The Strategies of Decolonization in the Creole Cultural Space : Conflicting Cognition of Space in Martinique

<p>The purpose of this paper is to consider the spatial perspectives of Creole, setting the cultural concept apart from previously established concepts of culture, by focusing on the space of Martinique as a local context in which that new concept has been formed. Creole cultural space is not as closed as a cultural area that merely reproduces the "other." It is a process in which human cultural practices create the "place." Therefore, from the standpoint of decolonization strategies, it rejects the formation of national or state territory. My intention is to investigate how decolonization strategies are related to the spatial specificity of Martinique. First, I will point out that although Creole as a concept of culture has become a significant framework to analyze heterogeneity, plurality, and the de-territoriality of culture in the globalized world of today, it is also important to consider the historical and local contexts of formation of Creole discourse in the 1990s, which was constructed during the decolonization movements of the 1970s and 1980s in Martinique. There, people had suffered from cultural rejection under the dominant universalism of modern Europe. Second, I re-examine the data obtained in my field survey, carried out in the late 1980s, on the cognition of space and spatial behavior of the Martinican people. I consider the interaction between spatial awareness and spatial practices in Martinique chronologically, and show that the avoidance of political separatism strategies in the decolonization movements there was due to the people's cognition of space. Martinican people classify the space of the island into two categories; terre (land ) and mer (sea). Terre is further classified into eleven sub-categories; ville (capital city), bourg (local town), champ (plantation field), campagne (countryside), jaden (peasant's field), fore (forest), fore sauvage (wild forest), montagne (the volcano Pere), morne (hill), fon (valley), and savane (savanna). Mer is classified into two sub-categories; village de pecheurs (fisherman's village) and plage (seaside). Plage is classified into two smaller categories; plage sauvage (sand beach or rocky beach without easy access) and fore mangrove (mangrove forest). The island's boundaries vary between fishermen and non-fishermen. Since the 1980s, the classification of the island's space has been further subdivided: the ville has been differentiated into three categories; ville (central business district), banlieue (suburb), and bidonbille (slum). Two categories are identified in bourg: bourg referes to such places as churchs, markets, town halls and taxi spots, while bourg-banlieue more generally points to a residential landscape in a rural area. The political and social changes after the transformation of Martinique into a French overseas department in 1946, as well as the decline of the sugar plantation economy since the 1960s, resulted in a remarkable increase of vacant land on the island, particularly in rural areas since the 1980s. Such vacant land has become recognized as terrain abandone (abandoned land) and terrain specule (land for speculations), which has upset people's traditional cognition of space. The paper makes a comparative analysis of the cognitions of space and changes in the real space during three historical stages; (I) from the end of the 15th century to the mid-19th century, (II) from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, and (III) after the mid-20th century until today. That shows that Martinicans' scheme of cognition of space corresponds with the scheme of the first stage, namely, the traditional sugar plantation period. They recognize their island's space as a plantation landscape, even after their emancipation from slavery. Third, I focus on a popular housing space called case, a small wooded removable cabin originating in France and later used</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>