BUMIDOM (1963–1982) and its Afterlives

• Brings together work by established Caribbean cultural figures such as Maryse Condé and Jean-Claude Barny with work by little-known and underexplored writers and artists producing work at the time of migration and today, including Estelle-Sarah Bulle and Charlise Curier
• Adopts an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach and draws on theories, concepts, and debates from memory studies, migration studies and postcolonial studies
• Explores the history of the BUMIDOM through archival documents currently held at the Archives nationales in Paris and the Archives départementales in Guadeloupe and Martinique
• Includes interviews with selected writers, filmmakers and musicians

This book investigates cultural representations of the BUMIDOM (Bureau pour le développement des migrations dans les départements d’outre-mer), a state-organised migration scheme which brought workers from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion and French Guiana to mainland France between 1963 and 1982. It argues that the French government has not sufficiently commemorated the BUMIDOM through national frameworks such as museums and education systems. This would mean admitting that participants, who were French citizens, were treated as racialised migrants and second-class-citizens. Through a series of original case studies spanning life writing, novels, films, bande dessinée, children’s fiction and music, the study demonstrates that it is cultural practitioners who, in the absence of adequate state representation, are undertaking this important memory work themselves. In a period in which Black identity is increasingly entering public debate in France, the book raises urgent questions about what it means to be a French citizen and a racial minority.