Culture and Assimilation

The Pilou-Pilou: A Banned Dance of Memory and Resistance

Since 1853, when this island archipelago became a French colony, a systematic policy of assimilation was pursued against the culture of the indigenous Kanak people. As a result of...

Penal Colonies: The Forced Labor Foundations of New Caledonia

From the mid-nineteenth century onward, New Caledonia became for France not merely a remote island in the Pacific, but one of the central pillars of its imperial penal policy. Following the official a...

Imposing Faith: The Catholic Campaign Against Indigenous Belief Systems

In French Guiana, indigenous tribes possessed well-established religious belief systems prior to French colonial rule. These belief systems were primarily based on animism and shamanism. Rituals and c...