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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2016

From « primitives » to « refugees »: French Guianese categorizations of Maroons in the aftermath of Surinamese civil war

Résumé

This paper focuses on the turning point in Maroon categorization by the State that happened in the 1980's. Previously considered as " primitive " or " indigenous " , Maroons progressively became categorized by the French government as foreign migrants, and later as illegitimate refugees, following the outbreak of Surinamese civil war. In 1986, 10,000 people of whom most were Maroons, fled from the civil war and spilled over the border from Suriname. Instead of granting them legal refugee status, the French deemed them " Temporary Displaced Persons from Suriname " (Personnes Provisoirement Déplacées du Surinam), thus depriving them of the legal protection granted to refugees. They settled in camps far from the city center and were only informally referred to as " refugees ". I will analyze the processes that led to the categorization of Maroons in the first urban removal policies that occurred in the 1980's, and in state refugee policies. My objective is to investigate the diverse identification processes at work in these policies, the production of official categories that make Maroons " legible " to public authorities. For this purpose, I will rely on archival research in the local Department of Public Works (Direction Départementale de l'Equipement) and of the local Sub-Commissioner's Office (Sous-préfecture).
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Dates et versions

hal-01340230 , version 1 (01-07-2016)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-01340230 , version 1

Citer

Clémence Léobal. From « primitives » to « refugees »: French Guianese categorizations of Maroons in the aftermath of Surinamese civil war. Maurits S Hassankhan, Lomarsh Roopnarine, Cheryl White, Radica Mahase. Legacy of Slavery and Indentured Labour: Historical and Contemporary Issues in Suriname and the Caribbean, Manohar, pp.213-230, 2016, 9789350981276. ⟨hal-01340230⟩
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