The past is made by walking: Labor activism and historical production in postcolonial guadeloupe

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Abstract

The act of walking represents an important (yet underexamined) element of political protest and collective action, as well as an increasingly common form of historical commemoration. In this article I examine the development of a series of "memory walks" by labor activists in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. I argue that these peripatetic practices constitute a particular spatial, kinesthetic, and sensorial form of historical and archival production. Along the way, I consider what these events reveal about postcolonial forms of archival production and the importance of historical praxis to the formation of political subjectivities.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)313-339
Number of pages27
JournalCultural Anthropology
Volume26
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2011
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Anthropology
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

Keywords

  • Historical production
  • Labor activism
  • Social movements

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