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.
A French-speaking Canadian volunteer in Haiti part of the volunteer group EDV that helped recovery efforts after the earthquake in early June 2010.
Emma Taylor/Wikimedia
Christine Lutringer, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
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.
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.
Dennis Lamaison
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?
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.
davric/wikimedia
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.
Senior Researcher and Executive Director, Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)