998 <em>Godzilla</em> resembles Hollywood’s common use of the <a href="https://matadornetwork.com/read/yellow-filter-american-movies/">yellow filter</a> to show tropical locations. Critics like journalist Elisabeth Sherman have pointed out the use of the yellow filter as something western movie makers do to “depict warm, tropical, dry climates.” But she says, “it makes the landscape in question look jaundiced and unhealthy.” <em>Kong: Skull Island</em> also makes use of a warm yellow tinge for the scenes that unfold in the tropical jungle that is Kong’s turf.</p>
<h2>The photographic lens</h2>
<p>Modes of representation such as the camera and photography were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/magazine/when-the-camera-was-a-weapon-of-imperialism-and-when-it-still-is.html">part of the imperial apparatus</a>. As technology brought by the white explorers, photography provided a means to <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo15581095.html">capture the land, erase and arrange the people</a> being looked at through the camera.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two people, one with a gun raised and one with a camera search under dinosaur bones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393154/original/file-20210401-15-107io6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393154/original/file-20210401-15-107io6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393154/original/file-20210401-15-107io6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393154/original/file-20210401-15-107io6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393154/original/file-20210401-15-107io6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393154/original/file-20210401-15-107io6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393154/original/file-20210401-15-107io6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from ‘Kong: Skull Island.’ Brie Larson plays the photographer and Tom Hiddleston is the tracker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Warner Bros.)</span></span>
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<p><em>Kong: Skull Island</em> features an “uncharted” island in the South Pacific. In the film, the inhabitants of the island are often shown through the photographer’s camera. The residents are mute in the film; the audience and the rest of the team in Skull Island need the westerner’s help to parse what they mean with their gestures.</p>
<h2>Depicting Indigenous Peoples as in the past</h2>
<p>In <em>Kong: Skull Island</em>, expedition leader William Randa (played by John Goodman) tries to get funding for his trip to the uncharted island by describing it as a place “where God did not finish creation” or, in other words, a place where time has stood still. </p>
<p>Indeed, the inhabitants of Skull Island are situated squarely in a <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/time-and-the-other/9780231169264">prehistoric</a> time-frame, separate from the contemporary time inhabited by the explorers.</p>
<p>Building on the colonial imagination that casts Indigenous inhabitants as being close to nature, the 2021 film features an Indigenous girl from Skull Island as the sole contact between Kong and the rest of the world. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UCRV1bU-sKY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer of King Kong vs. Godzilla/Warner Bros. 2021.</span></figcaption>
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<p>With its unknown creatures and lush forests, Skull Island occupies a different space-time. These sentiments of the Indigenous populations and flora and fauna were commonly expressed by colonial explorers. Ernst Haeckel, the famous naturalist and proponent of Darwinism, on his visit to Sri Lanka said the flora of the land reminded him of <a href="https://archive.org/details/visittoceylon00haecuoft">fossils from earlier geological ages</a>. </p>
<p>Reminiscent of the competition between various colonial powers to map “unknown” lands and resources, what gets Randa his funding is the assurance that Americans will “discover” the uncharted island first.</p>
<h2>Old texts still have everyday impact</h2>
<p><em>Kong: Skull Island</em> builds on the long history of colonial literature. Two characters in the film: the tracker, named Conrad (played by Tom Hiddleston), and Marlow (John C. Reilly) are a nod to the literary journey up the Congo river in the novel, <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/310601/heart-of-darkness-by-joseph-conrad/">Heart of Darkness</a></em> about an explorer named Marlow and written by Joseph Conrad. The novel’s premise that the journey up the Congo river is a journey into darkness <a href="https://www.massreview.org/volume-57-issue-1">has raised many debates</a> about the racism in Conrad’s text. </p>
<p>Though the new <em>Godzilla vs. Kong</em> offers the two mega-creatures a common enemy, the film still traffics in established tropes of monster films. </p>
<p>For decades, these landscapes have been characterized as sites of abundance but also disease outbreaks. At the same time, they also become places full of resources that need extraction. In Hollywood and colonial literature imaginations, the tropics hold cures for disease, alternative medicines and other geological resources, building on the long history of collaboration between <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-bears-fingerprints-colonialism-180968709/">scientists and the colonial enterprise</a>. </p>
<p>Even though these tropes came into being centuries ago as a result of colonial expeditions, they still underpin how space gets imagined in contemporary pop culture, revealing the everyday impact of old literary texts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158105/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priscilla Jolly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hollywood movies have long leaned into colonial representations of the tropics: imagined as romantic palm-fringed coasts full of abundance, but also scary places full of pestilence and primitiveness.Priscilla Jolly, PhD student, Department of English, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1134072019-03-21T20:27:27Z2019-03-21T20:27:27ZHow Francophone scholarship deepened our understanding of democracy and social change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265081/original/file-20190321-93044-2tj1nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C24%2C2020%2C1508&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A French-speaking Canadian volunteer in Haiti part of the volunteer group EDV that helped recovery efforts after the earthquake in early June 2010.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haitian_students_learn_English_from_Canadian_volunteer.jpg">Emma Taylor/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What do Alfred Sauvy, <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Olivier_de_Sardan">Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan</a> and Frantz Fanon have in common?</p>
<p>Their works were all written in French and have made considerable contributions to our understanding of democracy and social change, whatever is the context. I explored this theme in a chapter of the upcoming book <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030040512"><em>Building Development Studies for the New Millennium</em></a> (Palgrave Macmillan), which analyses how Francophone academic literature played an important role in building development studies.</p>
<h2>Some crucial contributions</h2>
<p>Francophone academic literature holds great resources for social scientists delving into social and political change. Given its geography, it covers a wide range of economic, social and cultural settings, including France, Switzerland and Belgium; Quebec, New Brunswick and the Caribbean; North, Central and West Africa; the Indian and Pacific oceans; and Southeast Asia.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265074/original/file-20190321-93060-176j8nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265074/original/file-20190321-93060-176j8nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265074/original/file-20190321-93060-176j8nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265074/original/file-20190321-93060-176j8nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265074/original/file-20190321-93060-176j8nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265074/original/file-20190321-93060-176j8nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265074/original/file-20190321-93060-176j8nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Frantz Fanon (1925-1961). Fanon was psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and writer from the French colony of Martinique. His works are influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz_Fanon#/media/File:Frantzfanonpjwproductions.jpg">Pacha J. Willka/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>Observing socio-economic realities of the Francophone community opens up avenues of research and gives rise to analyses of development processes that may differ from Anglo-Saxon or other scholarships. With sociologists, anthropologists and political philosophers markedly influencing this field of studies since it was forged, Francophone works tend to give more emphasis to cultural and social values as well as to epistemological and methodological questions.</p>
<p>Some important pioneering work on development originates from Francophone authors: the very notion of the “Third World” was established by French demographer <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2012.720828">Alfred Sauvy in 1952</a>. This also highlights the key role of non-economic disciplines in shaping Francophone development studies.</p>
<p>Studies originating from Francophone academic networks have had significant influence on development processes themselves because they have informed a certain type of development cooperation and a range of aid programmes promoted in particular by French, Swiss, Canadian and Belgian stakeholders.</p>
<p>Institutional linkages can often be traced between academic institutions and cooperation organisations. For example, the <a href="http://graduateinstitute.ch/home/about-us/discover-the-institute.html">African Institute of Geneva</a> (now part of the Graduate Institute) was created in 1961 to promote research on development and train future development practitioners, and also to conceive international cooperation projects for Swiss governmental bodies and NGOs.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265079/original/file-20190321-93039-1jefgxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265079/original/file-20190321-93039-1jefgxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265079/original/file-20190321-93039-1jefgxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265079/original/file-20190321-93039-1jefgxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265079/original/file-20190321-93039-1jefgxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265079/original/file-20190321-93039-1jefgxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265079/original/file-20190321-93039-1jefgxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alfred Sauvy by Erling Mandelman (1983). Sauvy coined the term ‘Third World’ in 1952.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy#/media/File:Alfred_Sauvy_(1983)_by_Erling_Mandelmann.jpg">Erling Mandelmann/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Linking theory and practice</h2>
<p>Francophone scholarship has called for reflection – and action – on democratic practices within and beyond states. This was accompanied by a <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/16742">key methodological change in the 1970s</a> as research ceased to restrict itself to the intended beneficiaries of development interventions and recognised the plurality of actors and agents in development processes and the essential role of power relations.</p>
<p>To better understand the relationships between “theory” and “practice”, I also mapped the research landscape and examined in which context and on what terms institutions for development research were created. Conversely, it is interesting to observe the trajectory and institutional positioning of development studies journals.</p>
<p>For example, the only academic journal that is directly funded today by the French Agency for Development (AFD) is <em>Afrique contemporaine</em>. This should be understood in the context of the privileged links that <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-ethnologie-francaise-2011-3-page-405.htm">French institutions have maintained with Francophone Africa</a></p>
<h2>The contribution of French sociologists</h2>
<p>My study highlights the distinct role of disciplines such as demography, sociology and anthropology in shaping Francophone development studies. In particular, it underlines the particular contribution of French sociologists in this field as early as the 1950s.</p>
<p>Sociological approaches of authors such as Pierre Bourdieu, Alain Touraine and Michel Foucault have deeply informed scholarship on development. The literature has therefore placed particular emphasis on notions such as <em>trajectoire</em> (trajectory) and <em>pouvoir</em> (power).</p>
<p>Interestingly, the early introduction of culture – and of <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-geoeconomie-2010-4-page-57.htm">cultural exceptionalism</a> – in development theories also brought about a hiatus and hierarchy between the cultural realm and market rules.</p>
<p>The promotion of cultural diversity and of language identity have been key objectives for the <a href="https://www.francophonie.org/">Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie</a> since its creation in 1970. France’s position was clearly articulated: cultural activities and artistic production ought not to be managed according to mere economic and financial criteria. In this perspective, cultural flows were to remain outside the purview of the market, which justified state interventions meant to restrict market laws in a range of domains. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5SJtHbBeiPE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Institut Français, March 2018.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Overall, Francophone development economics seems to have provided more critical approaches to development policies, locating analyses in more global or integrated perspectives compared with the Anglo-Saxon tradition.</p>
<p>It entered in conversation with other disciplines very early, partly because it gave more importance to the role of institutions in economic thinking. For example, <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Perroux">François Perroux</a>, one of the first French-speaking economists who theoretically engaged <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-l-economie-politique-2003-4-page-47.htm">with development</a>, used concepts such as asymmetry, disarticulation, domination and constantly aimed to test economic concepts empirically. His calls for engaging with other disciplines led to the creation of the journals <a href="https://www.persee.fr/collection/tiers"><em>Revue Tiers Monde</em></a> and <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-mondes-en-developpement.htm"><em>Mondes en développement</em></a>, where economics was associated, in a multidisciplinary approach, with sociology, political science, demography and statistics.</p>
<h2>(De)colonisation and scientific mobilisation</h2>
<p>I also suggest that the lived experience and memories of colonisation and decolonisation fostered activist, political as well as scientific mobilisation.</p>
<p>For example charitable actions across continents and activist engagement against the Algerian war led by personalities such as <a href="http://www.lebret-irfed.org/spip.php?article4">Louis-Joseph Lebret</a>, economist and dominican priest who founded the Institut international de recherche et de formation éducation et développement (IRFED) in 1958, were followed by long-term development activities carried out by these movements and associations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265077/original/file-20190321-93028-f8b1t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265077/original/file-20190321-93028-f8b1t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265077/original/file-20190321-93028-f8b1t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265077/original/file-20190321-93028-f8b1t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265077/original/file-20190321-93028-f8b1t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265077/original/file-20190321-93028-f8b1t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265077/original/file-20190321-93028-f8b1t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Father Louis-Joseph Lebret in Colombia, 1958.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Joseph_Lebret#/media/File:Lebret_Colombie.jpg">Centro Lebret USTA, Medellin, Colombie/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The production of Francophone scholarship has been facilitated by the extensive network of parastatal bodies and research institutions involved in activities of “cooperation for development”. For example, the Belgian and French systems of <em>coopérants</em> allowed to collaborate to an activity of collective interest abroad in lieu of military service. Moreover, the network of French research centres worldwide (some of which already created in the 1950s) has favoured the immersion of researchers in local realities.</p>
<p>Researchers who gained concrete experience of development also fed diverse ways of thinking. In Switzerland, <a href="http://www.armand-colin.com/repenser-le-developpement-messages-dasie-9782200354763">Gilbert Etienne</a>, a development economist whose fieldwork in Asia and particularly in India extended over a period of more than 50 years, was a vocal critic of both large development theories and anti-development ideologies. According to him, both led to a stalemate as they were unable to make sense of the more subtle ground realities, which were necessarily informed by historical, geographical and cultural factors and thus called for interdisciplinary research.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/development-projects-observed/"><em>Development Projects Observed</em></a>, Albert Hirschman’s influential book published in 1967, was key in shaping the analysis of development processes among Francophone thinkers as well.</p>
<h2>A Francophone renaissance</h2>
<p>Considering the effects of globalisation and the multipolarity of the world, Francophone political scientists and sociologists are remarkable for their observation of economic, political, social change from below; one can cite the Groupe d'analyse des modes populaires d'action politique, which was created in 1980 by anthropologist <a href="http://graduateinstitute.ch/directory/_/people/bayart">Jean-François Bayart</a> (Graduate Institute) to explore political situations from the perspective of subordinated actors rather than political power holders.</p>
<p>Studying these popular practices is key to understanding how authoritarian or democratic forms of government are experienced in everyday life.</p>
<p>Francophone scholars have largely contributed to <a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/tiers_0040-7356_1984_num_25_98_3400_t1_0447_0000_1">“post-development”</a> and <a href="https://www.fayard.fr/documents-temoignages/le-pari-de-la-decroissance-9782213629148">“de-growth”</a> theories. And today the French-speaking development community is raising concerns about the need to rethink the relationship between society and the environment.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This contribution first appeared in an interview format in the Graduate Institute <a href="http://globalchallenges.ch/bulletin/newsletter/research-bulletin-march-2019/">Bulletin</a>, March 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Lutringer ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Scholars such as Alfred Sauvy, Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan and Frantz Fanon wrote in French, but their work greatly contributed to our understanding of democracy and social change in all contexts.Christine Lutringer, Senior Researcher and Executive Director, Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757072017-04-12T02:47:02Z2017-04-12T02:47:02ZHow racism hampers health care in French Guiana<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164262/original/image-20170406-6377-ngvz0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saint-Laurent du Maroni Hospital. Some of the building's structures go back to the time when French Guiana was mainly known for its prisons. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dennis Lamaison</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Oft-overlooked French Guiana, one of France’s five overseas departments, has suddenly captured <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/world/europe/french-guiana-general-strike-france.html?_r=0">international media attention</a>. And the news from this small South American territory is not good. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-violence-in-french-guiana-has-roots-in-the-colonial-past-71437">Crime</a>, overcrowding in schools and hospitals, unemployment, the cost of living and slums <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/video/2017/03/28/comprendre-la-situation-en-guyane-en-trois-minutes_5102207_3224.html">have reached alarming levels</a>. </p>
<p>Citizen discontent led to a massive demonstration this March. Demonstrators are asking for <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20170403-french-guiana-protests-aid-package-space-centre-south-america-france">a $US2.7 billion emergency aid package</a> from the French government to assist in the territory’s social and economical crisis. </p>
<p>Health care is a particular concern in the former penal colony of 276,000 people. <a href="http://drees.social-sante.gouv.fr/IMG/apps/statiss/frames/frprof_sante_lib.asp-prov=DH-depar=DK.htm">Hospitals are under-staffed</a> and technical facilities are lacking. In some areas, <a href="https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1285646">the nearest hospital</a> is a two-day canoe trip away. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2016/10/06/l-hygiene-de-l-hopital-de-cayenne-en-question-apres-la-mort-de-cinq-prematures-en-trois-mois_5008954_1651302.html">recent deaths of five premature babies</a> from infection at Cayenne hospital, in the capital, have heightened concerns. </p>
<p>But there’s one critical health care-related issue that almost no one is talking about: racism. In a diverse territory comprised of people of European, African, Asian and indigenous descent and a growing immigrant population, limited access to health care is exacerbated by everyday discrimination based on ethnicity and national origin.</p>
<h2>Too many foreigners?</h2>
<p>Foreign-born residents of French Guiana are among those impacted by discrimination in the health-care system. </p>
<p>Though socioeconomically the territory lags severely behind the rest of France, French Guiana constitutes a regional haven of wealth whose attractiveness has grown since the 1960s. Today, <a href="https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1908375">more than one in three</a> inhabitants is <a href="https://esa.un.org/miggmgprofiles/indicators/files/FrenchGuiana.pdf">born abroad</a>. People from Suriname, Brazil and Haiti represent the largest immigrant groups. </p>
<p>This “tidal wave” of immigration is often cited as the main cause of French Guiana’s current socioeconomic crisis, even in some <a href="http://www.senat.fr/rap/r05-300-1/r05-300-11.pdf">French political circles</a>. The discriminatory behaviours that sometimes result from such widespread immigrant-blaming may be only thinly veiled. </p>
<p>State health office assistants might apply stricter conditions than legally necessary to those seeking medical benefits. Some, for instance might ask the foreign-born applicants to give proof of longer residency than required by law, thinking that it will discourage them from settling in the territory. </p>
<p>The same arguments are, in fact, used to justify similar discriminatory practices against immigrants in <a href="https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=SPUB_072_0099&DocId=416210&hits=4590+4455+4409+4389+12+">mainland France</a>, too. But in Guiana they are more <a href="http://anthropologiesante.revues.org/1003">openly displayed</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163866/original/image-20170404-5736-g34khd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163866/original/image-20170404-5736-g34khd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163866/original/image-20170404-5736-g34khd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163866/original/image-20170404-5736-g34khd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163866/original/image-20170404-5736-g34khd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163866/original/image-20170404-5736-g34khd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163866/original/image-20170404-5736-g34khd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the territory’s rural interior region, people sometimes use canoes to reach the hospital.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dennis Lamaison</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ethnic categorisations</h2>
<p>Immigrants are not the only group that experiences discrimination in accessing health care in French Guiana. <a href="http://anthropologiesante.revues.org/1003">Members of minority populations</a>, whether they are French or not, can also be affected.</p>
<p>This is partly because in French Guiana, <a href="http://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/as/2013-v37-n3-as01306/1024089ar/">people commonly use ethnicity</a> to identify themselves and others. Creole, Maroon, Amerindian, Hmong, Chinese or French <em>Métropolitains</em> (mainlanders) are frequently invoked categories.</p>
<p>Under French law, <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21647638-taboo-studying-immigrant-families-performance-fraying-edgy-inquiry">the government cannot collect data or use it based on ethnicity</a>. But in Guiana such usage goes back to the territory’s early times as a slave colony. </p>
<p>And, of course, each grouping comes with its stock of stereotypes: “Maroons are child-like”, for instance, or “Hmongs are disciplined” and “Amerindians drink their dole money”. </p>
<p>But these assumptions are not set in stone. Because they serve to justify power relations between groups, they tend to change with the ethnic identity of the speaker. This social dynamic plays out in French Guiana’s health-care system.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163942/original/image-20170404-5697-adipu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163942/original/image-20170404-5697-adipu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163942/original/image-20170404-5697-adipu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163942/original/image-20170404-5697-adipu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163942/original/image-20170404-5697-adipu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163942/original/image-20170404-5697-adipu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163942/original/image-20170404-5697-adipu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Foreigners and minorities of various ethnic backgrounds experience discrimination when accessing health care.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dennis Lamaison</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, French Guiana’s second largest city, Maroons – <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0229.xml">the descendants of escaped former slaves</a> – are the majority population and therefore the largest group of health-care users. Health-care professionals, on the other hand, are primarily Creoles or French mainlanders. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163851/original/image-20170404-5697-bhjunq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The territory’s one main road serves the coast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Guyane_map-fr.svg">Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These professionals often point to the <a href="http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/pleins_textes_2/etudes_theses/36991.pdf">Maroon people’s history</a> to explain certain patient behaviours. In the 18th and 19th centuries, slaves who escaped from plantations would hide in the forest, creating communities that remained more or less isolated from coastal Guianese society for almost 200 years. </p>
<p>In 1969, the large territory they still occupy – mainly tropical forests in the country’s interior – was finally integrated into the Department of Guiana. At that point, they began to gain access to French citizenship and public services such as education and health. </p>
<p>Doctors, nurses and other health professionals readily highlight these facts to explain Maroons’ difficulties in accessing treatment, inferring that they are not yet used to doing things “the Western way”. </p>
<h2>‘Them’ and ‘us’</h2>
<p>Such references to historical facts are charged with connotations. Some Creole professionals suggest that <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-migrations-societe-2012-2-page-35.htm">Maroon people are undeserving</a> of care because they only had to “leave their forest” to access to such services. Contrasting that status with their own position as “Guianese taxpayers” who fund these services, some may use this as justification to refuse Maroon people help in accessing treatment. </p>
<p>This attitude can be better understood considering the Creole people’s own history in French Guiana. Their process of accessing civil rights was slow and gradual. Social empowerment came only at the tail end of a gradual Westernisation process that began with slavery in the 17th century. </p>
<p>After emancipation and the granting of French citizenship in 1848, this population slowly rose to local economic and political power, spurred along by Guiana’s transformation into a French department (1946) and a national policy of decentralisation (1982).</p>
<p>Now hard-won Creole dominance is <a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/cea_0008-0055_1997_num_37_148_1834">threatened</a> by Maroon people, who recently obtained the same civil rights as them, and whose numbers have surpassed their own numbers in the Western part of Guiana. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163945/original/image-20170404-5725-1xwovur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163945/original/image-20170404-5725-1xwovur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163945/original/image-20170404-5725-1xwovur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163945/original/image-20170404-5725-1xwovur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163945/original/image-20170404-5725-1xwovur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163945/original/image-20170404-5725-1xwovur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163945/original/image-20170404-5725-1xwovur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Access to social services is vital for many poor French Guianese, yet administrative dysfunction hinders it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dennis Lamaison</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Health professionals from the French mainland, for their part, tend to emphasise the “cultural differences” of these “new citizens”. They cite, for example, the “traditional” way in which Maroons transmit information (watching without asking questions) and their way of “living in the moment” to explain their apparent inability to request health coverage prior to needing treatment. </p>
<p>This tendency to highlight cultural differences <a href="https://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=AUTR_055_0089">can also end up amounting to discrimination</a> because it overshadows systemic failures that do impact access to health care, such as the lack of health coverage offices in the country’s rural inland regions. This tendency is more present among professionals who have been in Guiana for just a few months and who readily admit to being allured by the very different culture of this “exotic” overseas corner of France. </p>
<p>Discriminatory behaviours among health professionals therefore exacerbate the failures of the ailing health-care system now under protest by Guianese demonstrators. Foreigners and Maroon people are the first victims of administrative failures due to their vulnerable socioeconomic status. They are also worst hit by geographical obstacles because they represent a majority of inhabitants in the territory’s remote rural areas. </p>
<p>But this <a href="https://eps.revues.org/3638">accumulation</a> of racist, economic and geographical inequalities is no accident. It is the result of centuries of history of Guianese society.</p>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en/">Fast for Word</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Estelle Carde has received funds from the Fondation de France and the ANRS.</span></em></p>French Guineans are up in arms about the territory’s overcrowded hospitals. Why is no one talking about how racism and xenophobia also affect access to health care?Estelle Carde, Professor of Sociology of Health, Université de MontréalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/714372017-02-10T07:42:24Z2017-02-10T07:42:24ZThe rise of violence in French Guiana has roots in the colonial past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156038/original/image-20170208-17355-1mx7xuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Violent history of French Guiana could be one of the factors that explains today's high criminality in the region. Prison of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni , 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Bagne_Cayenne_03.jpg">davric/wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>French Guiana’s January carnival is normally a fun and festive occasion. But this year, a young man was severely beaten by ten other teenagers during the procession, marring the celebrations. The violence <a href="http://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/guyane/dossier-carnaval-cayenne-glisse-violence-436467.html">prompted Cayenne’s mayor</a> to forbid anyone who was not in costume to participate in the carnival.</p>
<p>Despite lying 7,000km away from Paris on the East coast of South America, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/05/letter-from-french-guiana-france">French Guiana</a> is classified as a part of France. It is known as an overseas “department” and sends representatives to the French parliament.</p>
<p>Violence at the carnival is only the tip of the iceberg. French Guiana has been declared France’s “<a href="http://www.franceguyane.fr/actualite/faitsdivers/tgi-une-realite-effrayante-330995.php">deadliest department</a>”, where violence <a href="http://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/guyane-est-departement-plus-violent-france-430211.html">has been on the rise</a> since the late 2000s, <a href="http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/insecurite-cayenne-ville-de-tous-les-records_1301045.html">especially in the capital city Cayenne</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">A group of Neg'marrons participate in the French Guiana’s annual carnival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jb75/5637454397/in/photostream/">Jo Be/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf">According to the United Nations</a>, in 2009, the annual murder rate of French Guiana was 13.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 1.1 in mainland France, and 2.7 and 7.9 in Martinique and Guadeloupe, two other overseas French departments. </p>
<p>These violent episodes have psychological and historical causes, relating to the history of French Guiana and <a href="http://ordcs.mmsh.univ-aix.fr/publications/Documents/ORDCS_N6.pdf">its ongoing identity issues</a>.</p>
<h2>Guiana: a genesis of violence?</h2>
<p>Violence is familiar to all cultures but it has its own genesis in French Guiana. The history of this region is punctuated by significantly violent episodes. </p>
<p>A popular outlet par excellence, the annual carnival highlights are the troupes of <a href="http://www.mucem.org/en/programmation/blodwenn-mauffret-blacks-painted-black-masks-otherness-reflected-cayenne-carnival/"><em>Neg'marrons</em></a> who pose as rebel slaves intimidating the spectators. There are also people dressed as convicts and Senegalese riflemen. All appeal to <a href="http://www.karthala.com/hommes-et-societes-anthropologie/2306-penser-le-carnaval-variations-discours-et-representations-9782811104078.html">a transgressive collective memory</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">A prized paradise destination for tourists, Guiana is also the most violent French department.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Guyane_fr_savane-roche_virginie.jpg">Delorme/Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>Belonging to the French since 1643, French Guiana was born from a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1467-9663.2005.00450.x/asset/j.1467-9663.2005.00450.x.pdf?v=1&t=iywvr26c&s=86f0b3fa423f3151c11f2a13b9dcad75e2451ec8">singular colonial context</a>. Unlike in the West Indies, <a href="http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-0465-2_197">the Amerindians</a> of French Guiana survived their encounter with Europeans. </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.2164-0947.1960.tb00723.x/asset/j.2164-0947.1960.tb00723.x.pdf;jsessionid=7CE0EBB23E32D58D88F26FE5FC2FA71E.f02t01?v=1&t=iyoi4u9p&s=8a0800268f6eca3b23091ddd096451916238ce4a">They passed on</a> the memory of colonisation through the <a href="http://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/na-na-kali-na-une-histoire-des-kali-na-en-guyane">myth of the <em>Pailanti'po</em></a>. In this legend, a monster devouring the Amerindians acts as a personification of the deadly diseases that appeared along with the European colonisers.</p>
<p>French Guiana’s history is also one of slavery and racism. For two centuries, mistreatment from slave masters was answered by the <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0229.xml">resistance</a> of rebel slaves, or Maroons, violence was both physical and spiritual. </p>
<p>As a response to slavery, characters such as <a href="https://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/histoire-religieuse-de-la-guyane-francaise-aux-xixe-et-xxe-siecles">the sorcerer poisoner</a> assumed a major role among the three Indigenous peoples of French Guiana. The position of the sorcerer poisoner, a <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/230694">diviner and witch doctor</a>, which finds its origins in African societies, is known as the <em>Piaye</em> among native <a href="https://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/wayana-eitoponpe-une-histoire-orale-des-indiens-wayana">Amerindians</a>, the <em>Obeah Man</em> among the <a href="https://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/le-monde-des-marrons-du-maroni-en-guyane-1772-1860">Bushinengués</a> of the Maroni, and the <em>Gado</em> among the <a href="https://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/catholicisme-esclavage-et-acculturation-dans-la-caraibe-francophone-et-en-guyane-au-xixe-siecle">Creoles</a>. </p>
<p>The end of slavery in 1848 did not end the relationship between masters and slaves – it was instead prolonged through <a href="http://www.theses.fr/2015EHES0141">the forced commitment of contract workers</a>. </p>
<p>This meant that violence remained a regular feature in collective memory. It can be seen in the figure of the notorious Gabonese contract worker turned criminal D'Chimbo. D'Chimbo spread terror on the island of Cayenne through his brutal machete attacks from 1860 to 1862, but <a href="http://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/d-chimbo-du-criminel-au-heros">has been remembered</a> as a hero for fighting the colonial system.</p>
<p>At that time, the plantation economy had already been replaced by <a href="https://com.revues.org/3173">slash and burn agriculture</a>. The <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0289.12089_22/abstract">gold rush</a> led to massive acquisition of rifles, <a href="https://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/la-guyane-francaise-au-temps-de-l-or-de-l-esclavage-de-la-francisation">turning Guyanese forests</a> into lawless zones. </p>
<p>Off the coast, the penitentiary nicknamed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/04/france.prisonsandprobation">Devil’s Island opened in 1852</a> and transformed Guiana over the following century into a convict colony, as portrayed in the 1973 film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070511/">Papillon</a>. Its most famous resident was Alfred Dreyfus, the victim of the notorious <a href="http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/what-was-the-dreyfus-affair">Dreyfus affair</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘In the land of the Old Whites’, a 1963 documentary on the inhumane conditions of convicts sent to French Guiana.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Paradoxes of the present</h2>
<p>French Guiana’s history has been based on conflict between slaves and masters, whites and blacks, the weak and the powerful. To what extent does this explain the current violence? </p>
<p>Periodic eruptions of violence underline the ambiguity of the relationship with the mainland. Cayenne experienced <a href="http://mediatheques.collectivitedemartinique.mq/Default/doc/ALOES/0201737">riots in 1928</a> because of electoral fraud, the 1946 revolt <a href="https://echogeo.revues.org/6333?lang=en">of the Senegalese riflemen</a> who had settled in French Guiana to assist the local forces, and finally the nationalist push <a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/outre_1631-0438_2006_num_93_352_4234">in the late 1960s</a> whose proponents claimed more independence from France and rejected its politics.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Guiana nationalist film on the political context of the early 1970s.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Adding to the weight of this tumultuous past are the paradoxes of a South American territory being integrated in the European Union. Since <a href="http://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/archives-d-outre-mer-1946-la-departementalisation-de-la-guadeloupe-la-guyane-la-martinique-et-la-reunion-340078.html">the departmentalisation of 1946</a>, which made French Guiana an overseas territory of France, migration has deeply reshaped Guianese society. <a href="https://esa.un.org/miggmgprofiles/indicators/files/FrenchGuiana.pdf">Two out of three adults are not born in Guiana</a>: they are from the French continent or other overseas territories, or perhaps Brazilian, Surinamese, Haitian or Chinese.</p>
<p>The population of roughly 250,000 is expected to <a href="https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1292564">double again by 2040</a>. At the forefront of the concerns of the Guianese authorities is the future of <a href="http://www.franceguyane.fr/actualite/faitsdivers/l-enseignement-va-droit-dans-le-mur-331875.php">the 10,000 children</a> aged between six and 16 who are today left out of the educational system. This poses a challenging problem for the President of the Central Office for Cooperation at School of Guiana who <a href="https://www.ctguyane.fr/colloque-violence/">has said</a>, “education must be a true lightning rod against this violence”.</p>
<p><a href="http://lekotidien.fr/2017/01/24/6-universitaires-proposent-de-construire-la-societe-French%20Guianaise/">Community division</a> threatens the society. Creoles and mainlanders monopolise political and economic power in contrast with the more recently arrived groups. Now a minority, some members of Creole society sometimes aggressively reassert their <a href="https://www.ibisrouge.fr/fr/livres/la-societe-French%20Guianaise-a-l-epreuve-des-migrations-1965-2015">identity</a>. </p>
<p>The latest arrivals are those of <a href="https://cal.revues.org/574">the Haitians</a> <a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/espos_0755-7809_1993_num_11_2_1604">in 1975</a> who became even <a href="http://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/guyane/quel-peut-etre-nombre-reel-migrants-haitiens-guyane-408391.html">more numerous</a> after the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8455629.stm">2010 earthquake</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37596222">Hurricane Matthew of 2016</a>. </p>
<p>French Guiana, by its geography, is close to countries where some criminal systems thrive, and in which the violence is trivialised (racket, <a href="http://webdoc.rfi.fr/pour-suites/enquete-suriname-plateforme-cocaine-desi-bouterse">drug trafficking</a>).</p>
<p>The challenges posed by this South American settings add to the already tormented Guianese society. Strong economic growth has failed to reduce <a href="http://www.guyane.gouv.fr/content/download/1588/9570/file/Note-Strat%C3%A9gique-CPER-2014-2020-GUYANE_V2-1.pdf">ever-growing poverty</a>, with <a href="http://observatoire-outre-mer.interieur.gouv.fr/site/Statistiques/Conjoncture-regionale/Guyane">unemployment affecting one out of every two young people</a>. </p>
<p>Plush villas and private swimming pools neighbour Haitian slums. The frustration borne from the inequalities associated with the traditional free flow of arms constitute the breeding ground for the daily violence. Added to the illegal gold mining and cocaine trafficking are the ever-present robberies, despite an extensive <a href="https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2565363">mobilisation of public authorities</a>.</p>
<p>This all-South American violence threatens the extraordinary dynamism of French Guiana’s inhabitants and its rich diversity. As film director Kim Shapiron, who just released a fictional series on French Guiana, <a href="http://www.gqmagazine.fr/pop-culture/series/articles/guyane-la-serie-qui-remet-canal-sur-orbite/49668">put it</a>: “Guiana is France but it’s South America first. Everything is fine and then everything collapses.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Violence is on the rise in French Guiana. To understand this phenomenon, scholars delve into the often tragic history of the region.Martine Batt, Professeur de psychologie, Université de LorraineCédric Andriot, Chargé d'enseignement, Université de GuyaneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/537952016-01-28T13:02:36Z2016-01-28T13:02:36ZWhy the resignation of a justice minister strikes at the very heart of French values<p>Christiane Taubira announced her <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35417732">resignation</a> as France’s minister for justice on January 27, following what she described as a “major political disagreement” with her ministerial colleagues over terrorism legislation.</p>
<p>It’s early days, but it seems as though Taubira made the decision on a point of principle relating to the treatment of people convicted of terrorism. The government plans to strip these people of French citizenship if they hold dual nationality; Taubira stood vehemently opposed.</p>
<p>A favourite target of French racists and hard-right-wingers, Taubira is well known for taking principled stands against threats to cherished Republican values.</p>
<p>She was elected to the French parliament in 1993 to represent French Guiana – where she was born. Ever since, her career has been characterised by successive attempts to hold the Republic to account.</p>
<p>France’s anti-racist discourse – typified by its refusal to attribute ethnic categories to citizens – was for Taubira hypocritical so long as its representatives remained reluctant to confront the structural legacies of French imperialism. In the eyes of the French state, people are classified either as “French nationals” or “foreigners”. Statistics gathered on the educational achievement of children, for example, or on quality of housing, are never officially correlated with the ethnic background of those studied. Hence the state cannot officially map how inequalities might correlate with ethnicity. </p>
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<p>Taubira justified her recent act of dissent by claiming that proposals to cancel the French nationality of those convicted of terrorist-related offences would not be effective anyway. But she has also spoken powerfully of the “droit du sol” as an inviolable principle. For Taubira, those born on French soil have fundamental rights to access French citizenship, whatever their alleged crimes.</p>
<p>This has lead to her being applauded by some for using her judgement, but criticised by others for taking a <a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/politique/taubira-a-deja-enterre-la-decheance-de-nationalite-22-12-2015-5394593.php">“soft” stance</a> on terrorism. Her inclusive and humanistic Republicanism has been the making of her political reputation but also, it seems, her undoing as a minister.</p>
<p>Taubira’s action corresponds with her position as both outsider and insider in the French parliament. She is affiliated with the governing Socialist Party but has also been associated with the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-27444750">radical left</a> and continues to represent <a href="http://walwari.over-blog.com/pages/Le_Mouvement_WALWARI-2275799.html">Walwari</a>, the Guiana-based party she helped create.</p>
<p>This free radical is now to be replaced by <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2016/01/27/jean-jacques-urvoas-un-homme-cle-de-la-majorite-nouveau-ministre-de-la-justice_4854383_823448.html">Jean-Jacques Urvoas</a>, said to be a friend of prime minister Manuel Valls. It perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that Valls, a centre-right “socialist” who talks tough on border control and on terrorism, has chosen someone less outspoken (or at least less practised at resisting) to take on Taubira’s portfolio.</p>
<h2>Racist abuse</h2>
<p>Urvoas will in any case not need to undergo the distracting business of managing <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-justice-minister-and-the-banana-how-racist-is-france">racist and misogynist abuse</a>. As the ex-Garde des Sceaux cycled away from the ministry, her supporters applauded her, while the French right wing celebrated her departure.</p>
<p>Taubira’s legitimacy as a representative of the French people has repeatedly been brought into question. Yet she is one of a succession of people from French Guiana who have played pivotal roles at the heart of government by advocating similar versions of Republicanism.</p>
<p>In 1940, <a href="http://www.webafriqa.net/library/african_proconsuls/felix_eboue.html">Félix Éboué</a> the French Guiana-born grandson of slaves, then colonial governor of Chad, turned the course of World War II in the Allies’ favour by drumming up support for the Free French rather than for the Vichy government. His near-contemporary <a href="http://www.une-autre-histoire.org/gaston-monnerville-biographie/">Gaston Monnerville</a>, of the Radical Party, was a crucial member of France’s transitional and post-war governments. In 1962, Monnerville publicly opposed President de Gaulle and Prime Minister Pompidou on a constitutional matter (sound familiar?). Still, he remained president of the French Senate until 1968.</p>
<p>Along with their African-American roots, Éboué, Monnerville and Taubira have shared a certain willingness to dissent in the name of “Republican values”. This, it is fair to surmise, is not unrelated to the ways in which they all embodied and understood the diversity and complexity of imperial and postcolonial France.</p>
<p>French Guiana, which borders Suriname and Brazil, has been a fully-integrated department of France since 1946. In legal terms, it is essentially no different to the Dordogne or the Vendée. The Guyanais are French citizens who use the euro and attend the lycée. Yet, in this corner of Amazonia, French nationals of African, East Asian, Maroon and/or native American descent rub shoulders with migrants and refugees from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, St Lucia, Colombia, China, Brazil, Suriname and indeed Paris. Many in French Guiana, unsurprisingly, hold dual nationality. Although there is no terrorism there, there is plenty of crime; the proposal to strip nationality from certain convicted criminals could set a precedent which might affect people in Taubira’s constituency more than others. </p>
<p>Marine Le Pen says that Taubira’s resignation is “good news for France”. But Guiana is France, too. And so France, in a sense, is also Guiana. And whose France is represented now, in François Hollande’s cabinet?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Christiane Taubira has battled for years to prove her right to represent French people, so she couldn’t stay silent when a controversial plan was hatched to strip some of their nationality.Sarah Wood, Lecturer in Imperial and Postcolonial History, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.