Responsables de l’atelier
Camille MARTINERIE (Université Paris 13)
Bernard CROS (Université Paris 8)
| Gregory ALBISSON ● Université Grenoble Alpes Digital Emancipation and the New Culture of Volunteering in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand |
Résumé
Over the past decade, social media platforms have redefined significantly how individuals and communities engage in acts of solidarity, activism, and mutual help. Digital infrastructures have expanded the possibilities for civic participation while simultaneously blurring the lines between altruism and self-promotion. Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand are no exceptions to these broader transformations. Historically characterised by structured membership state-aligned welfare models, the charitable sectors in both countries have been experiencing rapid change since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital platforms have increasingly functioned as civic infrastructures of emancipation from institutional commitment, facilitating flexible, episodic, and individualised participation, which has been particularly appealing to younger demographics. By the same token, this evolution reveals an ambivalent emancipatory dynamic: while digital charity expands access and visibility, it also reconfigures the normative frameworks within which civic engagement takes place. Practices of solidarity become increasingly shaped by logics of visibility and performance in a “society of spectacle” to paraphrase Guy Debord (1967) where altruistic action is filtered through platform economies and algorithmic attention. By comparing Australian and New Zealand case studies, this paper interrogates whether digitally-mediated charity represents a more flexible form of civic participation or whether, following Guy Debord, this mode of action remains more spectacular than substantive insofar as charity is liberated from institutions only to be re-embedded in platform logics of self-display, performance, and attention.
Biographie
Gregory Albisson is a lecturer in British and Commonwealth Studies at Université Grenoble Alpes. He initially researched street gangs in Wellington as part of his doctoral work. His research then shifted toward Indo-Pacific geopolitics, asylum seekers and border sovereignty in Australia and New Zealand. He is currently interested in the transformations of solidarity networks and volunteering in Australia and New Zealand.
| Marjorie ANTOINE ● Université Perpignan Via Domitia Between Words and Worlds: Language as Emancipation in New Zealand Cinema |
Résumé
This presentation examines the emancipatory role of te reo Māori in New Zealand, focusing on its dual life as a revitalised everyday language and a cinematic language that reconfigures the colonial gaze. While political independence did not dismantle the linguistic hierarchies imposed by settler colonialism, the resurgence of te reo Māori demonstrates that emancipation can occur through the reclamation of voice, through the refusal of silence, and through the reactivation of indigenous epistemologies. Building on Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s argument that “language is a carrier of culture” and Gayatri Spivak’s question of whether the subaltern can speak, this communication explores how te reo Māori does speak – sometimes loudly through haka, waiata or karakia, sometimes softly through lexical traces embedded in New Zealand English, and sometimes through silence itself. Words such as kia ora, whānau, mana, tapu, Aotearoa, Pākehā, haka or kūmara circulate in everyday English as living reminders of Māori presence. They signal an ongoing process of linguistic emancipation, in which the dominant language is reshaped from within. Cinema amplifies this process. Films such as Utu (Geoff Murphy, 1983), The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993), Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994), Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002), Boy (Taika Waititi, 2010) or The Dead Lands (Toa Fraser, 2014, entirely in te reo Māori) demonstrate that visual storytelling has become a powerful medium for linguistic empowerment. The presence – or strategic absence – of te reo Māori on screen reflects histories of suppression and revival, transforming cinema into a space where indigenous sovereignty is both narrated and enacted. Finally, the paper considers audiovisual translation as a crucial terrain for linguistic emancipation. Subtitling choices–whether to translate, gloss, leave untranslated, or signal untranslatability –carry political, cultural, and ethical implications, and determine to what extent te reo Māori can be heard beyond its linguistic borders. By analysing the crossings between languages and screens, this presentation argues that te reo Māori constitutes not only a trace of resistance but a force of emancipation that challenges, displaces, and reimagines the legacy of colonial linguistic domination.
Biographie
Marjorie Antoine is a doctoral researcher at CRESEM (UPVD) in English and Film Studies. Her thesis, Heteroglossia and the Audiovisual Translation of Māori and Polynesian Identities in New Zealand Cinema, explores the representation and translation of Indigenous languages in Aotearoa and Oceanic cinema. A professional audiovisual translator trained in English and German Studies, she lived for several years in New Zealand and Australia. She teaches ESP, film studies, and audiovisual translation at the University of Perpignan.
| Alice BYRNE ● Aix Marseille Université (Post)colonial cultural diplomacy: a case study of university relations between Cambridge and Delhi c. 1938 to 1964 |
Résumé
This paper draws on a broader study of British cultural diplomacy in India from the late colonial period to the end of Nehru’s premiership, in order to explore ‘academic diplomacy’ (Tronchet 2017) as a response to decolonisation, the cold war and rising US power. Following Indian independence in 1947, universities appeared as the prime location for maintaining and reconfiguring Indo-British cultural relations. In the eyes of British diplomats and officials of the British Council, the University of Delhi was destined to play a special role in educating the future Indian elite in a manner favourable to British interests. In the highly variegated landscape of Indian Higher Education, the imperial legacy remained particularly present in this institution, which had been shaped by the former Chief Justice Sir Maurice Gwyer, Vice-Chancellor 1938-1950. Within the University of Delhi, St. Stephen’s College in particular was identified as an important relay of British influence and standards. Founded by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi in 1881, the College retained close links to Cambridge University, partly through the person of Percival Spear whose academic career spanned both universities. A new form of collaboration emerged between Delhi and Cambridge following the creation of the Indian School for International Studies in 1955, as the Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History (1953-1970), Nicholas Mansergh, was instrumental to the development of Commonwealth Studies at ISIS, where he was a regular Visiting Professor. Moreover, the scholarship and academic roles of Spear and Mansergh – as historians of India and the Commonwealth – cannot be divorced from their wartime service within, respectively, the Information Department of the Government of India and the Ministry of Information’s Empire Division. Indeed, as author of Penguin’s History of India (Spear, 1958) and chief editor of the monumental Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power, 1942-7 (Mansergh, HMSO, 1970-83) both men arguably had an enduring impact on Indian emancipation in its practical and historiographical dimensions.
Biographie
Alice Byrne is senior lecturer in British history at Aix Marseille University. Her research explores different facets of British cultural diplomacy in the 20th century, ranging from print propaganda to the development of academic exchange programmes. She is currently editing Museums and Patronage: The History, Ethics, and Funding of Museums of Science and Industry (University of London Press) with Scott Anthony and Harry Parker, as part of a European funded project ‘MaILHoC’ (JPI CH 2023-25). Expanding on a preliminary study of the establishment of the British Council in post-independence India (2016), she is in the early stages of a book project examining Indo-British cultural relations 1942-1964.
| Bernard CROS ● Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis Ambiguous emancipation: the experience of exile of racialised South African athletes in the United Kingdom, 1950s-1980s |
Résumé
If the mobilisation of international sports, its institutions, administrators and athletes to exert pressure on apartheid authorities from the 1960s onwards has been amply covered by historians, the experience of racialised South African athletes exiled in the United Kingdom is only burgeoning. Exile was rarely forced upon athletes for political reasons in contrast to political activists, intellectuals and artists, for whom it was sometimes a matter of life and death. White athletes could easily travel from South Africa to the rest of the world, but it wasn’t so for racialized individuals, blacks, Coloureds and Indians, for whom sport was an avenue toward emancipation as they could hope to make a living out of their sporting expertise as professionals and secure a better life for them and their families. Some joined clubs in Britain, the former colonial power, where in contrast to segregated South Africa, they were allowed to compete against athletes from all races. Some, like Precious McKenzie, Basil d’Oliveira, and David Barends, were even naturalized and competed for British national teams, compounding complex identity issues at a time of intense international tension over South Africa. Yet the context of post-war Britain was far from ideal for Black immigrants, so that their status as sportsmen often admired and supported by fans was not always sufficient to shield them from racist rebukes and abuse in their newfound home as racism grew in the 1960s and 1970s. Through the trajectories of a number of mostly male athletes, this paper intends to map out how black South African athletes at the intersection of race and class experienced both an ambiguous emancipation in a country where they could live freely albeit as a racial minority, and a replication of alienation caused by exile and racism.
Biographie
Bernard Cros is a Professor of South African and British studies at Université Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis. A member of the Transcrit research centre, he has published on the elaboration of the “New South Africa” as a nation in the post-apartheid era through various cultural and social phenomena. His latest book (Rugbys d’Afrique du Sud 1862-2022: Du hors-jeu à la transformation, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2023) studies the historical and symbolical roles of rugby as a contested space for social, political and cultural identities in South Africa from its imperial beginnings in the second half of the nineteenth century to the multiracial present.
| Laurence GAUTIER ● Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies Decolonising history in postcolonial India: the ‘Aligarh school’ of history |
Résumé
This presentation examines the role of minority-led universities in the decolonisation of knowledge and the formation of the nation in postcolonial India. Following independence and the partition of India and Pakistan (1947), the Indian authorities viewed universities as ‘sanctuaries of the inner life of the nation’, responsible for consolidating its ‘spiritual unity’. Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) occupied a special place in this landscape. This public university, which was primarily dedicated to Muslim students, was widely regarded as the cradle of Muslim separatism due to its historical association with the Muslim League. Yet, after independence, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru considered that this institution could play a leading role in building a nation ‘united in its diversity’. Many university students and teachers shared this view. They believed that, thanks to its status as a ‘repository of a particular culture’, AMU could help promote an inclusive conception of India as a ‘composite’ nation. History would play a central role in this endeavour. Even before independence, AMU historians close to the Congress Party had been working to deconstruct colonial and communal narratives that portrayed Hindus and Muslims as two separate civilisational blocs. After independence, a new generation of historians, often associated with the Marxist left, continued these efforts to decolonise India’s history. They aimed to renew India’s historiography by focusing on evolving socio-economic structures rather than supposedly static religious communities. Interestingly, several of these historians had been trained in Britain and were familiar with the work of British Marxist historians. Through an examination of the ‘Aligarh school’ of history, I will explore these historians’ efforts to decolonise knowledge as well as the circulation of ideas among British and Indian scholars. I will also emphasise the part played by minority-led institutions in shaping a postcolonial nation.
Biographie
Laurence Gautier is an Early Career Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (University of Freiburg, Germany). Her research focuses on social and political dynamics among South Asian Muslims, minority rights, secularism and the politics of education in postcolonial India. Her first monograph, Between Nation and ‘Community’. Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition (Cambridge University Press, 2024), examines the political role of Muslim universities in post-independence India. Gautier studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon before going to the University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in History. Before joining FRIAS, she was Assistant Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, near Delhi. She also held a four-year position as Researcher in ‘Documenting Democracy: History, Politics and Citizenship’ at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH, New Delhi).
| Deirdre GILFEDDER ● Université Paris Dauphine Women, temperance and politics: the links between women’s suffrage movements and temperance leagues in 19th century Australia |
Résumé
In 1894 South Australia became the second place in the world, after New Zealand, to legislate women’s right to vote, and the first place in the world to give women the right to stand for parliament. The progressive stance on women’s citizenship rights in Australasia, pre-dating Britain, is well known and some of the key figures in the women’s political movements of the Australian colonies toured the world to lecture on women’s suffrage. These first wave feminists have been seen as radical and forward thinking, and their movement as central to Australia’s so-called progressive history of democracy; ( the legislation failed First Nation women in 1902 when the law became national, and aboriginal people were left out of the census.) However, much of the support for and impetus of women’s political emancipation in Australia came from a relatively conservative organization, namely Christian women rallied against alcohol. The various temperance leagues in Australia and NZ, as also in the US, were instrumental in fighting for female suffrage and other reforms to benefit women. In this paper I will give a brief introduction to the temperance leagues of late 19th century Australian colonies and their ideas on gender and equality.
Biographie
Deirdre Gilfedder is professor of English at the University of Paris-Dauphine. She specialises in Australian history and cultural studies and has published widely on First World War commemoration, as well as on film, literature , Australian indigenous issues of testimony, representations of monarchy and critical brand theory. She is the author of the first book on Australians in the First World War in French, “L’Australie et la Grande Guerre”, éditions Michel Houdiard.
| Laura GOUDET ● Université de Rouen The best English-speaking country in Africa”. Nationalism and tourism in discourse in Anglophone Africas |
Résumé
This paper tackles the complex network between various English-speaking countries in East, West and Southern Africa. This linguistic discourse analysis can shed light on the way nationalistic discourse is expressed in the media addressed at foreigners and tourists, especially Westerners. How does sociocultural elements influence discourse about the English language, particularly in a zone where endonormative standards. Close to an imagined community, these discourses target the ‘imagined tourist’ (Michaud, 2001) who needs to be reassured about the use of English in East Africa. The rivalry and boasting present on these pages also show the relationships between East and West Africa, for instance: South Africa is thoroughly accepted as an undisputed anglophone country, with a complex history of South African Englishes (Schneider, 2019). Nigeria and Uganda, amongst others, also battle for a more widespread recognition abroad of both their status as anglophone countries, with the inclusion of African words in the OED, and their attractivity to foreigners. This paper will first contextualize the status of these African Englishes through the various normative works they generated, and the prestige they attain in their countries. Then, nationalist claims such as “X is the best English-speaking country” on the internet will be examined to shed light on the network of linguistic propaganda for tourists and nationals alike: claims are made with very few verifiable factors (numbers of speakers, success in regional exams…). Each of these ranking webpages and videos contain discourse which will be analyzed, such as comments by readers. Biases surrounding the countries selected in such lists (and those left out!) offer interesting insights on the arguments retained by videomakers and people alike. Some may be historical, such as “the late king of [B]uganda Kingdom Muteesa I […] welcomed reading and writing [E]nglish in the state” (comment, African Informant, 2024) to justify Uganda’s superiority over other countries ; other videos and comments advocate local emancipating norms such as “We create our own English, that’s why we are Nigeria. We set out own standards.” (DJ Pakorich, 2025). Through this mostly digital corpus, I aim at classifying these arguments and thus, highlight certain rivalries in these countries belonging to the Outer Circle of Englishes (Kachru, 1992), centered over an imagined mastery over English as an acrolect.
Bibliographie
Corpus (selection)
African Informant (2024) “Top 10 Best English Speaking Countries in Africa”
DJ Pakorich (2025) “Nigeria and Ghana: Which Country Has the Best English Pronunciation?”
Explore Africa (2025) “Best English Speaking Countries in Africa 2025”
References
Kachru, B. (1992). The Other Tongue: English across cultures. University of Illinois Press.
Michaud, J. (2001) « Anthropologie, tourisme et sociétés locales au fil des textes. » Anthropologie et Sociétés 15
Nesi, H. (2012). The Use and Abuse of EFL Dictionaries: How learners of English as a foreign language read and interpret dictionary entries, De Gruyter.
Prendergast, D. (1998), “Views on Englishes—a talk with Braj B. Kachru, Salikoko Mufwene, Rajendra Singh, Loreto Todd and Peter Trudgill”, Links & Letters 5, 225-241.
Schneider, E. W. (2019). « South Africa in the Linguistic Modeling of World Englishes. » English in Multilingual South Africa: The Linguistics of Contact and Change. R. Hickey. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 16-29.
Thurlow, C. Jaworski, A. Wei, L. (2011). « Tourism discourse: Languages and banal globalization. » Applied Linguistics Review 2.2011
Biographie
Laura Goudet is a junior lecturer at the university of Rouen and holds a chair at the IUF for a project on African dictionaries of Englishes (2023-28). Her research interests include dialectology and sociolinguistics, especially of minority varieties of English and French, along with discourse analysis, particularly online and multimedia discourse. One of her most recently published papers is “Faire communauté en ligne” with Olivier Glain, as well as “Assessing Dialectal Dictionaries through Phonology” about several varieties of English dictionaries.
| Aurélie JOURNO ● Université Sorbonne Paris Nord Les revues culturelles est-africaines au tournant des indépendances (1967-1977) : réseaux, acteurs, circulations. Une étude de Ghala, Nexus/Busara et Darlite/Umma |
Résumé
À partir d’un travail d’archives, ma communication propose une lecture croisée de trois périodiques est-africains moins connus, lancés à la fin des années 1960 en Afrique de l’Est : Nexus (1967-1968), un magazine étudiant du département d’anglais de l’University College de Nairobi en 1967 et qui deviendra Busara en 1968 (1968-1977) ; Darlite (1966), rebaptisé Umma en 1970, du département de littérature de l’University College de Dar es Salaam ; et Ghala, le supplément littéraire de l’East Africa Journal, publié deux fois par an à partir de 1967 et jusqu’en 1970. Il s’agira de mettre en lumière les réseaux intellectuels et institutionnels (universités, maisons d’éditions, institutions culturelles étrangères) qui les sous-tendent, dans un contexte de guerre froide et de décolonisation politique et culturelle. Une analyse de leurs contenus et de leur paratexte permet également de mettre au jour la manière dont s’articulent un certain nombre de débats dans lesquels littérature et politique sont inextricablement liés, la circulation des idées dont ils se font les relais, mais aussi les différents profils et trajectoires de leurs contributeurs.
Biographie
Aurélie Journo est maîtresse de conférences en littérature anglophone à l’Université Paris Sorbonne Nord. Ses recherches portent sur les littératures contemporaines est-africaines et sur l’objet hybride qu’est la revue culturelle et/ou littéraire. Elle a publié plusieurs articles sur ces questions et elle travaille actuellement à un projet de monographie sur les revues est-africaines des années 1960-1970 et leur rôle dans l’histoire intellectuelle de la région. Elle est également traductrice du swahili et membre de la revue CAFÉ (Collecte Aléatoire de Fragments Étrangers). Elle a traduit deux romans du swahili : Les Indociles d’Adam Shafi (éditions Project’îles, 2023) et Kusadikika, le pays du « sur parole » de Shaaban Robert (avec Nathalie Carré, éditions Project’îles, 2025).
| Nkonyeasua Christie Iduwe IRABOR ● Aix Marseille Université Addressing Barriers and Promoting Emancipation for Autistic People in Nigeria Through the Social Relational Model of Disability |
Résumé
This study examines the cultural, social and structural barriers experienced by autistic people and their families and ways through which their emancipation can be achieved using the Social Relational Model of Disability as a framework. Autism is often viewed from the cultural perspective attributing it to spiritual causes. Autistic individuals are therefore seen as people with defects that need cure. These views about autism lead to social exclusion, negative attitudes and stigma, lack of government interest in providing adequate structures which causes systemic inequality thereby preventing autistic individuals from personal, social and economic emancipation. The social relational model of disability stems from the social model of disability, which was a radical political response through social activism to the oppression of disabled people. The social relational model of disability accepts the impairment effects but argues that disability is caused by behavioural and structural social barriers preventing them from living a fulfilled life. This study uses the qualitative approach based on an in-depth analysis of interviews with parents and professionals working in education and healthcare sectors. With the application of the Social Relational Model to lived experiences and the professionals’ reports, findings show that parents are faced with various challenges like negative attitude, social exclusion because of the children’s behaviour, lack of awareness, lack of funds and corruption. The emancipation for autistic individuals therefore involves the creation of awareness about autism, funding, provision of adequate structures and the implementation of policies. Putting this in a global perspective, dismantling these barriers, aligns with the commonwealth commitment to the values of human dignity, equality, justice, the protection of their fundamental human rights and their inclusion in the Nigeria society.
Bibliographie
Arimoro, A. E. (2021). Nigeria’s Legislation Against Discrimination of Persons with Disabilities: An Assessment. In Social, Educational, and Cultural Perspectives of Disabilities in the Global South (pp. 55-67). IGI Global.
Bakare, M. O., Ebigbo, P. O., Agomoh, A. O., Eaton, J., Onyeama, G. M., Okonkwo, K. O., … & Aguocha, C. M. (2009). Knowledge about childhood autism and opinion among healthcare workers on availability of facilities and law caring for the needs and rights of children with childhood autism and other developmental disorders in Nigeria. BMC pediatrics, 9(1), 12.
Eskay, M., Onu, V. C., Igbo, J. N., Obiyo, N., & Ugwuanyi, L. (2012). Disability within the African culture. Contemporary voices from the margin: African educators on African and American education, 197-211.
Ola-Williams, M. C., Ola-Williams, A., & Ogbaini, C. A. (2024). Breaking barriers: Enhancing support for autistic students through individual education programs. Int J Univers Educ, 2(1), 50-60. Accessed 25/11/2025
Robertson, G. U. (2021). Explanatory Models of Autism in Nigeria: Exploring Sociocultural Beliefs to Inform Systems of Care
Thomas, C. (2004). Developing the social relational in the social model of disability: A theoretical agenda. Implementing the social model of disability: Theory and research, 32-47.
Biographie
Nkonyeasua Christie Iduwe Irabor is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Professor Gilles Teulié (Aix Marseille University) and a part-time teacher at the Université de Franche-Comté. Her doctoral research studies the place of individuals with autism in Nigerian society (“Governmental policies towards disability and people’s counter strategies”). Her areas of interest include disabilities, special Education, inclusion, social policy, and employment for people with disabilities. She has contributed a number of articles and presentations on the subject of autism in Nigeria.
| Robert Falcon OUELLETTE ● University of Ottawa 150 Years of Living with a Windigo: Reflections on the Indian Act |
Résumé
More than 150 years after its passage, the Indian Act remains a central and deeply controversial piece of legislation in Canada. Originally enacted in 1876, the Act was not designed to empower First Nations, but rather to assimilate them, control them, and erase their systems of governance, culture, and language. This presentation reflects critically on the legacy of the Indian Act from both an academic and personal standpoint, drawing on lived experience as a Cree scholar, former Member of Parliament, and community leader. I argue that the Indian Act operates like a « windigo » a cannibalistic spirit from Cree and Anishinaabe cosmology, feeding on the identities, lands, and futures of Indigenous peoples while appearing to offer protection. The Act creates artificial divisions (e.g., status vs. non-status), defines identity through bureaucratic rules, and remains embedded in Canadian law despite calls for its repeal or replacement. Yet, paradoxically, many First Nations continue to rely on its structures to maintain basic services and access funding. The presentation will explore the tensions between dismantling colonial systems and the pragmatic realities of governance, land, and community well-being. It will also examine recent legislative changes (e.g., Bill C-92 on child welfare, Bill S-3 on status discrimination) as steps toward reform, but insufficient in the absence of full Indigenous jurisdiction. Ultimately, I ask: Is reconciliation truly possible while the Indian Act still exists? And what would it mean to imagine Indigenous governance and relationship with the state beyond the grasp of the windigo?
Bibliographie
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Ottawa: Government of Canada.
Parliament of Canada. (2018). Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration) (Report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs). House of Commons, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session.
Johnston, B. (1976). Ojibway heritage. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Irwin, L. (1996). The sacred tree: Reflections on Native American spirituality and Ojibwa ceremonies. Boston: Element Books.
Johnston, B. (1982). Ojibway ceremonies. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. (2011). Bill C-3: Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act. Government of Canada.
Canada. Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. (1969). Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy (The White Paper). Ottawa: Queen’s Printer.
Canada. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. (1996). Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Vols. 1–5). Ottawa: Canada Communication Group – Publishing.
Canada. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. (n.d.). RCAP Transcripts Online.
Cardinal, H. (1969). The unjust society: The tragedy of Canada’s Indians. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers.
Indian Association of Alberta. (1970). Citizens Plus [The Red Paper]. Edmonton: Indian Association of Alberta.
Imai, S. (Ed.). (2012). The 2013 annotated Indian Act and Aboriginal constitutional provisions. Toronto: Carswell.
Rebick, J. (Ed.). (2005). Ten thousand roses: The making of a feminist revolution. Toronto: Penguin Canada.
Smith, D. G. (Ed.). (1975). Canadian Indians and the law: Selected documents, 1663–1972. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Venne, S. H. (1981). Indian Acts and amendments, 1868–1975: An indexed collection. Ottawa: Indian and Inuit Affairs Program, Government of Canada.
Native Women’s Association of Canada. (n.d.). Indian Act Resources and Gender-based Analysis.
University of Regina. (n.d.). Indian History Film Project. oURspace Digital Repository.
Government of Canada. (1985). Indian Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. I-5.
Biographie
Robert Falcon Ouellette is from Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. He is a dedicated community organizer and educator. Currently he is an associate professor of education at the University of Ottawa. He is an anthropologist doing research in the areas of Indigenous education, military ethics and political science. A veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces for 29 years where he served as a company commander in the 5th Field Ambulance. He is currently a reservist and was the first Indigenous Knowledge Keeper (Chaplain) in the history of the Canadian Armed Forces. He recently helped create the new Yellowquill University College, the only Indigenous post-secondary institution in Manitoba. He has a PhD and two Master’s degrees from Laval University in Quebec City and he was only the second Indigenous person to graduate from Laval in 350 years with a PhD. He is a former Member of Parliament where he obtained unanimous consent to change the Standing Orders of the House of Commons for the full inclusion and interpretation of Indigenous languages. He was the Chair of the Indigenous caucus, where he helped lead the adoption of the first ever Indigenous Child and Family Services & Languages legislation. He also helped lead the transformation of the institution of government to advance reconciliation. He speaks four languages and most importantly, he enjoys spending time running, politics, and canoeing with his family, all while playing their musical instruments.
| Anne ULENTIN ● Université Clermont Auvergne Penal Structures of Emancipation: Colonial Legality and Social Control in The Bahamas |
Résumé
In the post-emancipation Bahamas, the formal end of slavery did not translate into social equality or genuine freedom for Afro-Bahamian populations. Instead, colonial, and later postcolonial, elites turned to incarceration and punitive juridical frameworks to reproduce racialized social hierarchies. Caribbean historian Diana Paton reminds us that “There are important ways in which the Caribbean lives not just with the legacy of slavery, but also with the legacy of emancipation. It was in the forging of a particular form of liberal state in the emancipation period that many of the profound inequalities and injustices of the region were formed.” (Paton, 2014). This paper situates the Bahamian penal system within that dynamic, showing how Western-style liberal and humanist discourses were mobilized in the emancipation era to justify systems of control and exclusion. Drawing on foundational Caribbean penal scholarship (Trotman, 1984, 1986; Paton, 2004; Scully & Paton, 2005; Green, 2011, 2012; Harris, 2017; Mercier Allain, 2020; Ulentin, 2021, 2022), the paper develops a theoretical framework rooted in postcolonial thought. Gayatri Spivak’s concept of the subaltern (1994) provides a critical lens for understanding how Afro-Bahamians, especially women, remained structurally silenced in the formation and operation of post-emancipation institutions. Homi Bhabha’s insights on mimicry, ambivalence, and hybridity (1994) illuminate how post-emancipation Bahamian governance reproduced the performative shell of British liberal legality, while simultaneously marking Afro-Bahamian subjects as perpetually suspect. Lastly, Frantz Fanon’s critique of colonialism (1952) reveals how the rhetoric of freedom and progress masked the reproduction of coercive structures. By situating the Bahamian penal system within this postcolonial framework, the paper demonstrates that emancipation did not dismantle colonial power but rearticulated it, highlighting the limits of Western emancipatory discourses in postcolonial societies and underscoring how formal freedom coexisted with persistent mechanisms of exclusion, racialization, and state control.
Bibliographie
Bhabha, Homi K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Fanon, Frantz (1952). Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.
Green, Cecilia A. (2012). Local Geographies of Crime and Punishment in a Plantation Colony: Gender and Incarceration in Barbados, 1878-1928.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 86 (3/4): 263-290.
Green, Cecilia A. (2011). “‘The Abandoned Lower Class of Females’: Class, Gender, and Penal Discipline in Barbados, 1875-1929.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 53 (1): 144-79.
Harris, Dawn P. (2017). Punishing the Black Body: Marking Social and Racial Structures in Barbados and Jamaica. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Mercier Allain, Jacqueline (2020). “‘They are Quiet Women Now’: Hair Cropping, British Imperial Governance, and the Gendered Body in the Archive.” Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 41 (4): 772-794.
Paton, Diana (2014). “Small Charges: Law and the Regulation of Conduct in the Post-Slavery Caribbean.” The Elsa Goveia Memorial Lecture. Mona: Department of History and Archaeology, UWI, 1-20.
Paton, Diana, and Pamela Scully, eds. (2005). Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Paton, Diana (2014). No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780–1870. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
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Biographie
Anne Ulentin received a Ph.D. in History from Louisiana State University. She is an Associate Professor in American History at Université Clermont Auvergne. Her current research examines incarceration and the intersectionality of race, class, and gender in the colonial Bahamas. Her publications include “‘The Scale of Punishment has been Framed Specially for the Black Man’: Imprisonment, Race, and Punishment in the Colonial Bahamas, 1840-1973,” The Journal of Caribbean History (2021); “‘She Has Not Been Seen or Heard of Since’: Gender, Incarceration, and Punishment in The Bahamas, 1860s-1920s,” New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids (NWIG) (2022); and “Gender-Based Violence in The Bahamas in the Late Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries” in Gender-Based Violence in the Caribbean: Historical Roots, Contemporary Continuities, Dalea Bean and Verene Shepherd, eds. The University of the West Indies Press, December 2025.on Law legal systems (UK, USA and India). She is an Associate Professor (MCF – HDR) of Legal English at University of Paris Panthéon Assas since 2007.