Synopses & Reviews
In 1946, after more than three hundred years as French colonies, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana were transformed into overseasdepartments of France, equal and identical in theory to any French department. Thisbook assesses the effects of almost half a century of political assimilation intoFrance and asks to what extent the high standard of living enjoyed by French WestIndians today has been offset by losses on the political, cultural, andpsychological levels.
The book, whose contributorscome from the French West Indies themselves and from Britain and Jamaica, brings avariety of perspectives to bear on what to many observers will seem a paradox in thepostcolonial age: three West Indian societies that are now part of Europe and whosedesire to remain French far outweighs- or so it seems- their desire to be WestIndian.
Table of Contents
The French West Indies áa l'heure de l'Europe : an overview / Richard D.E. Burton and Fred Reno -- Constitutional and political change in the French Caribbean / Helen Hintjens -- Politics and society in Martinique / Fred Reno -- Guadeloupean consensus / Jean-Paul Eluther -- Society, culture and politics in French Guiana / Bridget Jones and Elie Stephenson -- Dialectics of descent and phenotypes in racial classification in Martinique / Michel Giraud -- The Declaration of the Treaty of Maastricht on the ultra-peripheral regions of the Community : an assessment / Emmanuel Jos -- The French Antilles and the wider Caribbean / Maurice Burac -- West Indians in France / Alain Anselin -- Women from Guadeloupe and Martinique / Arlette Gautier -- The idea of difference in contemporary French West Indian thought : Nâegritude, Antillanitâe, Crâeolitâe / Richard D. E. Burton -- French West Indian writing since 1970 / Beverley Ormerod.