Le Malaise Créole

Le Malaise Créole
Author: Rosabelle Boswell
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2006
Genre: Creoles
ISBN: 9781845450755

How does one explain the poverty and marginalization of a group that lives in a remarkably successful economy and peaceful society? A native anthropologist, the author provides critical insight into the dynamics of contemporary Mauritian society. In her meticulously researched study of ethnic, gender and racial discrimination in Mauritius, she addresses debates carried out in many developing societies on subaltern identities, ethnicity, poverty and social injustice. The book therefore also offers important empirical material for scholars interested in the wider Indian Ocean region and beyond.

Le Malaise Creole

Le Malaise Creole
Author: Rosabelle Boswell
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2006-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1782388753

How does one explain the poverty and marginalization of a group that lives in a remarkably successful economy and peaceful society? A native anthropologist, the author provides critical insight into the dynamics of contemporary Mauritian society. In her meticulously researched study of ethnic, gender and racial discrimination in Mauritius, she addresses debates carried out in many developing societies on subaltern identities, ethnicity, poverty and social injustice. The book therefore also offers important empirical material for scholars interested in the wider Indian Ocean region and beyond.

Creating the Creole Island

Creating the Creole Island
Author: Megan Vaughan
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2005-02
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780822333999

The island of Mauritius lies in the middle of the Indian Ocean, about 550 miles east of Madagascar. Uninhabited until the arrival of colonists in the late sixteenth century, Mauritius was subsequently populated by many different peoples as successive waves of colonizers and slaves arrived at its shores. The French ruled the island from the early eighteenth century until the early nineteenth. Throughout the 1700s, ships brought men and women from France to build the colonial population and from Africa and India as slaves. In Creating the Creole Island, the distinguished historian Megan Vaughan traces the complex and contradictory social relations that developed on Mauritius under French colonial rule, paying particular attention to questions of subjectivity and agency. Combining archival research with an engaging literary style, Vaughan juxtaposes extensive analysis of court records with examinations of the logs of slave ships and of colonial correspondence and travel accounts. The result is a close reading of life on the island, power relations, colonialism, and the process of cultural creolization. Vaughan brings to light complexities of language, sexuality, and reproduction as well as the impact of the French Revolution. Illuminating a crucial period in the history of Mauritius, Creating the Creole Island is a major contribution to the historiography of slavery, colonialism, and creolization across the Indian Ocean.

Slavery, Memory and Identity

Slavery, Memory and Identity
Author: Douglas Hamilton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317321979

This is the first book to explore national representations of slavery in an international comparative perspective. Contributions span a wide geographical range, covering Europe, North America, West and South Africa, the Indian Ocean and Asia.

Creolization and Pidginization in Contexts of Postcolonial Diversity

Creolization and Pidginization in Contexts of Postcolonial Diversity
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2018-02-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004363394

This book deals with creolization and pidginization of language, culture and identity and makes use of interdisciplinary approaches developed in the study of the latter. Creolization and pidginization are conceptualized and investigated as specific social processes in the course of which new common languages, socio-cultural practices and identifications are developed under distinct social and political conditions and in different historical and local contexts of diversity. The contributions show that creolization and pidginization are important strategies to deal with identity and difference in a world in which diversity is closely linked with inequalities that relate to specific group memberships, colonial legacies and social norms and values.

Creole Cultures, Vol. 1

Creole Cultures, Vol. 1
Author: Violet Cuffy
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2023-12-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031242750

This edited collection considers the significance of Creole cultures within current, changing global contexts. With a particular focus on post-colonial Small Island Developing States, it brings together perspectives from academics, policy makers and practitioners including those based in Dominica, St Lucia, Seychelles and Mauritius. Together they provide a rich exploration of issues that arise in relation to safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage that sustains Creole identities. Commencing with considerations of the UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the collection then presents case studies from the Seychelles, Mauritius, St. Lucia and Dominica. These attest to the many and different ways through which Creole cultural practices remain significant to the lived experiences of Creole communities. These chapters exemplify how through activities such as storytelling, singing, dancing, making artworks and the alternative economic practice of koudmen, Creole peoples sustain cultural identities that draw strength from their traditions. Yet there is also recognition of the continual struggle to sustain Creole cultural practices in the face of global economic and political pressures and related uncertainties. This global economic landscape also has an impact upon how Creole cultures are presented to tourists and hence upon the ways in which cultural practices are supported.

The Mauritian Novel

The Mauritian Novel
Author: Julia Waters
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2019-01-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1786949490

This book analyses how the idea – or the problem - of belonging is articulated in a range of contemporary francophone Mauritian novels. Waters explores how forms of affective belonging intersect with the exclusionary ‘politics of belonging’ in novels by Nathacha Appanah, Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel, Bertrand de Robillard, Amal Sewtohul and Carl de Souza.

Politics of Memory

Politics of Memory
Author: Ana Lucia Araujo
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2013-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136313168

The public memory of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, which some years ago could be observed especially in North America, has slowly emerged into a transnational phenomenon now encompassing Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and even Asia – allowing the populations of African descent, organized groups, governments, non-governmental organizations and societies in these different regions to individually and collectively update and reconstruct the slave past. This edited volume examines the recent transnational emergence of the public memory of slavery, shedding light on the work of memory produced by groups of individuals who are descendants of slaves. The chapters in this book explore how the memory of the enslaved and slavers is shaped and displayed in the public space not only in the former slave societies but also in the regions that provided captives to the former American colonies and European metropoles. Through the analysis of exhibitions, museums, monuments, accounts, and public performances, the volume makes sense of the political stakes involved in the phenomenon of memorialization of slavery and the slave trade in the public sphere.

Challenges to Identifying and Managing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Mauritius, Zanzibar and Seychelles

Challenges to Identifying and Managing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Mauritius, Zanzibar and Seychelles
Author: Rosabelle Boswell
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 95
Release: 2008
Genre: Cultural property
ISBN: 2869782152

Africa is richly blessed with cultural and natural heritage, key resources for nation building and development. Unfortunately, heritage is not being systematically researched or recognised, denying Africans the chance to learn about and benefit from heritage initiatives. This book offers a preliminary discussion of factors challenging the management of intangible cultural heritage in the African communities of Zanzibar, Mauritius and Seychelles. These islands are part of an overlapping cultural and economic zone influenced by a long history of slavery and colonial rule, a situation that has produced inequalities and underdevelopment. In all of them, heritage management is seriously underfinanced and under-resourced. African descendant heritage is given little attention and this continues to erode identity and sense of belonging to the nation. In Zanzibar tensions between majority and minority political parties affect heritage initiatives on the island. In Mauritius, the need to diversify the economy and tourism sector is encouraging the commercialisation of heritage and the homogenisation of Creole identity. In Seychelles, the legacy of socialist rule affects the conceptualisation and management of heritage, discouraging managers from exploring the island's widerange of intangible heritages. The author concludes that more funding and attention needs to be given to heritage management in Africa and its diaspora. Rosabelle Boswell is a senior lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Rhodes University, South Africa and a specialist of the southwest Indian Ocean islands. Her research interests include ethnicity, heritage, gender and development. Boswell's PhD was on poverty and identity among Creoles in Mauritius and her most recent work is onthe role of scent and fragrances in the heritage of the Swahili islands of the Indian Ocean region.

Social Movements and the Indian Diaspora

Social Movements and the Indian Diaspora
Author: Movindri Reddy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2015-11-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317478975

With the elevation of Islam and Muslim transnational networks in international affairs, from the rise of Al Qaeda to the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, the study of Diasporas and transnational identities has become more relevant. Using case studies from Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad and South Africa, this book explores the diaspora identities and impact of social movements on politics and nationalism among indentured Indian diaspora. It analyses the way in which diasporas are defined by themselves and others, and the types of social movements they participate in, showing how these are critical indicators of the threat they are perceived to pose. The book examines the notions of national and transnational identity, and how they are determined by the placement of Diasporas in the transnational locality. It argues that the transnationality intrinsic to diaspora identities mark them as others in the nation-state, and simultaneously separates them from the perceived motherland, thus displacing them from both states and situating them in a transnational locality. It is from this placement that social movements among Diasporas gain salience. As outsiders and insiders, they are well placed to offer a formidable challenge to the host state, but these challenges are limited by their hybrid identities and perceived divided loyalties. Providing an in-depth analysis of Indian Diasporas, the book will be of interest to those studying South Asian Studies, Migration and Diaspora Studies.