Mapping Memories of Slavery: Commemoration, Community and Identity in Contemporary France

“描绘奴隶制的记忆”探索了位于法国及其海外部门的纪念协会如何挑战国家未能参与奴隶制历史。它始于希拉克总统任期内（1995-2007）废除奴隶制150周年（1998年），并促成了一项具有里程碑意义的法律的通过（2001年5月21日《陶比拉法》）。经过几十年的沉默，这项法律追溯地承认奴隶制是“危害人类的罪行”，并使共和国决心克服以前拒绝面对这一艰难的过去的态度。然而，在现实中，除了每年5月10日（2006年至今）国家执行的最敷衍的纪念“义务”之外，在国家层面上几乎没有履行这一法律承诺。由于没有真正的努力来解决奴隶制的历史，并将其纳入国家的叙述，自1998年以来，在法兰西共和国各地出现了许多纪念协会。他们的项目范围广泛，从政治运动到重新命名以前奴隶命名的街道，再到重建一艘教学奴隶船，他们的共同目标是尊重那些奴隶后裔的身份。创造可见的，有时是暴力的记忆场所的愿望，可以听到这些后代的声音，这对今天法国后殖民身份和记忆的建设有很大的影响。在缺乏国家记忆的情况下，对这些纪念协会与过去的关系的研究因此暴露了民族国家作为身份形成的一个日益模糊的参考点的变化作用。这个项目有两个主要目的。首先，它试图从受这段历史影响最大的人的角度来评估国家纪念活动的有效性。首先，它将考察政府在多大程度上实现了其法律意图，即通过确保奴隶制、奴隶贸易及其废除的记忆嵌入国家叙事，向奴隶的后代提供道德赔偿。其次，它的目的是探索纪念协会如何遇到和对抗国家主导的纪念活动，这些纪念活动往往挑战共和国著名的座右铭：“自由、平等、博爱”。的确，这些项目提醒我们，当代社会的种族主义、不平等和社会分裂仍然是过去殖民时期最具分裂性的一些遗留问题。作为第一个对纪念协会的记忆和身份形成的完整研究，该项目将与12个公民团体合作，这些团体分别位于巴黎、前奴隶港口南特和波尔多，以及前种植园殖民地r<s:1>、马提尼克岛和瓜德罗普岛。从政府和博物馆中心的档案工作中提取主要数据，辅以对协会成员、艺术家、当地政治家和政府委员会的主要利益相关者的采访，它将从不同的角度比较国家和协会主导的纪念活动的规划和执行。此外，它将收集地方和国家媒体以及更广泛的社区对这些事件的反应。通过这些资料，本书将深入展现当代法国政府和公民在纪念奴隶制和奴隶贸易问题上存在的意见分歧。在这样做的过程中，将揭示身份和记忆在共和意识日益薄弱的社会中形成的复杂而动态的方式。因此，这些离散的案例研究为理解民族国家内外的后殖民身份形成以及法国国家与其公民之间日益脆弱的关系提供了一个新的理论模型的基础，因为他们试图通过过去的遗产来工作。

'Mapping Memories of Slavery' explores how commemorative associations located in France and its overseas departments are challenging the state's failure to engage with the history of slavery. It begins with the 150-year anniversary of the abolition of slavery (1998) that was celebrated in France under Chirac's presidency (1995-2007) and gave rise to the passing of a landmark law (Taubira Law, 21 May 2001). After decades of silence, this law retrospectively recognized slavery as 'a crime against humanity' and committed the Republic to overcoming its former refusal to confront this difficult past. In reality, however, little has since been done at a national level to honour this legal pledge beyond the most perfunctory commemorative 'duties' performed each year by the state on 10 May (2006-). In the absence of a genuine effort to address the history of slavery and incorporate it into the nation's narrative, numerous commemorative associations have, since 1998, emerged across the French Republic. Their projects, which range from political campaigns to re-baptise streets named after former slavers to the reconstruction of a pedagogical slave ship, collectively aim to valorise the identities of those descended from slavery. The desire to create visible and, at times, violent sites of memory in which the voices of these descendants can be heard has much to say about the construction of postcolonial identities and memories in France today. In the absence of a state memory, the study of the relationship of these commemorative associations to the past therefore exposes the changing role of the nation-state as an increasingly nebulous point of reference for identity formation.This project has two primary aims. First, it seeks to assess the efficacy of the state's commemorative practices from the perspective of those most affected by this history. Primarily, it will examine the extent to which the government has achieved its legal intention to offer moral reparations to the descendants of slaves by ensuring that the memories of slavery, the slave trade and its abolition become embedded within the national narrative. Second, it aims to explore the ways in which commemorative associations have encountered and countered state-led memorial practices with models of remembrance that often challenge the Republic's celebrated motto: 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité'. Indeed, these are projects that remind us that the racism, inequality and social division of contemporary society remain some of the most divisive legacies of the colonial past.As the first complete study of memory and identity formation among commemorative associations, this project will work with twelve citizen groups based in Paris, the former slave ports of Nantes and Bordeaux, and the former plantation colonies of Réunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe. Drawing its primary data from archival work in government and museum centres, complemented with key stakeholder interviews with association members, artists, local politicians and government committees, it will compare the planning and execution of state- and association-led commemorative events from different perspectives. In addition, it will gather the responses of local and national media, and the wider community, to these occasions. Through these sources, it will present an in-depth picture of the divergence of opinion that exists between the contemporary French state and its citizens over the remembrance of slavery and the slave trade. In doing so, will reveal the complex and dynamic ways in which identities and memories are being formed in a society with an increasingly weak sense of Republicanism. These discrete case studies thus serve as the basis for offering a new theoretical model for understanding postcolonial identity formations within and beyond the nation-state and the increasingly fragile relationships between the French state and its citizens as they attempt to work through the legacies of the past.