Past rebellions serving the present: constructing collective memories of slave rebellions in the Caribbean
Venue: Institute of Political Science (IEP), University of Bordeaux, France
Date: 8th April, 2010
Host-organisers: Christine Chivallon, Director of Research, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS-CEAN), IEP de Bordeaux and David Howard, University of Oxford, Associate Researcher (CNRS-CEAN)
Seminar theme: The core focus of the proposed seminar is the construction of collective memories of anti-slavery insurrections and rebellions in the Caribbean societies. Invited papers will analyse the historical and contemporary practices through which such events have been commemorated and represented. They will explore the dynamics of memory, and the capacity of commemoration to suppress or re-invent the past according to the needs or circumstances of the present. Invited speakers will thus assess the different forms of commemoration and the ways in which acts of rebellion and resistance to colonial authorities have been appropriated by divergent interest groups in the Caribbean. The seminar discussion will take into account the ‘forgetting’ of collective memory, as revealed through examples from popular historiographies of the French Caribbean, and assess the processes by which political elites have effectively removed narratives of resistance from official histories. Papers will consider the inverse context in which insurrections have been fully integrated into state narratives or nationalist identities, often most specifically in the construction of National Heroes. Speakers will also be invited to examine the significant variations in the ‘factual’ accounts of slave rebellions according to the political and historical perspectives of the historiographers and audience, which range from complete denial to intense glorification. Finally, the papers will address the wider theoretical processes of the ‘transmission’ and ‘invention’ of memory.
Invited speakers:
Presenters
Legacies of the 1848 anti-slavery rebellions
Myriam Cottias, (History, CRPLC, Martinique and EHESS, Paris)
Caribbean history of anti-slavery rebellions; Haitian revolution
David Geggus (History, University of Florida)
Maroon societies: narratives of rebel slave societies
Richard Price (Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University)
Symbolic re-appropriation of the Morant Bay rebellion in contemporary Jamaican society
David Howard (Geography, University of Oxford)
The ‘rehabilitation’ of the southern insurrection in Martinique
Christine Chivallon (Geography and Anthropology, CEAN-IEP, Bordeaux)
Discussant
Legacy of slavery and colonialism; diasporic peoples and Black diaspora
Stéphane Dufoix (sociology, Institut Universitaire de France, Paris)
African-American religions; re-africanization of cultural practices
Pauline Guedj (anthropology, Université de Lyon)
For further information :
Organizers :
Christine Chivallon (c.chivallon@sciencespobordeaux.fr) and David Howard (david.howard@conted.ox.ac.uk)
Coordination :
Christine Cazenave (c.cazenave@sciencespobordeaux.fr)
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Last updated 23 March 2009