France's Overseas Frontier

THE QUESTION of cultural identity forms a central and continuing theme in the history of the DOM-TOMs. Thousands of kilometres distant from Europe but closely linked to France, and home to a variety of racial and cultural groups, the DOM-TOMs’ cultures show the mark of diverse heritages. Patterns of family and community links, music and art, language and literature, religion, food and clothing contribute to defining traits of local identity but also have a political dimension. Cultural attachment to metropolitan France is championed by many who defend the maintenance of close institutional links with the métropole, whereas arguments about the existence of separate cultures and national identities are used by those who desire greater autonomy or outright independence. Culture thereby becomes a stake in elections and public life, and the search for a ‘national’ identity constitutes a major preoccupation for the intellectual elite in the DOM-TOMs. In recent years, a cultural revival in the French overseas regions, notably in the Antilles, has accompanied and inspired new assessments of the relationship between the DOM-TOMs and the ‘mother country’. But writers and musicians from the DOM-TOMs, almost all from the Antilles, have also won great acclaim in France. At best, cross-fertilisation and exchange have marked cultural connections between France and its outposts; at worst, French administration of the former colonies has led to continued cultural imperialism and the stifling of indigenous creativity.