Spaces and Strategies of Resistance: Cultural
Movements in the French West Indies
Lionel Arnaud
Introduction
So-called non-institutional, unconventional, or protest actions
(strikes, petitions, demonstrations, occupations, blockades, etc.) are favored
by those who have little or no access to institutional political arenas. Therefore,
above all, they appear in the face of relatively closed political opportunity
structures. The French West Indies are particularly interesting
areas for studying how cultural actions can foster the resistance of ordinary
people. As a French department since 1946, Martinique is an integral part of
the French nation, and its inhabitants now enjoy the same rights as their
fellow citizens in mainland France. But this has not always been the case.
Before 1848, Martinique was a slave colony where millions of Africans were
deported and violently cut off from their natural environment and cultural
roots, starting with their language and religions (Petitjean-Roget,
1985; Nicolas, 1996). It is therefore all the more surprising that some
practices have managed to persist, such as some dances and music that are now
being mobilized by activists. The slaves' resistance to their condition of enslavement was manifested
by poisonings, suicides, infanticides, revolts, and, more actively, maroonage
in the forests of the hills (De Vassoigne, 1971 ; Diouf, 1976). Far from habitation, slaves were
able to recreate and preserve certain ancestral practices (songs, dances, and
challenges, that were part of traditional and religious rituals); in this way,
the music and dances forbidden by the masters were able to maintain their
African character (Bastide, 1967).
But, as analyst Gabriel
Entiope points out, maroonage is not “a simple short-
or long-term escape into cities or woods, but rather to accept marroonage as a determined attitude on the part of the
Indian, white or black slave whose purpose is to question the slavery system in
his favour” (Entiope, 1996, 228). As such, music and dance would be part of a “passive"
resistance that involves “recreating a world of their own different from that
of the white man, different from the one they wanted to impose on him"
(Ibid, 217). In a hostile environment, the descendants of Africans deported to
the Americas would have had no choice but to incorporate their history into
objects, aesthetic forms, and social organizations as well as their own language
and flesh. In this way, dominated Blacks were not categorically abused by
dominant Whites; rather, they mocked it and even developed “arts of resistance”
(Scott, 2009) whose repertoire ranged from shrugging shoulders to staging a carnival.
Different forms of cunning and hidden practices were included.
In fact, even though slavery was abolished in 1848 and the French
political regime democratized, this repertoire of resistance remains an resource of those masses excluded from places of power,
and, more broadly, of those who did not feel (correctly) represented in the
colonial society. "There is indeed an affinity between the structural
position of dominance and the use of less institutionalized, less official
forms of speaking out" (Neveu, 2002, 20).
The objective of
this article is to examine the socio-spatial springboards that enabled the
inhabitants of this “neighborhood” to mobilize, with the hypothesis that the
collective residence that constitutes the neighborhood acts as a privileged
space for politicization. Based on a long-term field
survey conducted in the Rive-Droite Levassor
district of Fort-de-France, Martinique, I examine the spatial dimension of collective action strategies and
repertoires (Tilly, 1984, 1986) and their conditions and difficulties of
implementation.[1]
Located a stone's
throw from the center of Fort-de-France, this working-class
district is well known to
the people of Martinique, even if they rarely venture there. From the 1960s
onward, some inhabitants of the district managed to make their drums resound in
the heart of the carnival of Fort-de-France, but they also reinvented original
music and revalued certain local cultural traditions threatened with
destruction, in particular by creating the marching band Tanbo
Bô Kannal. Their actions
are representative of a militant conception of culture as an instrument of
struggle and political “conscientization”—to the point of becoming a reference
for other West Indian cultural movements. This paper shows that if it appears
necessary to reintroduce space as a central dimension of the collective action
of deprived groups, this reintroduction can only be achieved by questioning the
mechanisms by which individuals and groups play with each other in the spaces
and places they conceive, manage, or invest.
This
article is divided into three parts. Part one shows how the relative spatial
and social isolation of the inhabitants of the Rive Droite Levassor district have
helped to protect their way of life from the processes of assimilation
initiated by the French state. Part two demonstrates how the experience of land
and social and economic precariousness has nourished cultural mobilization and
the process of cultural creation and transmission. Finally, the third part examines
the carnival repertory and how it has encouraged the inhabitants' intrusion
into spaces outside their neighborhood and enabled them to be both visible and
valued.
1. The neighborhood as a space of resistance
A now-classic study on the Paris Commune has shown that
"mobilization does not rest only on social ties, but also creates new
ones" (Gould, 1995: 69). With this simple expression, Roger Gould insists
on the need for impoverished and disenfranchised deprived groups to make the
most of "co-presence" and population concentration as a mobilizing
force.
The
cultural practices that I studied in Martinique, which are closely interwoven
with ordinary social life, are expressions that I would describe as community based.
They have been long practiced on the fringes of, or even against, the
institutional logics valued by the French state in remote places such as the
countryside and working-class neighborhoods. Situated on the edge of the city center
on the banks of the Levassor Canal, the Rive-Droite Levassor neighborhood has
enabled certain cultural practices to continue, despite prejudices,
administrative and religious prohibitions, and the profound economic changes of
the post-war period. From this point of
view, the neighborhood constitutes a "social space of relative
autonomy" that encourages inhabitants to help each other and share and
build knowledge, experiences, and know-how away from the dominant rules and standards
(Scott, 2009: 133–135).
a) Urban experience and urban marooning
The first inhabitants of what was to
become the Rive-Droite Levassor district were fishermen who came mainly from
the communes of southwest Martinique to sell their fish in the port. They
gradually took possession of the land on the right bank of the canal, which was
still relatively uninhabited. In 1848, the abolition of slavery coincided with
a revolution in the form of production that required a large workforce and
enormous material handling work, particularly in the port of Fort-de-France.
Scattered huts sprang up on the borders of the colonial city bounded by the
river Madame, which today flows into the Levassor canal. After the eruption of
Mount Pelée in 1902, which completely destroyed Saint
Pierre, the former capital of Martinique, hundreds of refugees from the North
Atlantic came to join the population already established on the outskirts of
the city, gradually saturating the site. In the aftermath of the Second World
War, the crisis in the sugar industry further accelerated the rural exodus to
Fort-de-France. Inhabited by 60,000 people in 1954, the city had nearly 100,000
inhabitants fifteen years later, an increase of 67% (Letchimy,
1992). The arrival of 2,600 individuals per year, in an area not designed for
such growth, reinforced unrestrained urbanization through the squatterization of accessible land. This is how neighborhoods
are formed that are entirely self-built, often with recycled materials (wood,
stone, sheet metal). Over the years, the occupants have formed de facto urbanization
zones, consolidating their habitats by erecting cinder block walls and pouring
cement slabs. According to the resources available, the works were thus
completed year after year. From this point of view, the "spontaneous"
method of habitat construction appears to be an atypical enclave compared to
the development of the colonial city: in the city, the geometrical framework of
an aligned and ordered urban grammar, thought out and planned in advance by its
builders in a quasi-military manner; in the self-built habitat, the
indecipherable mosaic-crown, caught in the meanders of concrete and wooden boxes.
The cultural
mobilization of the inhabitants of the Rive-Droite Levassor district is a
direct extension of this urban experience, which finds its foundation and
motivation in the exceptional situation of illegality and the residential and
social precariousness of the populations living in self-built neighborhoods.
Until the 1980s, most of the inhabitants worked as day laborers (djobbers), whether as dockworkers or slaughterhouse
workers. Generally speaking, one of the constants in the history of the West
Indies since the abolition of slavery is the permanence of precariousness in
the world of work despite an extension in the sphere of public or semipublic
wage earning. Today, the private sector remains largely the domain of
precarious work, while alternative jobs have multiplied in the public sector.
Beyond that, it is the lack of adapted equipment and space that has shaped the
cultural practices of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, forcing them to organize
their cultural practices in the open air and, more precisely, in the street. In
the 1950s and 1960s, the leisure activities of young people in the Rive-Droite neighborhood
were mainly limited to three activities: football, petanque,
and carnival. Some residents continued to practice traditional activities,
particularly Danmyé, a danced and sometimes fierce
fight between two men who compete to the rhythm of the drum, the ostinato of
the ti-bwa, and songs sung in a circle called a ronde.
Because of its violence and bad reputation, however, parents often forbade
their children from attending the fights. Danmyé's
demonstrations were nevertheless at the center of the neighborhood's patronal
celebrations, and children grew up in contact with this practice, sometimes to
the point of developing a particular taste for it. The result was an initial,
almost spontaneous approach to song, dance, and music that did not involve
scriptural, pedagogical, moral, or ideological inculcation but was accomplished
in a "fortuitous" way by participating in the neighborhood's
activities and observing the adults.
Photo 1: The Tanbo Bô Kannal walking band in Fort-de-France
(credits: Jean-Michel Terrine)
In fact, it was the
youngest people who, at the turn of the 1960s, began to take an interest in Danmyé, seen as a practice that was as subversive as it was
playful and which they quickly identified as an act of assertion for belonging
to the neighborhood. Generally speaking, the recruitment of the first informal
collectives that began to value and develop traditional music and dance has
long taken place in the context of spatial and social proximity or, in other
words, in the neighborhood, which places the entry into musical or
choreographic practice in the extension of social belonging. A configuration
confirmed by the results of the questionnaire survey I conducted in 2013–2014
among 73 members of the Tanbo Bô
Kannal (TBK) association[2]
showed that 86% of the group members had a familial relationship (husband and
wife, son or daughter, nephew or niece, cousin, grandson or granddaughter),
while the youngest members almost always had a father, mother, brother, sister,
uncle, or aunt who is or was a member of the group. The logic of local and
social proximity tends to combine with a sort of pre-integration into TBK,
inasmuch as the family and friendly environment contributes to orienting young
people towards traditional music, whereas inter-acquaintance facilitates and
makes it attractive to learn traditional drumming and dancing. This is all the truer
since, in Rive-Droite area, the houses are built very close to each other and
access to one of them may oblige the occupants to walk along another. In such a
context, children evolve under the close supervision of their parents and/or
the neighborhood; and while young people spend a lot of time outside the home,
they are rarely left to their own devices. The doorstep, the balcony, and the
facade are the immediate spaces that constitute visual and physical stops for
strolling, chatting, resting, and watching the children. In a context marked by
social promiscuity, the cultural mobilization of the inhabitants is carried out
through direct participation in the activities of the neighborhood, which in
turn contributes to forging their mental and behavioral dispositions.
b) The social and cultural supports of the
municipality of Fort-de-France
The squatters of Rive-Droite neighborhood
were often aware of transgressing French land law by settling on land without
property rights. Nevertheless, some Bèkès[3]
families, who did not hesitate to use force, claimed ownership of the land,
sometimes with the help of the gendarmes. In the aftermath of the Second World
War, inhabitants took advantage of départementalisation
(i.e. the transformation in 1946 of the old colonies (Guadeloupe,
Martinique, Reunion Island, and French Guiana) into French departments with the
same legislative regime and administrative organization) to evade these demands
by founding a syndicate and demanding that these supposed owners provide a deed
of ownership. In this struggle, they received the support of the communist
municipality of Aimé Césaire, which initiated a process of official
reappropriation of land. Césaire was elected mayor of Fort-de-France and served
from 1945 to 2001; was deputy of Martinique from 1945 to 1993; and was rapporteur
of the 1946 departmentalization law, which he thought at the time would put an
end to the colonial relationship. Césaire wished to offer the inhabitants of
working-class districts a chance of integration and citizenship status through free
and unrestricted access to various urban services. He defended the right of the
poor to house themselves, not only by granting them land rights but also by
carrying out public works in occupied areas. He further provided technical and
material assistance to self-builders.
By making the
inhabitants feel secure, these social supports promoted the development and
fulfilment of their autonomy (Castel, 2005). But it is also a philosophical
connivance that unites the poet of Negritude with the malheureux (unfortunates). By taking an interest in popular
traditions, by offering them institutional and artistic recognition, Aimé Césaire intended to counter the hegemony of French
culture. He thus undertook an ambitious municipal cultural policy inspired by
the techniques of "cultural democratization," which were dear to
André Malraux, the founder of the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs. In the
mid-1970s, cultural activity centers were inaugurated in every district of the
Martinique capital. However, this was in contrast to the Ministry, which
intended "to make the great works of humanity, and first and foremost of
France, accessible to the largest possible number of French people", as
stipulated in its founding decree of 1959. At the same time, the decree
intended to downgrade peripheral cultures to the state of folklore with the
pejorative meaning that we know in France. On the contrary, the administration
of Fort-de-France aimed to reveal and promote the cultures born on Martinique
soil and rejected by the French state.
The mayor's ambition
was clear: to radically oppose the government's strategy to make the West
Indies "a relay for French culture." (Bernabé,
Capgras & Murgier,
1997: 132). In 1976, Césaire set up a Service
municipal d'action culturelle
(SERMAC) responsible for developing cultural activities inspired by the idea of
Négritude.[4]
Associated with the launch of the Fort-de-France Festival in 1972, the creation
of such a municipal service dedicated to the support and dissemination of the
"Negro arts" clearly acted as a declaration of the municipality's
cultural independence. For its creators as well as for its organizers, the ambition
of the SERMAC was to "change people to change mentalities" (Bernabé, Capgras & Murgier, 1997: 136) by introducing as many people as
possible to the different forms of artistic expression. In the neighborhoods as
well as in the Parc Floral, a former military barracks embedded in the city center
where part of the activities and a theatre are concentrated, the workshops
offered were open to all: anyone can take classes free of charge as part of an
open pedagogy, based on free access to classes and the free loan of musical
instruments.
By promoting
cultural action independent of state power and the tourist and cultural
industries, by contributing to the symbolic but also concrete revaluation via a
dedicated policy of the cultural forms inherited from Africa, the city of
Fort-de-France has played an essential role in the legitimization and
dissemination of Martinican dances and music. In the Rive-Droite Levassor
district, however, no cultural center was established. This absence was
justified by the proximity of the SERMAC premises, located on the other side of
the canal within walking distance. But it can also be explained by the
inhabitants' fierce desire to assert their sovereignty over the district and to
organize amongst themselves without intrusion from the municipality. In this
respect, if the cultural initiatives of the inhabitants of Rive-Droite Levassor
cannot be detached from the institutional conditions that contributed to their
emergence and development, they are also part of a concern for concrete and
symbolic resistance within Martinican society itself.
2. The
creation of a free space
As defined by Sara Evans and Harry C. Boyte, free spaces “constitute the environment in which
individuals have the opportunity to learn a new kind of mutual respect, deeper
and more secure group identity, public knowledge, cooperative values, and civic
virtues. Simply put, free spaces are places that bridge the gap between private
lives and large-scale institutions in which ordinary citizens can act with
dignity, independence, and foresight” (Evand and Boyte, 1986, 17). This definition has since been widely
taken up by scholars, which has had the effect of broadening its meaning and
dematerializing a paradoxically problematic concept to capture the more
physical dimensions of collective action (Poletta,
1999). Beyond the academic discussions, the interest of the concept of
"free space" lies in its capacity to grasp the modalities by which
the control of space is an issue of struggle between the mobilized group, the
potentially mobilizable group, and the decried institution. In order to escape
the cultural domination of the French institutions and to create a set of sites
that are conducive to collective discussion and decision-making as well as the
mobilization of habitants, the activists intend to reconvert the physical spaces
of the neighborhood into "safe spaces" (Tilly, 2000).
Generally speaking,
the rejection and fear expressed by the representatives of the colonial power
and by the assimilated black elites towards the inhabitants of the neighborhood
quickly contributed to the emergence of a community of destiny, favored by the
concentration of a lumpen proletariat made up of a low-skilled or unskilled
labor force, which quickly understood that they could rely only on their own
forces. It is in this context that Victor Treffre, a
young slaughterhouse worker, undertook in the 1960s to introduce the young
people of the neighborhood to the practice of Danmyé.
In his twenties, Victor Treffre was fascinated by the
champions (Majors) of Danmyé. He undertook to
develop several collectives, with the help of the young inhabitants of the Rive-Droite, to promote Danmyé as well
as the dances and music of Bèlè and Kalenda, which were then relegated to the rank of
picturesque practices devoid of artistic value—when they were not directly
despised by the elite of Martinique.
a) The re-invention of a musical identity
Until the 1970s, Victor Treffre's initiatives helped to awaken the interest of the neighborhood's
young people but failed to mobilize them. In 1971, Victor created the Rénovation culturelle collective
to prepare and stage mini shows featuring mimes, songs, and sketches danced and
sung to a repertoire of biguines, mazurka, waltzes,
and rumbas. This marks the beginning of a series of collectives activated by
Victor to resist the francization of Martinique and to hold back a world
in danger of disappearing. Until then, however, these initiatives were mainly
aimed at raising the awareness of the inhabitants of the neighborhood; and even
though the young people sometimes ventured into the Mornes
to meet musicians-farmers, particularly in the commune of Sainte Marie on the
Atlantic slope, presented as the Mecca of Martinican musical and choreographic
folklore, the reputation of these young cultural activists rarely went beyond
the perimeter of the neighborhood.
Everything changed
in 1973 with the first public appearance of the young people of Bô Kannal during the carnival. At
that time, they brought drums of all kinds, and their music was still rudimentary.
Over the years, however, they began to perfect their repertoire and to invent
their own sound. In order to reconnect with the music of their elders, the Bô Kannal engaged in the creation
of a singular music by drawing from the musical traditions of Martinique,
including the music and instruments of the chwal bwa,
the traditional hand-pushed rides on which they had fun during the patron saint
festivals of their childhood.[5]
Another influence on their music was that of the Kalennda,
one of the oldest Martinican dances of African origin, which was popularized
after the Second World War by the Loulou Boislaville through the performances of the Martinican Folk
Group. The contribution of these two rhythms produces a characteristic sound that
is the musical signature of the group. It was given the name "kalenbwa," a contraction of the words Kalennda and chwal bwa.
To be able to play
this sound in the street, it was also necessary to acquire the technical means
and break down the different rhythms of the drums into as many instruments
invented for the needs of wandering. The work of TBKs militants was to break
down the rhythms of Danmyé, Bélé,
and Kalennda music by bringing organological
innovations. In addition to the African drums of the first releases, different
types of instruments coming directly from the musical traditions of Martinique were
gradually added and then substituted: ti-bwa, doum-be-doum, bass and medium
drums, and chacha. Over the years, the members have
refined their repertoire and built or simply adapted their own drums for
walking by making them from recycled materials—wooden or PVC tubes to which
they attached goatskins recovered from slaughterhouses or bamboo to make ti-bwas.
Photo 2: TBK and its
dancers in the streets of Fort-de-France
(credits:
Jean-Michel Terrine)
The
"sound" of the young people of Rive-Droite, its musical identity and
stylistic originality, is thus based on a subtle combination of the heritage of
traditional music and the influence of the street that characterizes the
carnival. This approach is an extension of an urban experience based on
resourcefulness. The methods of invention and re-invention of dances, music,
and instruments used for 40 years by the young people of the neighborhood are
not only the result of their living environment but also part of a craft that
involves a great deal of rehearsal, correction, calculation, and strategy.
b) On-the-job learning and politization
In a context where entry into cultural
practices such as Carnival or Danmyé has long been
based on social and spatial resources mobilized by young people in their
immediate neighborhood, and not on any cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1979b), it
is through observation and repeated imitation of the techniques, postures, and
gestures of other members that cultural practices have been learned and
developed. But it is also thanks to the remarks and advice from one person to another
to improve and correct technique that changes in posture or style have been
made possible, including the invention of new steps, sounds, and cultural forms.
This process of acquisition "resembles less a silent habituation than an
intersubjective constitution that mobilizes all the senses" (Faure, 2000: 110).
The musical and choreographic skills of the young people of the neighborhood
were thus acquired mainly through practice, mimesis, gestures, oral exchanges,
and advice—but without any written form, as Monique recalls. Monique took her first
steps as a dancer and musician with the Lavwa Pitjan [the prickly voice] collective, created in 1977 by
Victor Treffre and the brothers Niko and Eric Gernet to study and rigorously reproduce the dances and
music inherited from the former habitation society. Monique explained the
process of acquisition:
We were teaching
each other by the way, when you look closely. That is to say that Niko might
give a subject, he might come up with a theme, a dance, a song, and then... we'd
navigate through it.... Now we have a school, but before, I had the impression
that I had, that's how I get it, we would arrive, well, Niko said we were going
to do that, and then we would throw on what. I don't know how to explain it... we
were training, we were training to do the thing well, but there wasn't a
teacher who said, it's good it's not good, that is to say that everyone was
putting... their grain of salt. Niko would come up with an idea for a sketch,
Victor would come up with his, we'd correct... this one would put in his bit of
salt and then it would go like this... (Monique, 49 years old, Ti-Bwa player, craftsman-plumber, 12 March 2012).
Generally speaking, the universe of the neighborhood's
inhabitants, mainly composed of workers, employees, a few craftsmen, and djobbers, was only partially penetrated by reading and
writing practices. Even today, the majority of members still arrives at TBK
without any musical or choreographic training, or they learned alone or in a
family or friendly setting. The sociological composition of TBK thus highlights
a certain structural homology (Bourdieu, 1979a) between the degree of training
of its members and their appetite for manual and technical activities. In 2011–2012,
nearly 66% of them (48 individuals out of 73 respondents) had a level of
training below the baccalaureate or were in vocational education. In cultural
groups as in the work sphere, most of the respondents learned on the job,
through observation and repeated imitation of the techniques and gestures of Danmyé players and folk dancers.
There were no classes like there
are now. You came to dance, you were taught how to dance, you were taken apart.
If you know a little bit, they put you in the group. If you see that you don't
succeed, then you do something else in the association (Joël, 56 years old, dancer
and tanbouyé, handler, 26 July 2012[A1] ).
It is
within the framework of a formative relationship between individuals and their
human and spatial environments that the learning of dance and music by TBK
members takes place. The reference is not produced by theoretical thought but
by the senses, that is, aesthetically. It is a learning mode that mobilizes the
sensitivity and singularity of each individual in the transmission of know-how,
while each individual is led to acquire a technical background by relying on a
sensitive awareness of the gestures learned.
Photo 3: A musical
rehearsal of the musicians and dancers in the Rive-Droite Levassor
neighborhood, Fort-de-France (credits: Lionel Arnaud)
This
analysis can be applied to politicization. The vast majority of individuals who
join TBK do not have militant experience or even prior artistic skills: they do
it to join with relatives and friends and to participate in the carnival. The
regular attendance of TBK is nevertheless accompanied by a change in their
perceptions of the neighborhood, its inhabitants, and local traditions; but,
more broadly speaking, their perceptions of economic and political systems also
change. Thus, many of the participants insist that their elders take part in discussions,
and that conversations regarding the cultural activities of the collective
start in an informal way. By participating in the various TBK activities,
Monique has acquired a social role, gained self-confidence, and enhanced practical
skills, in particular the ability to speak in public, which is inseparable from
a nascent sense of legitimacy (Matonti & Poupeau, 2004). But it was less the associative activity as
such, its meetings and democratic procedures, that contributed to awakening and
developing her activist skills, and more the practice of dance and music.
Monique explained that the repetition of gestures, the remarks and advice from
one member to another, and the discussions between peers lead to changes in
posture, style, and even the invention of new steps. Through these devices, she
has gained self-confidence and developed a kind of reflexivity about her
environment:
I mean, that's how it was done...
[she snaps her fingers]. We were teaching each other, by the way, when you look
closely. That is to say that maybe Niko would give a subject, maybe he'd come
up with a theme, a dance, a song and then... we'd navigate through it.... And
then that led us to take an interest, to research our culture, to ask the
elders.... I don't know how to explain that... we trained, we trained to do the
thing well, but there wasn't a teacher who said, "It's good, it's not good,"
that is to say that everyone put... their grain of salt in it. Niko would come
up with an idea for a sketch, Victor would come up with his, we'd correct... this
one would put his bit of salt and then it would go like this... (Monique, 49
years old, Ti-Bwa player, craftsman-plumber, 12 March
2012).
Like
the routine frameworks of conversation that allow ordinary workers to
"quickly discover that many of these conversational techniques and
resources" make them "collectively and completely competent" (Gamson, 1992, 20), the practice of dance and music and all
that it encompasses in terms of elaboration, discussion, and self-staging has
allowed Monique to develop a critical relationship with the world around her.
From this point of view, TBK is seen as a space for self-realization, a
creative space, where everyone can contribute and share knowledge, experience,
and skills and pool their time and ingenuity.
3. The street
as a space for protest
“Great
maroonage,” or active resistance, refers to the definitive escape from the life
of a slave, in which a runaway generally recreates a lost community by hiding
in a hostile environment and gives birth to black-brown societies based on a
return to African cultural forms. “Small maroonage,” in contrast, was a
temporary escape of no more than one month. But these two maroonings
carry within them two aesthetic principles of resistance. The first principle
can be compared to the creation of communities, from rastas
to the Black Arts Movement, that encouraged the idea of Black separatism. In
trying to facilitate this, inhabitants hoped to further strengthen black
ideals, solidarity, and creativity in the image of the free space that
Rive-Droite activists have managed to create in their neighborhood. The second principle
joins the "arts of resistance" and the "politics of style,"
which, from Dick Hebdige (1979) to James Scott via
Michel de Certeau (1980), intends to analyze the infrapolitics
of the dominated, defined as "a great variety of discrete forms of
resistance which do not dare to say their name" (Scott, 2009: 33) and
develop because they cannot act against the dominant.
Even if one cannot decide on the political or nonpolitical
nature of such cultural movements—as this would imply an essentialist
definition of the term (Arnaud & Guionnet, 2005)—their
relationship to the political field and the social structure they face, or even
in which they intervene objectively, can be considered necessary. A common
feature of TBK participants is their willingness to influence the course of
events at local, if not national, levels even though they do not have access to
places of power (political, administrative, economic), either directly or
through representatives. It is also a way of proceeding for those who do not
want to enter these places and struggles for power, who refuse to do politics
and to think of themselves as political actors, or who only accept this term by
specifying that it is a question of doing politics in the noble sense or otherwise.
From then on, and failing to physically force the door to places of power, the
first reflex of the mobilized collectives is often to try to invest and become
masters of the street.
Thus, in February 1973, the young inhabitants of the
Rive-Droite Levassor district burst into the Fort-de-France carnival.
Organized, their objective was to restore the image of their neighborhood and
to restore its letters of nobility to the music inherited from Africa.
Denigrated by the dominant society, pushed aside from the podium by the organizers,
the young people of the Rive-Droite Levassor area ransacked it and improvised a
vengeful refrain: "Comité bourgeois, bourgeois
carnival." [Bourgeois committee, carnival bourgeois]. This personification
shows that carnival is the space for political protest par excellence in the
repertoire inherited from popular movements (Tartakowsky,
1998): that of demonstrations and other gatherings of angry people. As its name
indicates, the function of the demonstration is to make manifest disagreements and
to challenge opponents, public authorities (which may be confused) and the
citizenry as a whole. In this sense, the carnival is not only a way of
occupying public space in the concrete sense of the term, but also of making
the mobilized group and its demands exist in a public space in the
"abstract" sense.
a) Carnival as a repertoire of protest action
In the aftermath of the abolition of
slavery, carnivals have particularly demonstrated —and still do—the will of
Blacks who have become free but remain excluded from any participation in
economic and political systems. Carnivals allow them to assert their presence
by positioning themselves against the hegemonic project of a society based on
the moral order and models of European civilization (Bastide, 1967). But while
slavery has emerged as an essential element of their desire to free themselves from
the norms and codes of white society, its memory has rarely been explicitly
mobilized; and the carnival is first perceived as a celebration and a space for
individual and collective creation (Martin, 1992). It is not in itself a place
of protest, even if it is a place of free expression that sometimes carries
political connotations such as the figure of "Vaval,"
a traditional character made of papier-mâché who is traditionally burned in
public places at the end of Martinique carnivals as a way to absolve the past
and its attendant misfortunes.
Photo 4: In 2020,
TBK participated in various demonstrations against the French State following
the use of Chlordecone in the banana plantations for more than 20 years
(1972-1993). Banned in the United States since 1976, this pesticide has
poisoned soils, rivers and the sea for centuries, with significant health
consequences for the population. (credits: René Charles “Benny” Suvélor)
In the Caribbean, two conceptions of carnival
tend to oppose each other. On one side is the "Pretty Mas’," the
bourgeois carnival, which is a colorful and joyful festival where
well-organized marching bands dance one after another, displaying shimmering
and richly decorated costumes. On the other side is the "Traditional Mas',"
the carnival of the "dirty," the disturbing and frightening
celebration where small groups or individuals emerge with cheap costumes made
with any means available and present menacing and disruptive figures. This
duality of carnival, separating two audiences and two carnival repertoires—one
static, aesthetic European, the other dynamic and supported by traditional
figures (but also vulgar and pornographic)—was particularly evident in the
1970s with groups that sought to challenge, via the free expression space of
carnival, the cultural hegemony of the bourgeois elites. The originality of
TBK, however, was, even at an early stage, to free itself from the rules of the
carnival federations. Similar to the emancipated runaway slaves (marrones), the TBK went off the beaten track, both literally
and figuratively, and would not allow themselves to be imposed upon by any specific
itinerary or way of celebrating the carnival. Moreover, a form of physical and
symbolic violence sweats from the bodies through the virulent determination to
denounce, mock, and stigmatize the holders of power of all kinds in order to
translate the ideas of rebellion and social and political demand.
The tradition of
the vidé —which
refers both to a parade of people running, dancing, and singing behind a marching
band or a sound system mounted on a truck, chanting short incantatory phrases in
the form of a call-and-response between singer and choir, supported by a rhythm
sung tirelessly as they parade through the streets—underlines the ability of the carnival to bring together all types of
participants, from the most involved (officials, activists, and members of
carnival groups) to those who do not belong to any organization. No particular
skills seem to be required. Whether gathering at the meeting place, walking,
running, watching, or sitting, everyone feels part of the event from the
outset. Nevertheless, TBK
has organization and rules of conduct to which each member submits. It also
displays a specific musical identity whose primary characteristic is to stage an
attachment to African roots. This identity includes the use of ritualized
costumes; skin drums, when most marching bands in the Americas use plastic
membranes; and the revival of the djab
wouj (red devils), which, in Martinique today,
refers to African (positive) gods and is used to enhance the memory of Africa in a context where
its remembrance is often denied or simply despised. During carnival, the
devaluing link to Africa is transformed into the affirmation of a glorious
identity because individuals, during the celebration period, reverse the
hierarchy of values between European and African roots.
b) The dissemination and politicization of marching
bands’ cultural repertoires in the French West Indies
Following their intrusion into the 1974 carnival,
the cultural initiatives of the young inhabitants of Rive-Droite Levassor soon
attracted attention. A year later, the municipality of Fort-de-France organized
a large gathering of drums from the city's working-class neighborhoods and
inhabitants were invited under the name Carnaval Bô Kannal, a way of proudly
claiming their belonging to this sub-district of Rive-Droite Levassor. But the
name Bô Kannal has a strong
resonance in Creole and aims to reflect another image of the inhabitants of the
Rive-Droite Levassor district, a reversal of the stigma. The independence
movements are sensitive to this approach. In the revival of Afro-Martinican cultural
traditions, they see an instrument for rallying and a political struggle. After their legal declaration in 1986 as
an association under the name of Tanbo Bô Kannal, the collective
gradually asserted itself in the cultural and political landscape of Martinique
in order to benefit from public subsidies. Today, TBK is present in most
commemorative events, whether it is Frantz Fanon's birthday, the "Convoy
for Reparation" (initiated in 2000 by the founder of one of the most
important pro-independence party in Martinique), or the commemorations of the Fort-de-France
riots of December 1959.
In 2015, TBK was
particularly active in the celebrations of 22 May 1848, which, in Martinique, is
the day of the commemoration of the abolition of slavery. The TBK invited in
particular the Guadeloupian group Voukoum, with whom it
maintains regular relations. Originally from Basse-Terre, Voukoum
is a marching band founded in 1988 and is, in many respects, comparable to TBK
due to its popular origins and the use of skin drums. Generally speaking, the
action repertoire developed by TBK has spread not only in Martinique but also to
the neighbouring French island of Guadeloupe.
Initiated in 1978 by anti-colonialist activists concerned with revaluing
Guadeloupe's culture among the Guadeloupeans themselves, the marching band Akiyo
[in Creole: Who are they?] took up the formula initiated by TBK in the
early 1970s. As a carnival group, Akiyo reclaimed the streets with skin drums
and rhythms from the gwo ka repertoire, a musical
genre inherited from the Plantation society, comparable to bèlè
but specific to Guadeloupe. However, the group differs from TBK in its organization
and openly political commitment, which allows it to define itself as a “mouvman kiltirel”
[in Creole: cultural movement] oriented towards the defense of the Guadeloupean
culture and against the (post-)colonial French state. Initially, some members
of the association were political activists, particularly within the Mouvement populaire pour une Guadeloupe indépendante
(MPGI) [Popular movement for an independent Guadeloupe], or even clandestine
activists.[6]
But the objective of
Akiyo is first and foremost to make carnival a place of expression and derision
and an outlet for youth where it is possible to denounce colonization, slavery,
and the excesses of assimilation without taking political action. As such, if
TBK members have become more or less politicized over time by trading
their red kaban costumes (old
nightgowns or sheets traditionally stored under the bed as a draw sheet) for
African outfits and costumes bearing the colors of the Martinican flag (black,
red, green), the members of Akiyo in contrast considered the mobilization of
previously banned music and instruments as real anti-colonial action. From the
early 1980s, Akiyo’s participants did not hesitate to mock the French state by
wearing military fatigues and colonial helmets. Believing that the group was
damaging the image of the French army, the subprefect issued an order in 1985
prohibiting the band from going public. In protest, more than 8,000 people
demonstrated in the streets of Pointe-à-Pitre with
Akiyo. Since then, colonial dress has become a trademark of the band. Combined
with the beat of its dozens of skin drums, played in rhythm while performing a
fast but rhythmic march (the déboulé), this military
outfit reinforces the group's warlike character and impresses the audience when
it marches through the streets.
Conclusion
In Le
Discours antillais (1981),
writer and poet Édouard Glissant proposes to oppose the resistance of marronage to official history via the Détour, both
historical and cultural and from the perspective of slaves in revolt and
African cultures of survival; and the Retour,
or Antillanity, i.e. the "convergence of
re-rootedness in our true place" following the rejection of a single
Euro-centric genesis (495). In spite of the absence of a geographical
hinterland in Martinique, it would be necessary to look at the past, and to “excavate
the past" in order to maroon, to inhabit the landscape and appropriate it,
to surprise its poetics, and to "name oneself to the world." (284).
However, the mobilizations
of the inhabitants of Rive-Droite Levassor are a reminder that marooning is still
a matter of space. The geography of this neighborhood, together with the
analysis of the practices and social representations of the inhabitants of Bô Kannal, underline the reality
of a confinement that has contributed to the formation of an ecosystem as well
as a space for self-realization and emancipation. The Rive-Droite neighborhood
thus appears to be a creative space, where a do-it-yourself resourcefulness is
practiced, where inhabitants can share their tools, time, and ingenuity. And it
is attraction to this freedom as much as to the sound of TBK that has driven generations
of young people to join the band and train to create their own cultural,
musical, and choreographic environment: materially, through the construction of
their own instruments; and aesthetically, through the creation of their own
sound. Here, the mobilized groups turned spatial constraints into advantage and
redefined the meaning, uses, and strategic value of space. Urban space becomes a
framework structuring the nature and form of the contacts people have with each
other. The success of such cultural movements, specific to powerless groups, is
therefore measured by the ability of these groups to subvert the meaning
deposited and crystallized in built spaces and, more broadly, to resist the
colonization of their everyday life.
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