Part of a full day workshop at Bethune-Cookman University "Afro-Latino Adaptations:Images from the Caribbean and Brazil"

1. R E V I V I N G A F R O - C R E O L E
D A N C E H E R I TA G E I N
C O N T E M P O R A RY
M A R T I N I Q U E
!
C A M E E M A D D O X
D O C T O R A L C A N D I D AT E
U N I V. O F F L O R I D A
T H E S T R U G G L E F O R
C U LT U R A L C I T I Z E N S H I P

2. M A R T I N I Q U E
( D O M )
• A département d’outre mèr,
or an overseas department
of France in the Caribbean
• French citizenship,
administration, bureaucracy,
economic development,
and education
• Voting rights and
parliamentary
representation
Map of Caribbean

3. M A R T I N I Q U E
( D O M )
• A département d’outre mèr,
or an overseas department
of France in the Caribbean
• French citizenship,
administration, bureaucracy,
economic development,
and education
• Voting rights and
parliamentary
representation
Map of Martinique

4. 2 0 0 9 G E N E R A L
S T R I K E I N
M A R T I N I Q U E
K O L E K T I F 5 F E V RY É

5. M A R T I N I C A N
B È L È

6. E X I S T I N G S C H O L A R S H I P
• Bèlè revival as a “new social movement”
• Bèlè revival as a strategy for defending the island’s
cultural heritage against exploitative touristic
representations
• Bèlè revival as a space for creating a renewed sense of
belonging
(Gerstin 2000; Cyrille 2002; Pulvar 2009)

7. M E T H O D O L O G Y
• 21 months of ethnographic field research, 2009 - 2014
• Open-ended interviews, semi-structured interviews,
life history interviews, archival research & video
elicitation
• Dance as participant-observation (Sklar 1991; Daniel
1995, 2005; Reed 1998; Buckland 1999)

8. C U LT U R A L C I T I Z E N S H I P
• “The right to be different (in terms of race, ethnicity, or
native language) with respect to the norms of the
dominant national community without compromising
one’s right to belong, in the sense of participating in the
nation-state’s democratic processes” (Rosaldo 1994:57).
!
• “those enactments and practices that forge a sense of
community and belonging lead to renewed experiences
of identity, and provide a social space for the formation
of collective practice and its concomitant forms of
power” (Flores 1997:125).

9. – C Y R I L L E B I S S E T T E , 1 8 4 9
“What are you doing, my friends? You behave like
cannibals, like savages! The more I try to raise you
up, the more you lower yourselves. You make me
ashamed. Am I not a negro like you? Then do as I do,
imitate the Whites! They alone will civilize you…
What use is the drum? Don’t you see what the Whites
use for their dances? Like them, use the violin. Then
my daughters and I will come to your dances.”

10. C O M P E T I N G P E R S P E C T I V E S I N T H E
B È L È M O V E M E N T
• POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF BÈLÈ
• RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL FUNCTIONS OF BÈLÈ
• TRANSGRESSIVE GENDER AND SEXUALITY
PERFORMANCE
• BÈLÈ PEDAGOGY AND THE NATIONAL EDUCATION
SYSTEM