The Indian Ocean, a territory of multicultural research

Research on Reunion Island would benefit from the methodological shift introduced by postcolonial studies: to transcend the problematic drawn by the battle lines of colonialism and anti-colonialism, in order to describe the internal dynamics of a multi-layered world. This paper looks at two areas of research: the world of the Indian Ocean and the world of creolization. The Indian Ocean was a world of exchanges and encounters between Africa, Asia and the Islamic world long before the arrival of the Europeans. Colonial slavery and colonialism deeply affected the zone's cultural, financial, material and symbolic economy. The new regimes of production penetrated societies creating new ethnic differences as well as new patterns of cultural hybridity. In recent years, new forms of regionalization have reawakened old routes of diasporic exchanges or produced new routes of communication. Studying the place of Reunion Island within this matrix would open new areas of research. Creolization was the product of the cultural and economic system of the plantation. It was characterized by a movement of tension between marked contrasts and a unity constantly reconfigured and shaped by new forces and groups. The study of the phenomena of creolization as they have occurred and continue to occur on the island would illuminate the ways in which the structuration of space and subjectivities operate in a society marked by inequality, multiplicity and synthesis.La recherche à l'île de La Réunion gagnerait à être appréhendée à partir d'une méthodologie qui mette en lumière les mondes auxquels elle appartient : monde l'indiaocéanité, monde de l'esclavage, monde de la créolité, monde de la République française. Plutôt que de privilégier la dichotomie colonialisme/anti-colonialisme, il s'agirait de faire apparaître les relations transversales comme verticales, les multiples espaces d'identification, les interactions qu'entretiennent les différents groupes sociaux-culturel