The Struggle of Non-Sovereign Caribbean Territories

Neoliberalism since the French Antillean Uprisings of 2009

Edited by H. Adlai Murdoch

SERIES: Critical Caribbean Studies

Rutgers University Press

The Struggle of Non-Sovereign Caribbean Territories is an essay collection made up of two sections; in the first, a group of anglophone and francophone scholars examines the roots, effects and implications of the major social upheaval that shook Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and Réunion in February and March of 2009. They clearly demonstrate the critical role played by community activism, art and media to combat politico-economic policies that generate (un)employment, labor exploitation, and unattended health risks, all made secondary to the supremacy of profit. In the second section, additional scholars provide in-depth analyses of the ways in which an insistence on capital accumulation and centralization instantiated broad hierarchies of market-driven profit, capital accumulation, and economic exploitation upon a range of populations and territories in the wider non-sovereign and nominally sovereign Caribbean from Haiti to the Dutch Antilles to Puerto Rico, reinforcing the racialized patterns of socioeconomic exclusion and privatization long imposed by France on its former colonial territories.

This splendid collection makes a major contribution to both the study of neocolonialism in the Caribbean and the conundrums faced by the non-sovereign territories of the region. It is certain to be one of the foremost books on Caribbean neoliberalism for some time to come. Aaron Kamugisha, co-editor of Caribbean popular Culture: Power, Politics and Performance

This timely collection of essays persuasively suggests that there is a universal crisis of governance and rule that extends across the entire Caribbean. The Struggle of Non-Sovereign Caribbean Territories offers a close reading of the popular demands coming from the streets alongside new, insurgent themes expressed through popular culture, all turning against the neo-liberal hegemony of the present and recent past. Brian Meeks, author of Critical Interventions in Caribbean Politics and Theory

This splendid collection makes a major contribution to both the study of neocolonialism in the Caribbean and the conundrums faced by the non-sovereign territories of the region. It is certain to be one of the foremost books on Caribbean neoliberalism for some time to come. Aaron Kamugisha, co-editor of Caribbean popular Culture: Power, Politics and Performance

This timely collection of essays persuasively suggests that there is a universal crisis of governance and rule that extends across the entire Caribbean. The Struggle of Non-Sovereign Caribbean Territories offers a close reading of the popular demands coming from the streets alongside new, insurgent themes expressed through popular culture, all turning against the neo-liberal hegemony of the present and recent past. Brian Meeks, author of Critical Interventions in Caribbean Politics and Theory

H. ADLAI MURDOCH is Professor of Romance Studies and Director of Africana Studies at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Introduction—Non-Sovereignty and the Neoliberal Challenge: Contesting Economic Exploitation in the Eastern Caribbean – H. Adlai Murdoch
Part I
1. Bridging the divide to face the Plantationocene: The chlordecone contamination and the 2009 social events in Martinique and Guadeloupe – Malcom Ferdinand
2. From the film Nèg maron (2005) to the Manifeste pour les ‘produits’ de haute nécessité (2009): Youth Dispossession, General Strikes and Alternative Economies in the French Caribbean – Louise Hardwick
3. Artists Against Exploitation: The L’Herminier Museum Squat as a Demonstration Against “La Vie Chère” – Alix Pierre
4. Martinique or the Greatness and Weakness of Spontaneity: A View of February 2009 – Hanétha Vété-Congolo
5. Neoliberalism and Caribbean Economies: Martinique, Guadeloupe and the Exploitative Strategies of Metropolitan Capital – H. Adlai Murdoch and Paget Henry
Part II
6. Criminalization, Punitive Neoliberalism and the Puerto Rican Independence Movement – Jacqueline Lazú
7. Developing Disasters: Industrialization, Austerity, and Violence in Haiti since 1915 – Vincent Joos
8. A ‘New’ Antillean DOM Arts Scene, or the pragmatic aesthetics of patience: Artincidence, Annabel Guérédrat, Daniel Goudrouffe, and Henri Tauliaut – Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken
9. Buskando nos mes: Giving Meaning to National Identity in Curaçao – Rose Mary Allen
10. The Parallels and Paradoxes of Postcolonial Sovereignty Games in the Dutch and French Caribbean: The End of the Netherlands Antilles and Construction of New Dutch Caribbean Political Entities and Relations – Michael Sharpe
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index

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