Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T10:17:27.931Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

RACE, NATIVITY, AND MULTICULTURAL EXCLUSION

Negotiating the Inclusion of Kreol in Mauritian Language Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2019

E. Nicole Thornton
E. Nicole Thornton*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
*
*Corresponding author: Dr. E. Nicole Thornton, Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Mergenthaler Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the exclusion of Afro-Mauritians (or Creoles) in Mauritian multiculturalism. Although Creoles represent nearly thirty percent of the population, they are the only major group not officially recognized in the Mauritian Constitution (unlike Hindus, Muslims, and the Chinese) and they experience uniquely high levels of socioeconomic and political marginalization despite the country’s decades-long policy of official multiculturalism. While scholarship on multiculturalism and nation-building in plural societies might explain the exclusion of Creoles as a breakdown in the forging of political community in postcolonial Mauritius, I build on these theories by focusing on the tension between diaspora and nativity evident in Mauritian public discourse. Using the politics of language policy as a case study, I examine why the Kreol language in Mauritius—the ancestral language of Creoles and mother tongue of the majority of Mauritians—was consistently rejected for inclusion in language policy until recently (unlike Hindi, Urdu, and other ethnic languages). In my analysis of public policy discourse, I map how Creole ethnic activists negotiated Kreol’s inclusion in multiculturalism and highlight their constraints. This analysis shows that through multiculturalism, non-Creole political actors have created ethnic categories of inclusion while reciprocally denoting racially-excluded others defined by their lack of diasporic cultural value. I argue that groups claiming diasporic cultural connections are privileged as “ethnics” deemed worthy of multicultural inclusion, while those with ancestral connections more natively-bound to the local territory (such as Creoles, as a post-slavery population) are deemed problematic, culturally dis-recognized, and racialized as “the Other” because their nativity gives them a platform from which to lay territorial counter-claims to the nation.

Keywords

MulticulturalismRaceNativityDiasporaExclusionBelongingRecognition
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Fall 2019 , pp. 613 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agamben, Giorgio (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: VersoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Mark (2007). When Afro Becomes (like) Indigenous: Garifuna and Afro-Indigenous Politics in Honduras. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 12(2): 384–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anonymous (2013). Interview by author with a Creole activist working in Kreol pedagogy with the Bureau d’Education Catholique (BEC), June 18.Google Scholar
Anthias, Floya (1998). Evaluating ‘Diaspora’: Beyond Ethnicity? Sociology, 32(3): 557–580.Google Scholar
Baker, Phillip (1972). Kreol: A Description of Mauritian Creole. London: C. Hurst & Co.Google Scholar
Balibar, Etienne (2007). Is There a Neo-racism? In Gupta, T., James, C., and Maaka, R., et al. (Eds.), Race and Racialization: Essential Readings (pp. 17–28). Toronto, CAN: Canadian Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Baptiste, Espelentia (2002). A Nation Deferred: Language, Ethnicity, and the Reproduction of Social Inequalities in Mauritian Primary Schools. PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Barth, Fredrik (Ed.) (1969). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company.Google Scholar
Ben-Rafael, Eliezer (2013). Diaspora. Current Sociology Review, 61(5-6): 842–861.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bissoonauth, Anu (1998). Language Use, Language Choice, and Language Attitudes among Young Mauritian Adolescents in Secondary Education. PhD Dissertation, Nottingham University.Google Scholar
Bloemraad, Irene, Anna, Korteweg, and Yurakul, Gokce (2008). Citizenship and Immigration: Multiculturalism, Assimilation, and Challenges to the Nation-state. Annual Review of Sociology, 34. 153–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo (2003). Racism Without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Boswell, Rosabelle (2005). Le Malaise Créole: Ethnic Identity in Mauritius. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers (2009). Ethnicity, Race and Nationalism. Annual Review of Sociology, 35. 21–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunwaree, S. (2001). The Marginal in the Miracle: Human Capital in Mauritius. International Journal of Educational Development, 21: 257–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, B. W., and Carroll, Terrence (2000). Accommodating Ethnic Diversity in a Modernizing Democratic State: Theory and Practice in the case of Mauritius. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 23(1) : 120–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan Low, Jocelyn (2004). Les enjeux actuels des débats sur la mémoire et la réparation pour l’esclavage à l’île Maurice.” Cahiers d’études africaines, 1: 401–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Da Costa, Alexandre Emboaba (2016). Confounding Anti-racism: Mixture, Racial Democracy, and Post-racial Politics in Brazil. Critical Sociology, 42 (4-5): 495–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darga, L. Amedee (1998). Mauritius: Governance Challenges in Sustained Democracy in a Plural Society. Republic of Mauritius. <http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/CAFRAD/UNPAN008595.pdf> (accessed October 14, 2019).Google Scholar
Eisenlohr, Patrick (2001). Language Ideology and Imaginations of Indianness in Mauritius. PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Eisenlohr, Patrick (2006). Little India: Diaspora, Time, and Ethnolinguistic Belonging in Hindu Mauritius. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (1992). Us and Them in Modern Societies: Ethnicity and Nationalism in Mauritius, Trinidad, and beyond. Oslo, Norway: Scandinavian University Press.Google Scholar
Falola, Toyin (2013). The African Diaspora: Slavery, Modernity and Globalization. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Fogg-Davis, Hawley (2003). The Racial Retreat of Contemporary Political Theory.Perspectives on Politics, 1(3): 555–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamlen, Alan (2008). The Emigration State and the Modern Geopolitical Imagination. Political Geography, 27: 840–856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, Ernest (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, David Theo (1993). Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Goldberg, David Theo (2009). The Threat of Race: Reflections on Racial Neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gunew, Sneja (1997). Postcolonialism and Multiculturalism: Between Race and Ethnicity. The Yearbook of English Studies, 27: 22–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanchard, Michael (2006). Party/Politics: Horizons in Black Political Thought. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hattam, Victoria (2007). In the Shadow of Race: Jews, Latinos, and Immigrant Politics in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hooker, Juliette (2005). Indigenous Inclusion/Black Exclusion: Race, Ethnicity, and Multicultural Citizenship in Latin America. Journal of Latin American Studies, 37: 285–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooker, Juliette (2009). Race and the Politics of Solidarity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hookoomsing, Vinesh (2004). Grafi Larmoni: A Harmonized Writing System for the Mauritian Creole Language. Reduit: University of Mauritius.Google Scholar
Kastoryano, Riva (2002). Negotiating Identities: States and Immigrants in France and Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Khan, Aisha (2004). Callaloo Nation: Metaphors of Race and Religious Identity among South Asians in Trinidad, Durham, and London. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenny, Kevin (2003). Diaspora and Comparison: The Global Irish as a Case Study. The Journal of American History, 90(1): pp. 134–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Desmond, and Smith, Rogers (2005). Racial Orders in American Political Development. American Political Science Review , (99)1: pp. 75–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kymlicka, Will (1996). Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford. UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laguerre, Michel (2006). Diaspora, Politics, and Globalization. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laitin, David (1992). Language Repertoires and State Construction in Africa. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamont, Michele, and Molnar, Virag (1992). The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28: 167–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledikasyon pu Travayer (2009). International Hearing on the Harm Done in Schools by the Suppression of the Mother Tongue: Executive Summary of Findings and Recommendations. October 20–24.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan, and Stepan, Alfred (1996). Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Lutchmanen, Kalei (2010). Commission Justice et Vérité: Revalorisation du créole et du bhojpuri, propose l’enseignant Olivier Précieux. L’express, June 17.Google Scholar
Marx, Anthony (1998). Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mathews, H., and Flore-Smereczniak, Carol (2005). Local Ownership of the MDGs: A Case Study of the Republic of Mauritius. Washington, DC: United Nations Development Programme.Google Scholar
McDowell, Linda (2009). Old and New European Economic Migrants: Whiteness and Managed Migration Policies. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35(1): 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meer, Nasar, Mouritsen, Per, Faas, Daniel, and de Witte, Nynke (2015). Examining ‘Postmulticultural’ and Civic Turns in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, and Denmark. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(6): 702–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miles, William F. S. (1999). The Mauritius Enigma. Journal of Democracy, 10(2): 91–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, Charles (1997). The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Modood, Tariq (2013). Multiculturalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Moran, Anthony (2011). Multiculturalism as Nationbuilding in Australia: Inclusive National Identity and the Embrace of Eiversity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(12): 2153–2172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauritius National Assembly, Creole Speaking Union Bill, Second Reading, 31 May 2011. Port Louis, Mauritius: Republic of Mauritius.Google Scholar
Mauritius National Assembly (17 May 2011). Hansard, Debate No 8 of 2011. Port Louis, Mauritius: Republic of Mauritius.Google Scholar
Mauritius National Assembly (31 May 2011). Hansard, Debate No 10 of 2011. Port Louis, Mauritius: Republic of Mauritius.Google Scholar
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) (2008). Annual Report for the Year 2007, (pp. 17–19). Port Louis: Mauritius.Google Scholar
Omi, Michael, and Howard, Winant (1986). Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Paschel, Tiana (2010). The Right to Difference: Explaining Colombia’s Shift from Color Blindness to the Law of Black Communities. American Journal of Sociology, 116(3): 729–769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paschel, Tiana (2013). ‘The Beautiful Faces of my Black People’: Race, Ethnicity and the Politics of Colombia’s 2005 Census. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(10): 1544–1563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rampersad, Indira (2014). Multiculturalism and the Challenge of Managing Diversity in Trinidad and Tobago. Journal of Social Science for Policy Implications, 2(1): 127–149.Google Scholar
Salverda, Tijo (2015). The Franco-Mauritian Elite: Power and Anxiety in the Face of Change. New York: Berghahn Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheth, Falguni (2009). Towards a Political Philosophy of Race. Albany, NY: State University of New York.Google Scholar
Srebrnik, Henry (2000). Can an Ethnically-based Civil Society Succeed?: The Case of Mauritius. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 18(1): pp. 7–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Statistics Mauritius (2000). 2000 Housing and Population Census: Vol IV: Educational Characteristics. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Port Louis, Mauritius: Republic of Mauritius. <http://statsmauritius.govmu.org/English/Documents/educa/e1dist1.htm#rep> (accessed October 10, 2019).+(accessed+October+10,+2019).>Google Scholar
Statistics Mauritius (2012). 2011 Housing and Population Census: Vol II: Demographic and Fertility Characteristics. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Port Louis, Mauritius: Republic of Mauritius. <http://statsmauritius.govmu.org/English/Documents/publications/Housing/economics%20and%20social%20indicators/reports/2011VolIIPC.pdf> (accessed October 10, 2019).+(accessed+October+10,+2019).>Google Scholar
Teelock, Vijaya, and Alpers, Edward (2001). History, Memory and Identity. Port Louis, Mauritius: Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture.Google Scholar
Vaughan, Meghan (2005). Creating the Creole Island: Slavery in Eighteenth-century Mauritius. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wade, Peter (2010). The Presence and Absence of Race. Patterns of Prejudice, 44(1): 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinstein, Brian (1983). The Civic Tongue: Political Consequences of Language Choices. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas (2013). Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Iris (1989). Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship. Ethics, 99(2): 250–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar