Staying French: Martiniquans and Guadeloupeans between empire and independence, 1946-1973

In 1946, following the Second World War, France initiated a series of constitutional reforms designed to bind the French empire more closely to the French nation. As part of these reforms, the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe – French colonies since the early 17th century – were formally incorporated into the French nation as “Overseas Departments,” juridically no different than the departments of mainland France. The push for incorporation, which came to be known as assimilation, was led by prominent anti-colonial, Communist and negritude intellectuals and activists. They believed that assimilation constituted the surest means to break down the economic, social and cultural barriers between the Antilles and France. Incorporation into the French state promised economic and social improvements as well as increased opportunities for Antilleans to work, study and participate in French life. Assimilation was imagined not as an extension of colonialism but as a form of decolonization. However, the promised social and economic improvements never materialized and in the 1950s Antilleans grew disenchanted with assimilation and its failed promises. This project analyzes Antillean intellectuals’, students’ and activists’ dissatisfaction with assimilation and their turn towards an overtly anti-colonial politics that posited the Antilles as separate from France. My project explores how a small people positioned and made sense of themselves in the tumultuous years of decolonization, the Cold War, world revolution and the new social movements. In order to combat French colonialism, Antilleans worked to build links with anti-colonial movements in Africa and Latin America, as well as the civil rights movement in the United States. Thinking of themselves as colonized subjects inspired an intellectual and cultural movement among Antillean intellectuals that turned away from France and toward the Americas to study their cultural and racial identity in order to make sense of themselves as simultaneously black and European, Antillean and French, subject and citizen. My dissertation demonstrates how this turn inward profoundly shaped Antillean culture, particularly Antillean literature and philosophy, and led to the discovery of Antilleans’ “Other Americanness.”Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Andrew M. Dail