Call for Papers

WHAT THE CARIBBEAN OFFERS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES

Coordination:

Simon Fagour, Doctorant en histoire contemporaine (université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Creda UMR 7227). Attaché temporaire d’enseignement et recherche (USN, IHEAL)

Email: simon.fagour@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

Justine Berthod, Doctorante en sociologie (université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Creda UMR 7227). Attachée temporaire d’enseignement et recherche (USN, IHEAL)

Email: justine.berthod@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

Laurine Chapon, Doctorante en géographie (université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Creda UMR 7227). Attachée temporaire d’enseignement et recherche (USN, IHEAL)

Email: laurine.chapon@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

Mathilde Périvier, Doctorante en anthropologie sociale et ethnologie (EHESS, IMAF UMR 8171)

Email: mathilde.perivier@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

At the crossroads of “slave worlds” (Ismard et al., 2021), but also of meetings and conflicts within and between the European colonial empires between the 16th and 19th centuries, the insular and continental Caribbean States have become an important source for anthropological reflections throughout the 20th century, in particular with regard to black cultural universes in the Americas. The shared history of the slave trade, slavery, and, in some cases, ‘plantation systems’ (Curtin, 1998; Burnard & Garrigus, 2016) in territories with similar geographical, geological, and climatic conditions could provide evidence of a zonal unity, as some researchers have postulated. In reviewing several field studies, Herskovits (1941) concluded, for example, that a “continuity” existed between Africa and the Americas, thus explaining the permanence of certain African cultural traits in various aspects and different degrees of daily life in American societies. Mintz and Price (1976) hypothesised that creolisation of Afro-American culture had emerged, whether through a new culture produced in the interstices of the slavery system with African, European and indigenous contributions or through the maintenance of an ancestral “cultural grammar”. On the other hand, drawing on Frasier’s work , Glissant’s early works (1981) referred to consecutive dispossession caused by the experience of slavery and a “non-history” that did not provide the necessary conditions for the development of a shared culture in Caribbean territories.

Such fundamental debates in Afro-American research have been regularly revisited in order to deepen and explore other approaches. For example, Chivallon (2004) has suggested an interpretative model for “the Caribbean” through studies on dispersion and communities based on micro-histories from the Antilles. Debates on the region’s unity and fragmentation have recently been overtaken by a willingness to construct “a paradigm of modernity from the colonial matrix”, within which the Caribbean occupy a key position (see the international programme on Mondes de la Colonialité et TransModernités, previously entitled Mondes Caraïbes et transatlantiques en mouvement, organised by Christine Chivallon and Mathieu Renault in 2024). In any event, the Caribbean region has been rehabilitated – though not without difficulties – as the crossroads for Atlantic history (Marzagalli, 2011), either seen as the epicentre for “créolité” (or creoleness) (Bernabé et al., 1988) or considered the source for “archipelagic thought” (Bertin-Elisabeth & Colin, 2022). The Caribbean are also central to the deployment of post-colonial studies, such as the theoretical implications of “Black Atlantic” proposed by Paul Gilroy or to Stuart Hall’s research into diasporic identities. In France, detailed research, sometimes through comparative studies within and beyond the Caribbean, has focused on notions such as slavery and the slave trade (Cottias, 1999; Cottias et al., 2011; Vidal, 2019; Flory, 2015; Ismard et al., 2021; Balguy, 2020), diaspora and migrations (Chivallon, 2004; Laëthier, 2011), race (Bonniol, 1992, 2020), patrimonialisation and transnationalisation of religion (Argyriadis & Capone, 2011), construction of ethnic-racial categories (Cunin, 2006), the French overseas territories or post-colonial State (Beauvallet et al., 2016; Mary, 2021), and decolonial ecology (Ferdinand, 2019), etc.

This call for papers invites researchers to take a collective and multi-sited approach to such questions in order to explore what empirical studies on and from the insular and continental Caribbean countries can contribute to French, English, Spanish and Portuguese human and social sciences and/or Latin American studies. The publication will first identify research centres producing studies in order to compare local fields of interest in the region. English-language Caribbean associations and research departments structuring this trans-Atlantic dynamic field (Caribbean Studies Association, USA; Center for Caribbean Studies, University of Toronto, Canada; Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies Members, University of London, United Kingdom), together with national research centres in Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands (Centro de Estudios Caribeños, Pucamaima, Dominican Republic; Cátedra de Estudios del Caribe Norman Girvan, University of Havana, Cuba), the English-speaking Caribbean (Institute of Caribbean Studies, West Indies, Jamaica), the continental Caribbean (Instituto Internacional de Estudios del Caribe, University of Cartagena, Colombia), and French-speaking research groups (Association francophone d’études caribéennes (AFDEC), Sciences Po Bordeaux; Centre International de Recherche sur les Esclavages et Post-Esclavages (CIRESC); Pouvoir Histoire Esclavage Environnement Atlantique Caraïbes (PHEEAC) at the Université des Antilles): this non-exhaustive list provides evidence of the vitality and distribution of actors and research on a variety of objects, notions and fields.

The geography also emphasises the contrasts between areas that have generally involved and constructed dynamic Caribbean studies, through areas studies in the United States for example, and other zones where the Caribbean seem to be absorbed into larger thematic and regional (in particular, Latin American) studies. It is this diversity – what it produces and how it is produced – that this issue seeks to challenge by taking a reflexive and analytical approach to understanding how the Caribbean is described and conceptualised from different perspectives. Questioning the production of social sciences on and in this region leads to questioning the convergence and divergence of studies and the circulation of researchers, publications and ideas.

The multidisciplinary and transnational dimension for this issue seeks to question the production of research and the stakes involved, by exploring many paths and themes that permit a demarginalization of Caribbean fields. The objective here is in fact to highlight existing initiatives that have positioned the Caribbean as the pertinent level and social space for thinking and theorising the global world. It invites a discussion on research subjects as viewed from the Caribbean itself: the aim is to challenge the notion that the Caribbean serve merely as a repository for case studies, valued only for fueling theoretical debates developed elsewhere (Collyer, 2018) Given the numerous disciplines within the human and social sciences, the Caribbean can be viewed as a region with much to contribute to the understanding of global dynamics. Additionally, it offers opportunities to reflect on how these concepts circulate within various fields of Caribbean studies and how they are (re)appropriated in different contexts. These are just two of the many themes that could be further explored.

The Caribbean also constitute the departure point for a theorisation of “decolonial ecology” by Malcom Ferdinand (2019). Articles based on empirical analyses could create a dialogue between the Caribbean region and tools used in Latin American political ecology (Pérez, 2017) in an approach based on environmental justice, through reflexions on the plantationocene (Haraway, 2016), and with the more recent theorisation of “negrocene” (Yusoff, 2018). Just as Eduardo Devés Valdés’s research (2006) on the history of the circulation of ideas between Latin America and Africa through the mediation of English-speaking Caribbean intellectuals has helped reconnect a region often seen as peripheral to global intellectual dynamics in the second half of the 20th century, articles focusing on the distribution of ideas and practices (political, militant, medical, artistic or even repressive, etc.), from and/or in the Caribbean space in the 18th to 20th century timeframe, are also welcome.

The objective is not to view the Caribbean as an exception requiring a specific epistemology. Our purpose is to align with Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s work which encourages thinking outwards from – rather than inwards towards - micro-spaces (Agard-Jones, 2013). We both seek to demarginalise Caribbean fields and contexts, since it is often difficult to obtain analyses that reach beyond the region itself, and to draw attention to ongoing research. We welcome social science studies that question or adopt methodological approaches seeking to de-singularize the Caribbean, encouraging us to think beyond its regional socio-historical specificities.

Receipt of articles: https://ojs.openedition.org/index.php/cal

Deadline for submissions: May 15, 2025

The Cahiers des Amériques latines also receive, throughout the year, proposals for the section “Études”.