Frustration and Protest in Modern Martinique
Content Warning: This episode contains brief mentions of slavery and incidents of police brutality
In September 2024, a series of protests rocked the island of Martinique. However, these protests are a part of a national tradition where in modern Martinican history, citizens have always organised protests over social issues, economic conditions and racial inequality in their society.
Additional Knowledge
BOOKS
Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
Caribbean Freedom: Society and Economy from Emancipation to the Present edited by Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd
Creolizing Europe: Legacies and Transformations edited by Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez and Shirley Anne Tate
Crisis in the Caribbean edited by Fitzroy Ambursley and Robin Cohen
Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire
The Great Camouflage: Writings of Dissent (1941–1945) by Suzanne Césaire
The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
ACADEMIC PAPERS
Environment as a Potential Key Determinant of the Continued Increase of Prostate Cancer Incidence in Martinique by Dominique Belpomme and Philippe Irigaray
Martinique is ours, not theirs!’: Framing Conflicting Identities During the 2009 Protests by Céline Théodose
Post-colonial trends of income inequality: Evidence from the overseas departments of France by Yajna Govind
The French West Indies: Collapsing Societies? by Auguste Armet
The May 1967 Massacre in Guadeloupe: Trauma, Nationalism and Decolonization by Grace Carrington
FICTIONAL BOOKS
Black Shack Alley by Joseph Zobel
I Am a Martinican Woman byMayotte Capécia
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau
REPORTS:
World Cancer Research Statistics: Prostate Cancer Statistics
ARTICLE
AFD: Martinique
BBC: France to cut prices in Martinique over cost of living unrest
BBC: The Caribbean islands poisoned by a carcinogenic pesticide
The Conversation: The Colonial Legacy lurking Beneath Economic Unrest in the French Caribbean
The Guardian: ‘A deliberate poisoning’: how a banned pesticide haunts the French Caribbean
BIOPICS AND DOCUMENTARIES
Aimé Césaire: A Voice for History (1994) bydirected by Euzhan Palcy
The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (2024) directed by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
MOVIE
Sugar Cane Alley (1983) directed by Euzhan Palcy
Zion (2025) by Nelson Foix
TELEVISION SERIES
Bandi (2025) directed by Jimmy Laporal-Tresor and Mathilde Vallet
PLAY
West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty (1979) directed by Med Hondo