History and International Relations in The Guiana Region

History and International Relations in the Guyana Regions
Organização
Iuri Cavlak
Paulo Gustavo Pellegrino Correa
Nepan Editora
Rio Branco - Acre
2021
Editora do Núcleo de Estudos das Culturas Amazônicas e
Pan-Amazônicas
www.nepaneditora.com.br | editoranepan@gmail.com
Diretor administrativo: Marcelo Alves Ishii
Conselho Editorial: Agenor Sarraf Pacheco (UFPA), Ana Pizarro (Universidade

de Santiago do Chile), Carlos André Alexandre de Melo (Ufac), Elder Andrade
de Paula – (Ufac), Francemilda Lopes do Nascimento (Ufac), Francielle Maria
Modesto Mendes (Ufac), Francisco Bento da Silva (Ufac), Francisco de Moura
Pinheiro (Ufac), Gerson Rodrigues de Albuquerque (Ufac), Hélio Rodrigues da
Rocha (Unir), Hideraldo Lima da Costa (Ufam), João Carlos de Souza Ribeiro
(Ufac), Jones Dari Goettert (UFGD), Leopoldo Bernucci (Universidade da
Califórnia), Livia Reis (UFF), Luís Balkar Sá Peixoto Pinheiro (Ufam), Marcela
Orellana (Universidade de Santiago do Chile), Marcello Messina (UFPB/Ufac),
Marcia Paraquett (UFBA), Marcos Vinicius de Freitas Reis (Unifap), Maria
Antonieta Antonacci (PUC-SP), Maria Chavarria (Universidade Nacional Maior
de São Marcos, Peru), Maria Cristina Lobregat (Ifac), Maria Nazaré Cavalcante
de Souza (Ufac), Miguel Nenevé (Unir), Raquel Alves Ishii (Ufac), Sérgio Roberto
Gomes Souza (Ufac), Sidney da Silva Lobato (Unifap), Tânia Mara Rezende
Machado (Ufac).
It has been widely recognized that there is a dearth
of scholarly literature on the Guyanas, a region of
increasing importance in South America.
In this book, the authors have carefully researched and
presented a series of articles which covered significant
areas of interest, which include the historical context in
which Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana emerged,
the political and socio - economic issues which have
emerged, as well as the challenges and prospects for
trans-border collaboration .
Additionally, the authors also discuss contemporary
issues related to migration, trafficking in persons,
gender and cultural development and highlight the
Amazon region as a potential zone of development and
cooperation .
This book presents the reader with a multidimensional
perspective on the emerging Guyanas and present
the urgent need for collective action in the shared
geographical space .
This book’s many merits include its authors’ familiarity
with the complex issues facing the Guyanas, and can
be described as a rich and insightful multi-disciplinary
presentation .
The chapters are grounded in and moored to a
conceptual anchor of the importance and imperative of
greater collaborative engagement among the Guyanas
and the neighboring states, especially Brazil.
This book can be considered as a pioneering effort
and is a welcome and significant contribution to the
point literature which should be a “must read “for all
audiences.
Mark Kirton
Former Senior Lecture of University of West Indies
(Trinidad & Tobago).
Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (CIP)
H763
History and International Relations in the Guyana Regions /

organização Iuri Cavlak, Paulo Gustavo Pellegrino Correa. – Rio Branco:
Nepan Editora, 2021.
250p.: il.
Inclui referencias bibliográficas.
ISBN: 978-65-89135-27-2
1. Amazônia – História. 2. Amazônia – Relações internacionais. 3.

Fronteiras. I. Cavlak, Iuri. II. Correa, Paulo Gustavo. III. Título.
CDD 22. ed. 320.12

Bibliotecária Maria do Socorro de O. Cordeiro – CRB 11/667
Contents
FOREWORD.....................................................................................7
Clodoaldo Bueno
GUYANAS FROM BRAZIL: AMAZON AND CARIBBEAN............11

Iuri Cavlak
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................. 19
Iuri Cavlak
WHO SAID A BLACK WOMAN CANNOT BE

MILLIONAIRE AND SINGLE? SURINAME’S
HISTORICAL NOVEL AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE................... 27
Natali Fabiana da Costa e Silva
“AQUI COMEÇA O BRASIL” : PENAL

COLONIZATION, TERRITORIALIZATION
AND BORDER CONSTRUCTION OF THE
OYAPOCK RIVER. 1853-1927........................................................... 45
Samuel Tracol
Arnaud-Dominique Houte
FRENCH GUIANA, AN OUTERMOST

REGION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION:
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN THE XXI CENTURY.................. 73
Rosuel Lima Pereira
CROSS-BORDER INTEGRATION
AND SOCIAL REPRESENTATION:
THE BINATIONAL BRIDGE AND THE
CATRAIEIROS ON THE FRANCO-BRAZILIAN BORDER.........97
Miguel Dhenin
POLITICAL ECOLOGY AT THE FRONTIERS

OF KNOWLEDGE AND POWER IN A
TRADITIONALLY OCCUPIED TERRITORY:
THE KNOW-HOW OF COCONUT BREAKERS
IN THE AMAZON.......................................................................... 117
Jodival Mauricio da Costa
Joaquim Shiraishi Neto
Izabela de Nazaré Tavares de Souza
THE DILEMMA OF LOCAL PARTICIPATION

IN THE BRAZIL-FRANCE CROSS-BORDER
COOPERATION (1990-2015).......................................................... 137
Carmentilla das Chagas Martins
Iuri Cavlak
THE TRAFFICKING OF BRAZILIAN WOMEN

AND THE GOLD PATH IN THE GUYANA
REGION: CORRELATIONS AND CONECTIONS.......................157
Brenda Farias da Silva
GUYANA AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE THIRD WORLD..... 181

Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos
SUBJECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND

ASSOCIATIVE FIELDS OF HAITIAN
MIGRANTS IN FRENCH GUIANA AND BRAZIL...................... 201
Handerson Joseph
A FORGOTTEN FRONTIER AND ONE

NEIGHBORHOOD TO BE DISCOVERED:
THE GUYANENSE EMANCIPATION ON THE
EXTREME NORTH OF BRAZIL...................................................231
Américo Alves de Lyra Junior
Rayanne Santos Silva
ABOUT THE AUTHORS.............................................................. 247

FOREWORD
A
few decades ago, the border region of northern Brazil took
up little space in academic publications. For the people
who live in the south and southeast regions, the Amazon
was seen as a reserve for the future, isolated and without influencing what
was happening in the country. The area, however, has never ceased to be
the object of studies by diplomats and officers of the Armed Forces who
are dedicated to geopolitics. Brazilian and foreign anthropologists and
ethnologists have also produced works of excellent academic quality on
indigenous nations and areas of interethnic contacts. The Amazon was,
and still is, a true “laboratory” that offers a wide field of research, such
as those related to the environment, commercial relations, immigration,
and other areas of human geography. The history of borders and the
broad rubric of international relations, under which it is supported, were
listed as belonging to political history, and it was not fashionable among
historians who were, at the time, more concerned with economic, social
issues and those related to mentalities. Those were important issues, no
doubt, but we must emphasize that political history, although not a rule,
was associated with the factual study. That image has changed substan-
tially nowadays. In the late 1980s, areas that were less noted gained pres-
ence on the international agenda with the awakening of environmental
protection, from which the fires in the Amazon became constant in the
mainstream media and in prestigious academic publications. There was
a “rediscovery” of the northern border regarding new concepts specific
to the new themes that appeared in the university research proposals,
including regional integration. Border today represents not only the line
between two sovereignties, but an area that accompanies both sides of
that border, with its own profile, differentiated from the rest of each coun-
try, and studied as an integration space that participates and contributes
to implement larger projects. Taking care of the border is a national task,
which, if well conducted, is also an efficient way to maintain peace with
neighboring countries. To care for and integrate, it is necessary to have
knowledge about the theme. This is the contribution of the researchers
who signed the texts of this collection on the Transnational Amazon, an
area that occupies more than half of the territory of South America and
integrates parts of the territories of nine countries. The northern border
of Brazil has a potential that is still little explored, such as the role that
the Guiana plateau may play in favor of increasing the Brazilian presence
in the Caribbean countries. The authors and organizers of this book,
well-trained academics, with a good sense of observation and exercising
their functions in public universities in Brazil and Guyana, are setting
an example of academic integration, translated in the present volume
in which they present their research methods, disseminate, and expand
knowledge about the area, and also propose new approaches to the effi-
ciency of integrationist projects. To reinforce the importance of works of
this nature, it is worth reiterating that the studies on borders presented
here are multidisciplinary; their texts belong to the areas of sociology,
political science, history, and literature (the latter being used as an es-
sential source for the reconstruction of social reality), connected to new
themes, covering situations on both sides of the dividing line. In them,
the reader will find surveys and analyzes of specific situations, with most
studies focusing on French Guiana, whose territory confronts the State
of Amapá. Despite the favorable commitment to collaboration that exists
between the populations on both sides, there are difficulties, including
the lack of involvement of local actors, as the success of cooperation de-
8
pends on them. The effects of the binational bridge on the activities of
the boatmen (known as “catraieiros”) are also examined, as well as the
challenges that this part of the territory of France will have to face in the
21st century. Unexpected for the reader is the report of the contribution
of prisoners due to the lack of manpower. The trafficking of Brazilian
women, illegal mining and Haitian immigrants complete the picture.
There are two texts on English-speaking Guyana that deal with its histor-
ical formation from the colonial period to the present day and the process
of independence. The text that initiates the volume deals with the his-
torical novel from Suriname, which examines the speech of black wom-
en during colonization. Reading the studies allows us to form an almost
finished image of the border and their way of making a living. We insist
on the relevance of integration projects that involve local people through
seemingly modest initiatives, but which have positive, visible, and last-
ing effects. Integration does not happen overnight, it takes persistence,
since at the border there are opportunities for marginal activities such as
adventurism, illegal mining, smuggling, money laundering, prostitution,
and women trafficking.
In general terms, our border areas can be considered peaceful, com-
pared to others in certain parts of the world where there are ethnic and
religious conflicts, illegal and persistent migrations, or even territorial
disputes. Brazil is a country satisfied with its size and is at peace with all
nations. The formation of national states in South America, despite local
conflicts, has no standard difficulties similar to that of European nations
in consolidating their national borders. The border zone is a zone of co-
operation when there is internal peace in the countries ahead. Duroselle
endorsed the French geographer Jean Gottmann in the affirmation that
the borders have an “active” life, therefore, they can transform and, in
consequence, create the risk of increasing the differences between the
territories that they separate. The lack of political stability on one or both
sides cause problems at the borders, such as those experienced by Brazil
during the 19th century in the La Plata Basin region. For the border not
9
to become an additional problem, it must be taken good care of. Hence
the importance of integrated, equitable, and sincerely conceived border
projects, that is, without covering up hegemonic projects. The failure to
exploit the Amazon’s potential attracts international greed, which we
have had to deal with since the 19th century. The internationalization
discourse is not new. Nor are the nationalist reactions new. Sustainable
development is currently the watchword.
Clodoaldo Bueno
10
GUYANAS FROM BRAZIL: AMAZON
AND CARIBBEAN
Iuri Cavlak
F
or some time now, the great historian Reginaldo Gomes de
Oliveira has been working with the concept of “Caribbean
Amazon”, precisely to deal with this fascinating and multi-
faceted region such as the Guianas. A mixture of the Amazon and the
Caribbean, varying both in its geography and in its ethnic and linguistic
composition. 1
What happens is that, traditionally, Brazilian researchers tend to
characterize this space only as Guyana, former English Guiana, Suriname,
former Dutch Guiana, and French Guiana. Nowadays, it is customary to
add when thinking about the entire region, “Brazilian Guiana” (Amapá),
Roraima and “Spanish Guiana” (Venezuela).
The first problem, since both paths require that, within the univer-
sality that unites them, we should think the particularities of each entity,
which amalgamate over time. One explanation of the origin of the word
1 OLIVEIRA, Reginaldo G. O Rio Branco no Contexto da Amazônia Caribenha: aspectos da coloni-

zação europeia entre os séculos XVI e XVIII. In: MARTINS, Estevão Chaves e MOREIRA, Felipe Kern
(org). Relações Internacionais na Fronteira Norte do Brasil. Boa Vista: Editora Universidade Federal
de Roraima, 2008, p. 137-167. Concept equally well elaboreted by Argemiro Procópio. In: PROCÓPIO,
Argemiro. A Amazônia Caribenha. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional. Brasília, n. 50, 2007.
“Guyana” would be land of many waters. It is not in all these places that
this characteristic rests, as well as the ones that belong to the Amazon
region - all - and the Amazon basin - only a few. Roraima and Amapá are
states that belong to the Federative Republic of Brazil. French Guiana is a
territorial collectivity belonging to France. Guyana and Suriname are the
youngest countries in the South American continent, with independence
in 1966 and 1975, respectively. Venezuela has been an independent coun-
try since the beginning of the 19th century.
Belonging to the Caribbean depends on economic, political, and
cultural aspects, which, again, does not apply to everyone in the same
way. In this sense, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana have the stron-
gest ties. The first, in fact, is the current headquarters of CARICOM (Ca-
ribbean Community).
It is important to highlight here, albeit in an unconnected way, part
of the individual history of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, in addi-
tion to Brazil’s role in relationship with the three in order to compose an
initial screen of our problem. We highlight the basic information we have
through the most available bibliography, as well as the interrelationship
in the contemporary period.
Guyana, formerly English Guiana, was known as the city of El Do-
rado (from Spanish El Hombre Dorado), where the last Inca emperor
would have taken refuge in a city made entirely of gold. Its first records
were published in the West through the writings of the explorer Walter
Raleigh in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Already Dutch hegemony, Guyana was composed of three colonies,
Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice, having its sovereignty passed into the
hands of the English in the early 19th century, and unified as English Gui-
ana in 1831.
With a typical plantation economy, black slaves from Africa gath-
ered there and later joined Indian and Portuguese immigrants. Two great
slave revolts shook the history of this colony. The first, in 1763, under
Dutch sovereignty, when Kofi, Ankara and Ata, three noble slaves from
12
African kingdoms, led around three thousand captives against white
domination and the enslavement process. The second, in 1823, in Demer-
ara, at the confluence between notions of freedom and autonomy of the
African peoples with certain abolitionist messages coming from British
evangelizers.
In all Guyanas we can find the Maroons, runaway slaves who
formed new societies in the forests, settling there for centuries with their
own language and way of life. As a reminder of resistance that, existing in
the present, somehow points to the future.
Overcoming the upheavals in the process of capitalist consolida-
tion, British Guiana started to develop other economic activities, such as
mining and logging. In the second half of the 19th century and the first
half of the 20th century, an urban working class was formed, brilliantly
studied by the historian Walter Rodney.2 Combining, once again, indige-
nous notions of justice and social reform, with British traditions, in this
case trade unions, the Guyanese people organized one of the most com-
bative struggle movements, joining in post-war period in the People’s
Progressive Party (PPP), an organization linked to the Marxist political
ideology.
In the 1950s and 1960s, British Guiana was heading towards sov-
ereign independence politically and economically, which frightened the
colonial elites of the time. An American intervention was present, fight-
ing the PPP and influencing the fragmentation of the ethnic movement,
in the combination of new electoral laws that greatly weakened the PPP.
In 1966, the culmination of the process was independence granted by
England, with American help. 3
However, social contradictions continued to develop, leading lead-
er Forbes Burnham to decree, in 1970, the Cooperative Republic of Guy-
ana, which was desired at a more advanced stage of socialism than Cuba,
2 RODNEY, Walter. A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1981.
3 RABE, Stephen. U.S Intervention in British Guiana: a cold war history. Washington : North Caro-
lina press, 2005.
13
for example. The economy was nationalized, although with a predom-
inance of an Afro-Guyanese elite as opposed to other segments of the
population. The regime went into crisis, being dismantled after Burn-
ham’s death in 1985.
Regarding Suriname, it is important to say that it has always been
under Dutch rule since colonial times until the second half of the 20th
century. One of the least defended regions of the Spanish empire, soon
became the scene of war between the United Provinces and Spain, in the
context of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Dutch were interested in the sugar basin of the Northeast of
Portuguese America, which had become an enemy during the Iberian
Union period (1580-1640). After a frustrated attack in Bahia, the Dutch
West India Company (WIC), the commercial and armed branch of the
United Provinces, captured Pernambuco, installing a curious society
there that would last until the mid-1650s. Expelled in the Brazilian wars,
the Dutch remained in Suriname and some Caribbean islands.
They also developed a plantation economy, with a predominance of
African slaves and, later, the abolition, in 1863, of hired immigrants from
the Dutch colonies of Asia, especially Indonesia and Java. In the 1930s,
the brilliant figure of Anton de Kom, a black intellectual and political
activist, appeared on the horizon, with his work “We, slaves of Suriname”
and the “Organization of Surinamese Workers”, from 1932.
In the 20th century, perhaps the religious variable was stronger
than in relation to its neighbors. In the post-World War II, in this sense,
many political parties were built with the religious court as a common
denominator.4 This did not prevent a wave of pluriclassist social protests
in the early 1970s, impelling the metropolis politicians to accelerate po-
litical independence, which was finally consented on November 25, 1975.
Until February 1980, the country experienced an economy still very
dependent on the Netherlands, a scenario transformed from the seizure
4 HOEFETE, Rosemarijn. Suriname in the Long Twentieth Century : Domination, Contestation, Glo-
balization. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
14
of power by Desi Bouterse, who started, with advances and failures, a
significant process of economic and political changes, resulting in a civil
war, in the second half of the 1980s, and very problematic rates of social
development in the 1990s.
Other aspects were the history of French Guiana, the only non-in-
dependent territorial portion inserted in South America. A place of diffi-
cult colonization by the French, which ended up as a safe point after the
loss of “Antarctic France” in Rio de Janeiro in 1570, and later of “Equino-
cial France” in São Luís do Maranhão, in 1615.
Since then, there was an attempted occupation of white settlers in
Kourou between 1764 and 1765 which resulted in the disaster of thou-
sands of deaths due to poor housing conditions and combating tropical
diseases. Dubbed the “green hell” then, it became a deportation site for
political prisoners during the Great Revolution of 1789, adding another
not so pleasant epithet, now “dry guillotine”.
Between 1808 and 1817, it was occupied by Portuguese troops, in
retaliation by D. Joao VI for the Napoleonic invasion. From 1822 on, a
territorial issue with Brazil was required, which would last until 1900. At
the end of World War II, he would have his prison complex as an element
sadly known internationally.
The fact is that, from then on, France not only deactivated its pris-
on, but began a process to improve living conditions in the former col-
ony, which was transformed, in 1946, into the Overseas Department. In
the 1960s, Kourou hosted the construction of the European Community
Aerospace Base, a milestone that further linked French Guiana to Paris.
With the political reforms of François Mitterrand, in the early 1980s, FG
was advancing in autonomy, having its status changed again in the 2000s,
to Overseas Community.
Brazil played an outstanding role both in consolidating the inde-
pendence of Guyana and Suriname, and in the new economic and politi-
cal configurations of French Guiana.
15
In 1966, after its independence, Guyana renewed its territorial dis-
pute with Venezuela over the Essequibo territory. Venezuelan diplomacy
observed that it was easier to win the dispute against a small and newly
independent country than against all-powerful England. Hence the en-
try of Brazilian diplomacy, during the military governments of Castelo
Branco and Artur da Costa e Silva, which guaranteed the freezing of the
territorial status quo on the Guyanese-Venezuelan border.
In the 1970s, with the Cooperative Republic, the attitude of the di-
plomacy of Geisel, Garrastazu Médici and Figueiredo was no different
as it counterbalanced the influence of Eastern Europe and countries not
aligned in Georgetown. In this sense, it followed an international guar-
antor of the country’s territorial integrity, offering economic aid and cul-
tural exchange protocols in exchange for a high-level relationship from a
political point of view.
In relation to Suriname, the greatest Brazilian presence was with
the Venturini’s Mission, in early 1983. With a conflicting internal situ-
ation, the possibility of an American intervention, similar to what hap-
pened in Granada months later, was a reality. Brazil, through General
Danilo Venturini, head of the military house, also in articulation with
Itamaraty, exchanged economic aid and political support for the expul-
sion of Cuban personnel, technicians and politicians who then assisted
the Boutersi government, as well as the removal of that government un-
der the influence of the Surinamese left.
French Guiana, in the 1990s, began a clear process of valuing its
relations with the regional environment. In this sense, the meetings and
agreements of Fernando Henrique Cardoso with Jacques Chiraq, in 1997,
and Luís Inácio “Lula” da Silva with Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2008 were es-
sential. The paved road from Cayenne to Saint George was completed,
beginning the construction from the bridge under the Oiapoque River,
connecting this Brazilian city of the same name to the French Overseas
Collectivities.
16
With the completion of the University of Guyana in 2015 and the
strengthening of the Federal University of Amapá (Unifap), including
the opening of a campus in Oiapoque, in 2010, several partnerships were
and have been developed, greatly enhancing transnational projects from
an academic point of view.
17
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Iuri Cavlak
This book is the result of a collective work that has led to a bilingual
dossier, Portuguese-English, published by Revista Diálogos (http://www.
dialogosuem.com.br/) in 2020. The absence of academic material on the
Guyana Region made us take the initiative of organizing the publication
of a printed book in English for greater dissemination of research.
We call “The Guyanas” or “the Guyana Region” the far north of
South America, composed by Brazil, France, Suriname, The Cooperative
Republic of Guyana, and Venezuela. In Brazil, we can list the states of
Amapá, Roraima, parts of Pará, and Amazonas that are part of the Re-
gion. The European territory in the Amazon is represented by the Terri-
torial Collectivity of French Guiana.
Map of The Guyana Region
Source: elaborated by Brenda Farias da Silva
In this territory, we find the history of the Amazonian ethnic groups

and the struggle for survival of their cultures. It is also here that the lan-
guages of the former colonizers - Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch,
and English – meet in a subcontinent surrounded by Spanish speakers.
The colonial period brought European, African, Indian, Javanese, and
Chinese people into this region; a recent past, in turn, promoted an in-
tense migratory flow from Brazil and the Caribbean in the composition
of the Guyanese society. The region’s plurality and historical complexity
are, in this Book, addressed by academics in History, International Rela-
tions, Anthropology, Political Science, Literature, and Geography.
20
Among the various regions that make up the South American sub-
continent, Guyana is the least studied in the composition of the Transna-
tional Amazon and the American continent in general. Thus, this Book
is an important research to better understand a place inhabited by great
biodiversity, cultures, peoples, languages, migration of people, and rich
history.
The region is located inside the “Transnational Amazon” and rep-
resents five from nine of the countries that share an Amazonian space.
Native peoples, colonization, the establishment of borders, and migra-
tory flows are some of the elements that have the potential to be explored
in the study of the region’s history and international relations.
The delimitation of the Amazon may establish different criteria
and this form will present different compositions. References in texts
about the “Transnational Amazon” are common. It is a general defini-
tion that includes physical, environmental, and political-administrative
criteria in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, French Guiana,
Suriname, and Venezuela.
The institutional youth present in the territories that make up
Guyana somewhat explains the low volume of studies in the region. The
Cooperative Republic of Guyana and Suriname are the youngest coun-
tries in South America, independent in 1966 and 1975, respectively. The
Brazilian states of Roraima and Amapá only ascended to the state status
of the Federation of Brazil in 1988. French Guiana, on the other hand, is
not an independent country and responds directly to mainland France.
This meant that research institutions in the region were generally struc-
tured only in recent decades and often in a precarious way.
The Université de Guyane in Cayenne had no university status until
2015. Until then, its connection was as an educational pole connected to
the Antilles (Martinique and Guadeloupe). Since its new moment, the
hiring of scholars and establishments for research and teaching projects
have brought greater focus to studies on the territory itself and its geo-
graphical surroundings.
21
In the Cooperative Republic of Guyana and Suriname, the only two
universities present, “The University of Guyana” and “Anton de Kom”, re-
spectively, face low investments and a drain of specialized labor to other
countries. However, some initiatives have been undertaken in the search
for closer regional studies.
At the Federal University of Roraima (UFRR) in the 2000s, an at-
tempt was made to approach the Guyanas as an object of history and in-
ternational relations. Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira is one of the pioneer-
ing academics in these studies and pointed out the idea of a “Caribbean
Amazon” as a differential in terms of looking at the region. Among his
works, we highlight “Amazônia Caribenha: a regionalização, os camin-
hos históricos e culturais”1 where the concept of “Caribbean Amazon” is
historically situated. Gomes states that the concept is “linked to the rel-
ative character of the Caribbean territory as a cultural region, marked by
a different ethnohistorical process from other regions of South America,
which is clearly defined as a singular Iberian cultural process (Portuguese
and Spanish)”. More recently, postgraduate programs at this institution
were established and among the various themes, the Guyana region has
been one of great interest.
In Amapá, the Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP) has also
had individual academic incursions in Guyana, more specifically in the
relationship between the state of Amapá and French Guiana, since the
2000s. The Brazilian expansion process of higher education between the
mid-2000s and 2016 provided a substantial number of researchers at in-
stitutions such as UNIFAP. In this process, individual initiatives gained
strength to build up post-graduate programs.
In this wake of scientific construction in Amapá, the Postgraduate
Program in Borders Studies (PPGEF) has been establishing the Guyana
region and the Caribbean as a geographical research area since 2017. Proj-
1 OLIVEIRA, Reginaldo G.. Amazônia Caribenha: a regionalização, os caminhos históricos e cul-

turais. In: Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira; Andrea Idelga Jubithana-Fernand. (Org.). Dos Caminhos
Históricos aos Processos Culturais entre Brasil e Suriname. 1ªed.Boa Vista-RR: Editora da Universi-
dade Federal de Roraima - EdUFRR, 2014, v. 1, p. 13-33.
22
ects and exchanges have been institutionally strengthened with the re-
gion and made possible a systematic Brazilian academic production over
the Northern part of South America.
Our Book begins with the work “Threads of memory: the his-
torical novel in Suriname as a writing of resistance”, which follows
the path pointed out in the interview by Cynthia McLeod by seeking to
make room for historically silenced voices. Natali F. Costa e Silva ana-
lyzes the historical novel “The Free Negress Elisabeth: Prisoner of Color”
(2004) written by McLeod contributing to the debate on racial and gen-
der inequality that permeates the colonial societies that characterize the
region in focus.
Then, the work of Samuel Tracol and Arnaud-Dominique Houte
“Aqui começa o Brasi: penal colonization, territorialization and
border construction of the Oyapock River. 1853-1927” focuses on the
border region between Brazil and France (French Guiana) and their set-
tlement process based on penal colonization as a mechanism for occupy-
ing the region.
Rosuel Lima Pereira’s research brings reflections on the terri-
tory known as the European ultraperipheral region, which is pres-
ent in the Guyana region. The chapter entitled “French Guyana,
an outermost region of the European Union: Issues and chal-
lenges in the 21st century” seeks to outline an analysis of French
Guiana from a legal and economic perspective, in addition to prob-
lematizing issues of national security and the integration of the
French territory into the region.
The chapter by Paulo Gustavo Pellegrino Correa and Miguel
Patrice Philippe Dhenin analyzes the construction of the Bination-
al Bridge that connects Brazil and France, in addition to reflecting
on the social representation of local groups. Entitled “Cross-bor-
der integration and social representation: the binational
bridge and the boatmen on the Franco-Brazilian border”, the
research had as i t s object of study the “catraieiros”, who are
23
boatmen responsible for river logistics, to demonstrate how the
Subject-Representation-Object relationship built a negative repre-
sentation and threatening impact of an integrative project between
the two countries by the Community.
In this book, we highlight an important theme when addressing
the Amazon region: political ecology. In “Political Ecology at the fron-
tiers of knowledge and power in traditionally occupied territory:
the know-how of the so-called coconut breakers in the Amazon”,
Jodival Maurício da Costa, Joaquim Shiraishi Neto e Izabela de Nazaré
Tavares de Souza raise a debate on the role of political ecology in the de-
coloniality of knowledge and power in the Amazon region. Biodiversity,
natural wealth, modernity, and traditions make up a scenario where the
worldviews of local groups, especially regarding the views of nature and
its representations, are opposed to market interests.
In the border region between Brazil and France, looking at Amapá
and French Guiana, the chapter by Carmentilla das Chagas Martins and
Iuri Cavlak “The dilemma of local participation in the Brazil-France
cross-border cooperation (1990-2015)” discusses the approximation,
from the 1990s, between Brazil and France with signed agreements and
the systematic meetings of the Joint Cross-Border Commission - CTM.
The research questions the lack of local participation and the develop-
ment of cooperation.
Then, we present the chapter written by Brenda Farias da Silva. The
work “The trafficking of Brazilian women and the gold path in the
Guyana region: correlations and connections” focuses on the role of
illegal gold mining areas in the routes of Brazilian women trafficking for
sexual exploitation. The author shows that Suriname is a pivot for Brazil-
ian women trafficking between the two analyzed sub-regions, each with
important nodes for the situation of women trafficking: Macapá, in the
sub-region A and Boa Vista, in sub-region B.
The work by Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos, “Guyana at the cross-
roads of the third world” reconstructs aspects of the historical forma-
24
tion and evolution of Guyana, between the colonial past, the indepen-
dence process, a peculiar dictatorship, the democratic opening, and the
present context. The text establishes dialogues and comparisons with the
history of India, African countries, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
As mentioned above, the migratory flow in the Guyana region is
intense and differs in some aspects from the migratory processes pres-
ent in other areas of South America. Handerson Joseph’s work has as its
object the Caribbean migratory trajectories, more specifically Haitian,
and Guyana as part of that system. In “Subjective Technologies and
Associative Fields of Haitian Migrants in French Guiana and Bra-
zil”, the author analyzes the dynamics of the associative field through the
trajectories of some Haitian association representatives, emphasizing ra-
dio and television programs. It is also possible in this chapter to better
understand Haitian associative life in French Guiana and the creation of
some Haitian community radios, given the historicity of their activities
in the region.
Finally, Finally, we have the text by Américo Alves de Lyra Junior
and Rayanne Santos Silva, “A forgotten frontier and one neighbor-
hood to be discovered: the Guyanese emancipation on the extreme
north of Brazil”. The authors discuss Guyanese emancipation based
on concepts of political realism of Hans Morgenthau, considering the
internal public life within the new Caribbean country.
This book is launched at a time of a global pandemic that the
historian Lilia Schwarcz points out to be the mark of the 20th century.
A turbulent moment in which perspectives on societies, technologies,
consumption, rights, and history are being revised. We hope this work,
looking at a region that has not been greatly studied in history and in-
ternational relations, can contribute to the expansion of knowledge in a
multiple region such as the Guianas.
25
WHO SAID A BLACK WOMAN
CANNOT BE MILLIONAIRE AND
SINGLE? SURINAME’S HISTORICAL
NOVEL AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE
Natali Fabiana da Costa e Silva
Sexism as a system of domination is institutionalized,

but it has never determined in absolute way the fate of all
women in this society.
(hooks, 2015, p.197)1
I
would like to start this article with a provocation. I ask readers
to imagine what life would be like in the colonial period. Con-
jecture about the day-to-day life in colonial cities and in the
countryside, about the relationships of forced labor established either in
commerce, in houses, or in plantation farms. Consider how ethnic racial
relations would be like, that is to say, how white men and women related
to black people, whether they were enslaved or not. Now, imagine the
following situation: a black and not enslaved woman who in the middle
of the 18th century had acquired an immense fortune in the exploitation
colony where she was born. The provocation that I propose to the reader
arises from that last picture and takes the form of a question: to what or
to whom would you attribute this black woman’s fortune?
1 My translation from the Brazilian edition.
According to Cynthia McLeod, one of the greatest writers in Suri-
name, several historians from her country talked about the life of Elisa-
beth Samson2 considering that she would have obtained her fortune due
to the inheritance from a white man with whom she had supposedly had
a romantic involvement. This perspective, which for centuries permeat-
ed the imagination of the Surinamese people, was only recently revised
thanks to McLeod’s efforts when she decided to write a historical novel
about Elisabeth Samson. To this end, the writer traveled to Germany and
the Netherlands in order to consult the records on Elisabeth Samson’s
life in the archives of the cities of The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Keulen and Emmerich.
After dedicating herself to studying those records, McLeod re-
vealed that the historians’ conjectures were wrong. Samson had inher-
ited no fortune, on the contrary, she was the first self-made woman in
the history of Suriname. This discovery implies that the historians’s as-
sumptions were full of racism and gender prejudice and that those as-
pects underlie Surinamese society even in the present time. Would it ever
be conceivable for a (black) woman of the 18th century the enrichment
obtained by her own dedication, intelligence and administrative capac-
ity? In a sexist society that would probably never be conceived and that
is why McLeod supposes that the historians – all men, it is important to
note – did not bother to investigate the origin of the fortune of one of the
most well-known historical personalities in the country.
McLeod’s novel criticizes the sexist perspective of history and seeks
to highlight Samson’s life and achievements. The book fictionalizes the
life of this historical personality, however, it is worth mentioning some
real aspects of her life. In that sense, the paratext in The free Negress:
prisoner of color is fundamental, because it brings information that com-
2 Elisabeth Samson (1715-1771) is a historical personality who lived in the 18th century in Paramaribo,
Suriname. She is also the main character in the novel The free negress Elisabeth: prisoner of color
(2004) written by Cynthia McLeod. Samson was very famous for being one of the richest people in
Suriname at the colonial period.
28
plements the fiction. The first of these information concerns the number
of blacks and people of color3 in the colony:
Naturally, many European men cohabited with black wom-
en, and from this union, a new group, the people of color,
was born in Suriname. It subsequently increased in size and
importance. Not every white man set his offspring free, but
many did; and in the 18th century, the epoch of Elisabeth,
the numbers of free colored people were already as large as
that of the pure whites. The government did not like the fact
that so many white man transgressed the decree and lived
with black and colored women; but they had to tolerate it,
because it happened all the time. (McLeod, 2004, p.6).
In order to prevent the black population from acquiring land or

other material goods, marriage between a white man and a black woman
was strictly prohibited and so the union between them took place only
through concubinage. This obviously had moral implications for black
women, which was constantly judged by the moral of white society.
People [were] raised in a society in which the color of a per-
son’s skin had an important role to play generally under-
stand […]. ‘Colored’ is a collective term for people of mixed
black-white blood. Marriage between a white man and a
colored woman was never prohibited by ordinance in Suri-
name. The prohibition was only valid for black people. (Mc-
Leod, 2008, p.4).
In addition to social discredit, they were banned from social cir-

cles: they could not accompany their partners at parties and during mass
at the church they were to occupy the seats for immoral women. Howev-
er, women of color had the right to marry white men:
It must have been quite an ordeal for this black woman
living under the hypocritical Dutch colonial government,
which on the one hand did not permit white men to marry
their black mistresses, but on the other hand condemned
3 I adopt a translation policy that respects concepts given by black feminists. “People of color”, when
translated into English, is more representative than “non-white people”. For more information on
this, you can read “Quem nomeou essas mulheres ‘de cor’”? (2017), from Tatiana Nascimento.
29
the black mistresses for not being married and called them
“whores”, “sinful women”. (McLeod, 2004, p.7).
Elisabeth Samson was black. As her mother had obtained the man-
umission letter, Samson was born free and raised by her sister Maria, a
woman of color married to Frederick Bosse, a liberal white man. Both of
them spared no effort to provide Elisabeth with quality education. Mc-
Leod’s narrative describes the main character’s level of education, point-
ing out how she mastered the exact sciences and managed to be of great
support in the management of her sister’s and brother-in-law’s lands. It
would have been due to this professional experience that, according to
the author, Samson acquires business expertise and develops administra-
tive skills to buy her own lands and manage her own assets. Throughout
her life, she would have acquired several coffee and tobacco farms, she
would also have entered the real estate business, the import and export
trade with Holland – selling clothes, wigs, silverware etc. in the colony –
and finally she was allowed to legally harvest timber.
McLeod provides - also as a paratext - the inventory of Samson’s
fortune. At her death, in addition to an amount of 23,000 Surinamese
guilders, she was said to have left the following assets4:
Elisabeth’s Samson’s property Amout in Surinamese guilder
Plantation Clevia fl 200.000
Farm and country house La Solitude fl 110.000
Plantation De Goede Vreede fl 85.000
Plantation Toevlught fl 55.000
Plantation Welgemoed fl 55.000
Half plantation Belwaarde fl 215.000
Half plantation Vlaardingen fl 140.000
Half plantation Catharinasburg fl 35.000
Half plantation Houtgrond Onverwacht fl 50.000
One quart of plantation Saltzhalen fl 70.000
4 According to the data provided by Morningstar and the cryptocurrency by Coinbase, one Surina-
mese dollar, which is the current currency of Suriname, equals 0.24 Surinamese guilder, which is the
currency of Suriname in the 18th century.
30
Twelve big and small houses in Paramaribo fl 125.000
Total value approximately fl 1.140.000
Chart 15
As it was said earlier, racism and gender discrimination have led

historians today to undermine Samson’s ability to generate wealth. This
point is strongly emphasized by McLeod in the introduction to the novel:
The Free Negress Elisabeth […] ensured herself a permanent
and unrivalled place in the annals of colonial history – on
2 counts: First, her request in 1764 to marry a white man;
and second, on account of her extreme wealth – she was a
self-made black business magnate in the 18th century at the
height of slavery. Many historians wrote about this fact. Al-
though they did not write in the same words, they all as-
sumed that Elisabeth Samson was a slave woman who had
cohabited with a white or Jewish man, who set her free and
made her his heir. […] I searched in the National Archives in
The Hague, in the district archives of Amsterdan and Rot-
terdam, in the archives of Keulen and Emmerich in Germa-
ny. After a while I had collected so many documents, that
I could prove that the historians were absolutely WRONG,
and the statements that she surely must have inherited her
wealth from a slave master who set her free, told us some-
thing about the historians, but not about Elisabeth. It was
excellent proof of machismo and white supremacist think-
ing: “When a black woman is rich, she can only have gained
her wealth thanks to a White Man, who made her rich!” In
Elisabeth’s case it was the contrary!!! (McLEOD, 2004, p.06).
It is through the porosity existing between the literary and histori-

cal fields that McLeod criticizes the patriarchal and racist society. In this
sense, the historical novel, a hybrid narrative form through which a his-
torical character gains a voice, is essential to reverse the traditional point
of view of history and show a new perspective of it. Linda Hutcheon (1991)
points out that the writing of history is a limited and historically deter-
mined discursive construction. This obviously goes against the notion
5 Information extracted from McLEOD, 2004, p.431.
31
of Aristotle, to whom the historian should speak only of what happened
while the poet was allowed to speak of what could happen. For Hutch-
eon, the construction of the historical discourse is subjected to different
interpretations of historical facts over the centuries, always regarding the
“desire to rewrite the past within a new context” (HUTCHEON, p.157).6
In another perspective, about the construction of the historical
discourse Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2010) famously points out that
post-colonial studies always seek to interrogate the limits of categories
such as subject, agency and voice to think about different social sectors
that are based on the Grand historical, political and economic narratives
of modernity and its various peripheries. Thus, far from being limited to
a fixed historical periodization, postcolonial studies seek to reorganize
historical periods, hegemonic geographies and mechanisms of power in
order to question the supremacy of certain epistemological paradigms.
Therefore, similar to all critical thinking about the historical periods,
spaces and imaginary that we co-inhabit, the forms of the historical
speech are also part of the material that the postcolonial studies seeks to
review and theorize.
In this sense, I call attention to McLeod’s attempt to rewrite the
history of Suriname with a woman’s perspective in mind. This is a project
that can also be seen in the author’s other novels that have been trans-
lated into English7. The cost of sugar, a narrative originally published in
1987 and translated into English in 2007 by The Waterfront Press, was the
author’s debut book. In six weeks, the novel was already sold out in the
country and this was the first Best Seller produced on Surinamese soil.
In fact, the novel gained a cinematic adaptation in 2013. The novel takes
place in the 18th century and talks about the lives of Jewish farmers who
colonized Suriname. From the perspective of two sisters, Elza and Sarith,
it is revealed the social hypocrisy and mistreatment of enslaved peoples

7 The novels originally written in Dutch and not translated into English have not been studied.
32
in a period when sugar plantations moved ambitions despite any human
cost.
In Tutuba: the girl from the slaveship Leusden (2013), a young wom-
an is abducted in her village in Ghana and brought into forced labor in
the fields of Suriname. The report of the treatment of the enslaved peo-
ples during the trip from Ghana to Suriname and the report of the sink-
ing of Leusden – the largest shipwreck in the history of this type of vessel
(and yet, tragedy that remained unknown to us) is narrated from the per-
spective of Tutuba and Captain Oujtes, the ship’s captain. The narrative
strategy used by the author focuses on the perspective of these characters
because they reveal, on the one hand, the coldness with which Outjes
treated abducted men and women and, on the other, the construction of
an identity born from the rape, violence, and human trafficking. This dif-
ferent points of view unmasks the mechanisms of debasement of black
identity by Captain Outjes and sheds light on the resilient strength of
African women who are forced to reconstruct their lives.
The process of reconstructing the historical view from new voic-
es or a new perspective is also committed to denouncing what has been
erased. That is because what is intentionally present in the written his-
tory also reveals what has (un)consciously been obliterated according to
certain ideological biases that accompany the narratives of those who
have the right and the power of speech. Thus, in Tutuba’s preface, Mc-
Leod indirectly criticizes the erasure of the historic event that was the
sinking of the slave ship Leusden. It leaves the attentive reader to ques-
tion why the greatest nautical disaster involving a large number of ab-
ducted enslaved people had never been registered in the compendiums
of Suriname history. She states:
The sinking of the slave ship Leusden, in which six hundred
and sixty-four prisioners and abducted African lost their
lives, attracted hardly any attention at the time. In the ensu-
ing years, too, no mention has ever been made of it. In fact it
was the greatest disaster involving a slave ship in the whole
three-hundred-year history of the transatlantic slave trade,
33
and involved the greatest loss of life. Dr. Leo Balai “discov-
ered” this disaster by chance. Thanks to his research, span-
ning several years, the Leusden has been “salvaged” after al-
most three hundred years (for the moment still figuratively,
but hopefully literally). (McLEOD, 2013, p.5).
This task of revealing and/or denouncing historical events is at the

basis of McLeod’s literary project, which recognizes the need to give voice
to marginalized groups. She destroys hegemonic discourses to shed light
on the diversity that makes up groups that are inscribed in the differ-
ence. Thus, if according to Hutcheon “both fiction and history are cultur-
al systems of signs, ideological constructs whose ideology includes their
appearance as autonomous and self-sufficient” (1991, p. 149)8 McLeod’s
writing delegitimizes and denaturalizes patriarchal historical discourse
in order to create a new one. She also recognizes that her literary project
is a two-way writing of the margin: as production inserted in a geograph-
ical, political and economic periphery – which is Suriname in relation to
the countries of South America9, with implications for the circulation of
scientific, cultural and literary production in the country; margin also as a
writing of feminine authorship that gives voice to silenced black women.
It is necessary to take into account the implications of intersectionality in
the validation of speeches. Intersectionality is an aspect of feminism that
analyzes gender discrimination necessarily taking into account issues of
race and social class. Racism, prejudice and socioeconomic inequality
add to gender discrimination and therefore black women or women of
color suffer more intensely the consequences of machismo. The term was
coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an academic specializing in gender issues,
but other important names are bell hooks and, in Brazil, Carla Akotirene.
The considerations of Akotirene (2019) and hooks (2015) help us
think about the impacts of the place of speech occupied by McLeod’s
character. Akotirene points out the intersectional location of black wom-

9 On the geopolitical situation of Suriname, I recommend reading “Um país de costas para a Amé-
rica do Sul” (CORREA, 2015) e “Breve história do Suriname” (CAVLAK, 2016).
34
en who, subjected to the structural marginalization of society, differ from
white women because black women are affected by an “overlap of gender,
race and class” (2019, p.19). The academic rescues the famous speech by
Sojourner Truth Ant’I a woman ? in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Con-
vention10. In her speech, Truth argued against the idea that female fragil-
ity was not compatible with the right to suffrage and, most important to
the discussion proposed in this article, Truth questioned the category of
“universal woman” when denouncing that, in the period of slavery in the
USA (and, we can say, anywhere else where black women were enslaved),
it was the sons and daughters of black women who were sold as slaves in
the markets, black women were also those who plowed the land, planted
and filled the barns, often more skillfully than men. And despite being a
woman no man would ever help her get on carriages or jump in muddy
puddles as they used to do for white women.
By analyzing Truth’s speech and reflecting on intersectionality,
Akotirene shows that the difference between black women and white
women has remained over the centuries because it is supported by the
structural inseparability of racism, capitalism and a cisheteropatriarchal
society. In the author’s words, “black women were workers in the homes
of “educated white women”, when they came back to their homes they
had the money taken by “idle husbands” quite offended because there
was no “ready food in the house” (AKOTIRENE, 2019, p.26).11 In the same
direction of thought, bell hooks (2015) discusses the oppression of black
women stating that sub-oppressions are formed within marginalized so-
cial groups. Thus, some of the individuals who are excluded from the
market, from political and legal representation and unable to fully par-
ticipate in the dominant social extract, like white women and black men,
can practice racial or gender discrimination and exploit the work of black
women. In other words, black women can suffer oppression from other
women and from men – even from black men:
10 You can find Truth’s speech in hooks, 1987.

11 My translation.
35
As a group, black women are in an inusual position in this
society, for not only are we collectively at the bottom of the
occupation ladder, but our overall social status is lower than
that of any other group. Occupying such a position, we bear
the brunt of sexist, racist and classist oppression. At the
same time, we are the group that has not been socialized
to assume the role of exploiter/oppressor, in that we are al-
lowed no institutionalized “other” that we can exploit or op-
press. […] White women and black men have it both ways.
They can act as oppressor or be oppressed. Black men may
be victimized by racism, but sexism allows them to act as
exploiters and oppressors of women. White women may be
victimized by sexism, but racism enables them to act as ex-
poiters and oppressors of black people (hooks, 2015, p.207)12.
So for hooks, Betty Friedan’s famous phrase from The feminine

mysthique (1963), “the problem that has no name”, quoted to describe
the condition of women in the mid-twentieth century who wanted some-
thing more than taking care of the house, the husband and the children,
cannot be used to describe the condition of black women. Since the
colonial period black women have always worked. Furthermore, when
white feminists left their domestic duties to work and study, it was black
women or women of color who assumed the role rejected by them. This
means that when the first feminist discussions about the oppression of
women emerged, they were far from including the needs of black women
or women of color.
Resuming McLeod’s writing project from the perspective of inter-
sectionality, the Surinamese author calls into question the phallocentric
view through a novel that seeks to deconstruct prejudice against black
women, who suffer double and most cruel discrimination: gender and
race. According to Costa e Silva (2019, p.82-83) Samson’s qualities as an
educated woman, diligent in conducting business and, above all, aware
of her different status from the other black people of the time are crucial
in the construction of the plot. In the introduction to the novel, the au-
12 My translation to the Brazilian edition.
36
thor tries to explain the idiosyncrasies of the Surinamese colonial society
in order to situate the reader in relation to the difficulties faced by black
people who, besides suffering severe punishments, were prohibited from
marrying white people, even after being freed from slavery, under penalty
of capital crime.
In this respect, Elisabeth was revolutionary because she fought for
interracial marriage to be sanctioned. She thus used the legitimacy that
money can gain in favor of the transformation of a society. Samson un-
derstood that social change would only happen when introduced in the
rule of law and for this, she made no effort to succeed. At the end of her
life, she proposed a wedding alliance with the young Hermanus Daniel
Zobre. According to the author, in exchange for the arranged marriage,
he would inherit all her properties. Her marriage proposal was analyzed,
judged and approved by the Dutch court. As Suriname was a colony, Su-
rinamese people had to endure that decision despite the prejudice.
On December 21, 1767, Elisabeth Samson and Hermanus
Daniel Zobre were married. The bride was fifty-two years
old, and the groom, thirty. The extravagant and expensive
marriage celebration took place at Elisabeth’s mansion:
Something only the rich could afford. […] Some of the guests
hailed the celebration:
“Unique!”
“Thewedding of weddings in Paramaribo!”
“Unbelieveably splendid!”
However, Elisabeth was quietly disappointed because many
of the people she had hoped would have come did not do so.
[…] When all the guests had departed, Elisabeth invited her
husband to her bedroom for a moment. He was certainly not
sober and wanted to embrace her.
“My darling, now we’re going to party”, he said in a heavily
slurred voice.
Elisabeth pushed him back and said with a serious voice,
“Come to your senses, Masra Zobre. Our marriage is a pa-
per matter that will bring you many benefits. I’m sure you
know it. In the circumstance, I do think it’s better for you to
have your privacy, and I, mine. Your room has been prepared
37
upstairs; we’ll talk tomorrow. Goodnight”. (McLEOD, 2004,
p.397-398).
The aim of this arrangement was not only to change the unfair con-
dition suffered by black women, but also because it was the way she could
be accepted by the upper colonial class. According to the narrative, even
after the wedding, to which a good part of the colonial elite preferred to
be absent, Samson did not get invited to parties or dinners. Despite her
marriage the racism that corrupted the foundations of society did not
admitt her in. The invitations that arrived were intended only for Daniel
Zobre, her husband. Although this treatment represented a flop accord-
ing to the social code, it would be more inelegant to have a black woman
in the upper parties of Suriname. The narrative features Samson’s unique
participation in a New Year’s Eve party at the governor’s house that re-
sulted in symbolic violence against her:
Masra Zobre, who had stood, somewhat uncomfortably with
his wife for a time, eventually went over to his male friends
to chat as other cliques and those of a similar ilk gathered
to talk. Elisabeth, however, was standing alone. Nobody
looked at her. [...] Elisabeth blotted some facial perspiration
with her handkerchief and decided to move towards one of
the larger and more animated groups. But the conversation
halted instanteously when she drew close. The ladies sim-
ply froze and busied themselves by either sipping from their
glasses or fanning themselves and observing others. Obvi-
ously unwelcomed, she drifted along, looking around the
room – knowing full well of course that she would be the
only black woman. […] In her search for inclusion, at a cer-
tain moment she walked towards a group that had gathered
around Susanna Duplessis. But when Elisabeth walked past
them she clearly heard one woman say to the others: “she
looks just like her sunken frigate!” (McLEOD, 2004, p.419-
420).
The situation described above by McLeod shows more than the dif-
ficulty of acceptance in a circle of racist people, it reveals a social neurosis
that works in the construction of an oppressive and marginalizing or-
38
der for the black individual. In “Racismo e sexismo na cultura brasileira”
(1984), Lélia Gonzalez describes her experience as a black woman. She
reports that it is very common when opening the door to assist street
sellers for them to ask: “is your Madame at home?”. According to her, this
is a very common experience to other black women who do not live in
slums or underprivileged communities. This situation represents the way
black women are seen by Brazilian society: always in a position of subor-
dination. Thus, for Gonzalez, “like all myths, the one of racial democra-
cy hides something beyond what it shows. In an initial approximation,
we find that it exerts its symbolic violence on black women in a special
way”(p.228)13. In Suriname at that time, just as in Brazil, a black woman
was expected to serve at a white people party. She was never expected to
be a guest.
The New Year’s Eve party scene reports the indelible nature of rac-
ism and through the figure of Samson it exposes what it means to exist
beyond the boundaries of the white privilege. The basis of that thought
is what Toni Morrison (2019) calls “the construction of Others”14. For her,
“to construct Others” means to make a minority group abject in order to
confirm the identity of a group that benefits from power – and this group
is generally represented by the heteronormative white people. Ultimate-
ly, it is a matter of promoting inhumane acts in favor of maintaining priv-
ileges. The naturalization of the subjugation of a minority group would
take place through a discursive construction that demeans the black in-
dividual and alienates him or her from his or her own humanity. As an
example of the consequences of this act of symbolic violence, at the end
of the soirée in which Elisabeth Samson was ignored by the hosts and de-
preciated by all the other guests, she comes to the following conclusion:
Suddenly she had the feeling as if she were observing the
room and its occupants from a distance. She could clearly
see with perspicacity everyone who was present in the ball-
room including herself – all from a close-ranged distance.
13 My translation.
14 Translation of “processo de outremização”.
39
[…] Elisabeth looked at herself in the midst of them all: a
vain old negress grotesquely dressed – in pursuit of accep-
tance […] (McLEOD, 2004, p.420-421).
In the excerpt above, the third-person narrator assumes the char-

acter’s point of view to manifest in free indirect speech the psychologi-
cal effect of the “construction of Others” to which she was subjected to.
Despite claiming to see clearly and perspicuity all guests present at the
party, the distortion of Samson’s vision is evident when she looks at her-
self and does not recognize the greatness of her achievements and the
strength of her struggle, but instead she thinks herself to be grotesque,
old and useless. This feeling does not mean the internalization of a racist
discourse, but it is about the creation of a misrepresentation of her re-
flected self-image in the white patriarchal society shattered mirror.
As it is well known15, an 18th century white woman should sub-
mit herself to her husband’s needs and desires, should be responsible
for raising the children and organizing the house. Everything related to
home care concerned her with the exception of financial decisions. But
an 18th century white woman had at her help the enslaved women to
serve her. Thus black women had to do all the housework, from cleaning
and cooking to taking care of their “madam’s” children. This means that
the level of opression of black women is double as they suffer from gen-
der and race prejudice.
In the sense used by Morrison this double oppression system nat-
uralizes and reiterates the process of creating black women as the “Oth-
ers”. Elisabeth Samson is immersed in this society that under moralis-
tic, religious and scientific pretexts (considering the biological racism
discourse) does not recognize the existence of loopholes in the system
through where marginalized groups can penetrate and establish them-
selves as equals. Thus, if Samson’s economic activities and commercial
15 For more information on this, you can read PERROT, Michelle. Minha história das mulheres. São
Paulo: Contexto, 2007.; BUTLER, Judith. Problemas de gênero: feminismo e subversão da identida-
de. 2° ed. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2008.; BOURDIEU, Pierre. A dominação masculina.
6° ed. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2009.
40
relations are tolerated only because they heat up the economy, her social
existence is forcibly erased.
McLeod’s writing as a political act largely combines awareness of
gender and race difference with the need of thinking about one’s identi-
ty. Thus, the writer’s quest is to revive through her historical novels the
memory of a people, their origins and struggles but from a brand new
angle of history: from the oppressed point of view or, as in Spivak terms,
from the subaltern perspective. Not rarely in her narratives the language
deconstructs socially widespread patterns. This posture engenders the
creation of spaces of resistance and representation. Her novels tension
the boundaries of fiction once in the prefaces or presentations McLeod
admits she is in favor of revising the ethnocentric perspective that guides
the historical and literary texts. In addition to criticizing the established
colonization model, for McLeod the historical rescue of the slavery peri-
od reveals, even indirectly, the cultural mosaic that underlies Surinamese
society and the appreciation of language as an identity element.
It is necessary to understand that literature, as a form of represen-
tation, conveys interests, values, perspectives. It is up to us, researchers
in the field, a greater awareness of the important role we play in the le-
gitimation of these literatures that challenge the current paradigm. This
is not to say that as a researcher in the field of literature one must speak
for minorities, but one must question the very place from which one the-
orizes. Remember that, according to Spivak (2010) the term “represen-
tation” in German has two meanings: “vertretung”, which refers to the
act of taking the place of the other (and in this process the word has a
political meaning), and “darstellung”, linked to an aesthetic view. This
means, in Dalcastagnè’s words (2012, p. 17), that “what arises is no longer
simply the fact that the literature provides certain representations of re-
ality, but rather that these representations are not representative of the
whole of social perspectives”16. Finally, regarding McLeod’s literature, it
is possible to say that the common element of her novels is the creation
16 Translation from the Brazilian edition.
41
of “true ‘universes of speech’ (BOSI, 1979, p.27)17 in which the past, when
re-signified in the light of the present, when pronounced by voices once
silenced, illuminates hidden aspects in a story that used to select only
certain points of view and promoted a consecrated version of events. In
McLeod, memory, race and gender emerge as identity trait, highlighting
the appreciation of another story and other voices.
References
AKOTIRENE, Carla. Interseccionalidade. São Paulo: Pólen, 2019. (Feminismos
Plurais).
BOSI, Ecléa. Memória e sociedade: lembrança de velhos. São Paulo: T. A. Queiróz,
1979.
BOURDIEU, Pierre. A dominação masculina. 6° ed. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Bra-
sil, 2009.
BUTLER, Judith. Problemas de gênero: feminismo e subversão da identidade. 2°
ed. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2008.
CAVLAK, Iuri. Uma breve história do Suriname. Macapá/Rio de Janeiro: Editora
da UNIFAP/Autografia, 2016.
CORREA, Paulo Gustavo Pellegrino. Suriname: um país de costas para a América
do Sul. Ciência Geográfica, v.19, p.182-195, 2015.
COSTA E SILVA, Natali Fabiana da. Women’s place of speech in the literature
of Suriname: challenging gender and race paradigms. Letras Escreve, Macapá,
2019, v.9, n.2, p.79-85, 2ºsem 2019.
DALCASTAGNÈ, Regina. Literatura brasileira contemporânea: um território
contestado. Rio de Janeiro: EdUERJ, 2012.
FRIEDAN, Betty. The feminine mysthique. New York: Norton, 1963.
GONZALEZ, Lélia. Racismo e sexismo na cultura brasileira. Revista Ciências So-
ciais Hoje, Anpocs, 1984, p.223-244.
hooks, bell. Ant’I a woman? Black women and feminism. London: Pluto Press,
1987.
______. Mulheres negras: moldando a teoria feminista. Revista Brasileira de
Ciência Política, Brasília, n.16, p.193-2010, janeiro-abril 2015.
HUTCHEON, Linda. Poética do pós-modernismo: história, teoria, ficção. Rio de
Janeiro: Imago Ed., 1991.
17 Translation from the Brazilian edition.
42
McLEOD, Cynthia. The free negress Elisabeth: prisoner of color. Paramaribo: The
Waterfront Press, 2004.
______. The cost of sugar. Paramaribo: The Waterfront Press, 2007.
______. The free negress Elisabeth: prisoner of color. United Kingdom: Arcadia,
2008.
______. Tutuba: the girl from the slave-ship Leusden. Paramaribo: Uitgeverij
Conserve, 2013.
MORRISON, Toni. A origem dos outros: seis ensaios sobre racismo e literatura.
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2019.
NASCIMENTO, Tatiana. Quem nomeou essas mulheres “de cor”? Políticas femi-
nistas de tradução que mal dão conta das sujeitas negras traduzidas. Translation,
Porto Alegre, n.13, 2017, p.127-142.
PERROT, Michelle. Minha história das mulheres. São Paulo: Contexto, 2007.
SPIVAK, Gayatri Chakravorty. Pode o subalterno falar? Belo Horizonte: Editora
da UGMG, 2010.
43
“AQUI COMEÇA O BRASIL”
: PENAL COLONIZATION,
TERRITORIALIZATION AND
BORDER CONSTRUCTION OF THE
OYAPOCK RIVER. 1853-1927
Samuel Tracol
Arnaud-Dominique Houte
B
razil has settled all its border incidents with its neighbours
through amicable agreements and appeals to international
arbitration tribunals. Its pride and heroes were not generals,
but statesmen like Rio Branco, who had managed to avoid war through
their common sense and conciliatory spirit. Brazil, turned in on itself, its
territorial border, has no desire for conquest, no imperialist tendencies.
(ZWEIG, 1941, p.26)
Naive lover of Brazil, which he travelled for a long time during a six-
month pilgrimage, Stefan Zweig is nonetheless a precise and document-
ed observer. Coming from Europe, plagued at these times by nationalist
tensions, he is a cheerful spectator of a country-continent whose only
foreign policy doctrine is peace and sovereignty. The Austrian man is not
mistaken when he portrays the Baron of Rio Branco, the mastermind of
the “conquest of the North”, the most famous resident of the palace of
Itamaraty. The Amazonian margins, after the fixing of the platinian1 bor-
ders, concentrate the Brazilian diplomatic efforts within the framework
of an extension of its internal borders. The Treaty of Berne (1900) settled
the dispute between France and Brazil over the territory between Lake
Amapá and the Oyapock River. It also fixed the French Brazilian border
on the latter, settling for good a conflict inaugurated by the Treaty of
Utrecht (1713). The statue of Marco Zero can proudly claim, in front of the
Oyapock: aqui começa o Brasil.
However, the legal construction of the border is only a necessary
prerequisite to set a territorial limit. A state must deploy its sovereignty
so that the border-line becomes the embodied marker of a living territo-
ry. In the most remote areas, military posts and presidios2 provide a wide
border network, which nevertheless remains a challenge in a forest area
largely untouched by permanent sedentary settlements. The question of
Brazil’s northern borders then became one of the major geopolitical is-
sues of the young Brazilian Republic. In 1890, the Chamber of Deputies
was concerned by “the urgent need to populate our borders, especially
the Amazon, which was still largely disputed by European governments,
and is, until today, totally defenceless”.3
It is not only a question of setting boundaries, but of transforming
space into territory. As a portion of the earth’s surface in its geographical
definition, the notion of space refers in international law to the concept
of terra nullius, which has been familiar to Iberian populations since the
papal bull Inter Caetera (1493) gave legal legitimacy to the colonization
of America by the Spanish and Portuguese. Enriched during the second
colonization, the notion of terra nullius is used in the Torrens system
(1858) to designate any undeveloped land that is considered vacant. The
States declare themselves, under the Domain, owners of an “unoccupied
1 Brazil’s southern borders with Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.

2 Semi-open spaces of relegation and exile of the degradados of the Crown.
3 Chambre des Députés, 1890, cited by C. Romani in Conflitos, fronteiras et territorialidades
em tes diferentes projetos de colonizaçao na Amazonia, Tempos Históricos, Volume 18, 2o Se-
mestre de 2014, p. 164-190, p. 174.
46
land” according to Western agricultural standards. The disputed territo-
ry, populated by gold and pau-rosa adventurers and a few hundred Am-
erindians, fells within this definition, while the Oiapoque district had
barely a thousand inhabitants in the 1920s. The experience of the ephem-
eral and utopian Republic of Cunani initiated by French adventurer Jules
Gros in 1886 testifies the lack of effective sovereignty and strong com-
petition from the French neighbour, present in French Guiana since the
17th century. It is therefore a question of territorializing the border area
by creating the conditions for its legal appropriation, but also econom-
ic - through agricultural development - and symbolic – understood as a
feeling of belonging and connivance.4
This dynamic is to be put in parallel with the colonial development
of the French bank from the 1850s and the creation of the town of Saint-
Georges-de-l’Oyapock (1853). The colonial government decided to set up
a penitentiary site at the eastern end of French Guiana to occupy an un-
colonized territory. This project was based on the decrees of 1852 and 1853
organising the transportation of criminals convicted of forced labour in
French Guiana. The early years of colonial French Guiana concentrated
the camps in the east of the colony. On the banks of the Oyapock river,
the penitentiaries were founded: Montagne d’Argent, on the ruins of a
coffee-growing dwelling, and Saint-Georges de l’Oyapock, a few kilome-
tres downstream from the town of Martinica. The history of the penal
colonisation of the Oyapock is both parallel and diachronic: the French
sites were quickly closed, faced with an unsustainable mortality rate -
63% of convicts perished during the yellow fever epidemic of 18565 - and
the unproductiveness of the coffee and sugar crops: Saint-Georges in
1863, Montagne d’Argent in 1867. The brevity of these settlements should
not hide their strong spatial impact - the French colony’s long-lasting
4 Definition given by the Géoconfluences site (ENS de Lyon): [http://geoconfluences.ens-lyon.fr/

glossaire/territoires-territorialisation-territorialite]
5 LAMAISON, Denis. «Le bagne de la mort». Culture du café et situation sanitaire au péni-
tencier agricole de la Montagne d’Argent (Guyane française) de 1852 à 1910. Outre-Mers Revue
d’Histoire, Société française d’histoire d’outre-mer, 2016, 104 (390-391), pp.311-340.
47
and continuous settlement on the French and Brazilian border - and the
moral impact - the prison is now perceived as a “death camp”, a “dry guil-
lotine”.
On the Brazilian side of the river, the federal government found-
ed an “agricultural nucleus” in 1922 at the instigation of Pará Senator
Justo Chermont, a member of an influential family of large landowners
very well established in the future State of Amapá.6 The current village of
Clevelândia do Norte, a few kilometres south of Martinica, was chosen to
welcome free families. The first project was indeed to promote the set-
tlement of settlers in this virgin-considered portion of the national terri-
tory. The political goal was then to carry the sovereignty of the Nation up
to its northern borders, in the continuation of the policy initiated by Rio
Branco. Due to a lack of volunteers, and following the 19247 tenentist of-
ficers’ revolution, the nucleus of free settlers was reinforced with a penal
colony. Until 1927, several hundred prisoners were sent to these confines,
away from any rule of law. A group of opponents of the Bernardes regime
were deported - not only tenentists, but also anarchists and trade union-
ists. From 1853 to 1927, the French - Brazilian border was invested with a
penitentiary function that connected each side to the imperial project of
their respective nations.
Colonial modernity, penal modernity:

introductory reflections
These two national trajectories with strong common features in-
deed refer to the same political project, backed by the triumph of po-
litical and socio-economic modernity as defined by the anthropologist
Charles Piot: “those cultural, political and economic forms associated
with the rise of industrial capitalism in Europe during the 16th, 17th and
6 The territory of Amapá kept belonging to the State of Pará until 1943.
7 A modernising and nationalist revolution of the “Young Turk” type initiated by a group of non-
-commissioned officers after the capture of the Copacabana fort in 1922. The São Paulo revolt of
1924 ended in failure and the capture of many mutineers, opposed to the conservative regime of the
mineiros owners represented by President Artur Bernardes.
48
18th centuries and disseminated throughout the world as a result of Eu-
ropean imperial expansion: forms which, however, have no essence and
whose content is unstable and changing”.8 This definition allows us to
link modernity and capitalism from the outset: we retain the dynamics
of capital concentration and dispossession of the tool of labour as the
main driving force of the political, social and economic history of the
so-called contemporary period. In terms of population control and penal
policies, modernity is based on new knowledge - criminological science -
and power in the Foucauldian sense - an economy of bodies assumed by
a government that is now bureaucratised and rationalised. The founding
works of the Italian man Cesare Lombroso9 identify a “criminal embar-
rassment” that should be removed from the social body as a prophylac-
tic measure. This pseudo-science gives substance to a bundle of ancient
representations, dialectically separating the good subject from the “born
criminal”, as many social categories gathered under the term “under-
world” or “bas-fonds” in all Western societies (KALIFA, 2013). It is indeed
long-term historical representations and dynamics that allow to qualify
19th century penal policies, much more than an immanence constituting
a predefined and labelled political project.
This moving aspiration to modernity underlies the creation of the
modern prison, the pivot of a penal order renewed by two requirements:
keeping away the incorrigible, rehabilitating the new “dangerous classes”
born from the torments of an industrial revolution that crushed men.
Misery, laziness and urban corruption form the “breeding ground”10 in
which small offences and major crimes flourish: the prison thus becomes
a place of work, if possible in the open air11, in line with the triumphant
8 Cited in COOPER, Frederic. Colonialism in Question, Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley
et Los Angeles : University of California Press, 2005.
9 LOMBROSO, Cesare, L’homme criminel : criminel-né, fou moral, épileptique : étude an-
thropologique et médico-légale. Translated from the Italian by Albert Bournet et G. Regnier, Pa-
ris : Félix Alcan, 1887.
10 LACASSAGNE, Alexandre. Les transformations du droit pénal et les progrès de la médecine
légale, de 1810 à 1912. Archives d’anthropologie criminelle, 1913, p. 364.
11 This is the Auburnian model, triumphant everywhere in the West, and privileging collective and
silent work in workshops.These are as many prison reinterpretations of the industrial organization
49
hygienism of French and Brazilian republicans alike. The installation of
the sewer system in big cities and the construction of the colonial penal
colonies are the result of the same policy.
The penal and prison versions of modernity are thus the bearers
of a dynamic of consensus-building and serialization of social practices.
As Anthony Giddens12 points out, this construction of the social body
by nation-states and their promoters must be situated in their spatiali-
ty: “modernity is the homogenization of space and time that transforms
the rich diversity of people’s self-perceptions in their personal contexts
into impersonal interchangeability. “ Sovereignty should not only be as-
serted but also staged in the creation of a properly national space: al-
though marginal, the studied border spaces are the peripheral organs
of a nation and its unifying project. In liberal and modern regimes, the
colonial space - into which Brazilian Guiana can be inserted during the
period under study - constitutes a ground of struggle, where the guiding
principles of liberalism and modernity are in apparent contradiction. In
order to carry out their dual global project of positivist progress and pop-
ulation control, the two regimes studied here relegate not only men but
entire territories outside the constitutional corpus. Making the history
of penal colonisation necessarily holds two dimensions: penal, through
the disciplinisation of men, and colonial, through the disciplinisation of
territories. Brazilian “green hell”13, “the last country where one can live”14
for the French, Guyanas are privileged areas of legal, social and spatial
segregation, penal colonies a prominent tool for such policy.
As the seminal work of Clare Anderson (2019, p. 18) points out, “the
convicts were agents of imperial occupation and expansion, pioneers of
labour. They were used by all the global powers to establish and push
back national and imperial boundaries and limits. To an unprecedented
and of the social and economic structures of the XIXth century societies.
12 Cited in Frederick Cooper, op. cit.
13 To quote the title of Alberto Rangel’s book.
14 LAMARCHE. La Guyane Française. Bulletin de l’Agence Générale des Colonies, 1922, p. 216
50
degree, the convicts allowed the occupation of lands distant from the
national and imperial centres, both across land and sea. Their presence
has left important legacies in the contemporary world”.
“These men who are being wiped off the

humanity”15: penal and criminal policies of the
industrial age
The shared historical dynamics between Brazil and France at the
end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries call for a com-
parative approach that confirms the initial postulate of a strong kinship
between the social, economic, political and penal models at work in
both States, successively imperial and republican. The chronology of this
movement stretches over a century: initiated in the 1780s in Great Brit-
ain, the Industrial Revolution reached France from the 1830s and reached
Brazil from the 1890s, at least in the southern metropolises. By taking
millions of rural people out of the agricultural exploitation regime, in-
dustrialization and the development of the capitalist regime are found-
ing factors of an urban proletariat. These new classes are sources of real
social tensions as well as highly depreciative representations. The social
question thus crosses the 19th century. In Europe, the dangers of work
and the miserable living conditions led to fear the emergence of a dual
and antagonistic society that nourished the work of many social reform-
ers. In post-abolitionist Brazil, structured by a large property regime nev-
er amended by agrarian reform, Paulista and Mineira industrialization
reinforced already yawning social and geographical divides. In France,
Saint-Marc Girardin then expressed himself in these terms: “the barbar-
ians who threaten society are not in the Caucasus or in the steppes of
Tartary, but in the suburbs of our manufacturing cities”16.
15 Title of the article published by Albert Camus on the 1st of December 1938, when he was covering
the departure of the last convoy of convicts from Algiers to French Guiana for the newspaper Alger
républicain.
16 Le Journal des Débats, 8th of December 1831.
51
This well-known dialectic distinguishing between good and bad
subjects and associating working and dangerous classes has its roots in
ancient representations reinvested and reinforced by the process of cap-
ital concentration on a global scale. The industrial society is a society
of powers that are as many alienations: power of the bourgeois classes
over the popular classes, power of Europe over its colonies, metropol-
itan centres over their national margins. Societies are crossed by fault
lines that are reinforced by an ideology of the “underworld” (KALIFA,
2013) understood as “a confused heap of residual elements of all species
and all origins”17. They constitute the hollow portrait of a good society
and its dominant values, reinforced in its power by a permanent state
of siege. The societies face the more or less fantasized dangers of these
criminals who populate the suburbs of the industrial city. This logic of
social simplification is often the steppingstone to a racial division of the
social body. From the early Middle Ages, the “gypsies” were the tutelary
face of the underworld. In the mixed-blood societies of Iberian America,
the “half-blood” is associated with body and soul corruption, depravity
and witchcraft. In a postcolonial and post-abolitionist Brazil, the racial
referent is even more powerful: “a mixed race nation is a nation invaded
by criminals,” says Laurindo Leão, a law professor at the Faculty of Reci-
fe at the beginning of the 20th century. These racial references are also
present in French criminal policy at the imperial level: the Indigenat re-
gime, the confinement of North African and Indochinese political oppo-
nents in French Guiana or New Caledonia, the deprivation of prisoners
of their fundamental rights in the penal colonies. Social grammar and
racial grammar serve a social order based on the concentration of power
and wealth in a few hands.
The persistence or even the development of such a range of repre-
sentations may appear to be contradictory with the use of the notion of
social and economic modernity, associated with political liberalism. As
17 VEYGA (de), Francisco. Los Lunfardos. Estudios clinicos sobre esta clase de ladrones profe-
sionales. 1903, cited in KALIFA Dominique. Les Bas-Fonds. Paris : Seuil, 2013.
52
Frederick Cooper points out, modernity is neither a political programme,
nor an ideology, nor a univocal and measurable social reality: ‘in other
words, the construction of an anthropology of modernity is not a good
research strategy. The discovery of a discourse of modernity could be a
revealing demonstration” (COOPER, 2005 p.177). Modernity is therefore
more a diffuse discourse, part of the mobilization of populations and
whose coherence appears in the juxtaposition of speeches, political de-
cisions and a technè organizing the social and moral order of a political
regime whose common denominator is fragility. Regime crises further
accentuated the coercive and conservative nature of these young repub-
lics. In order to reinforce school and political reforms in the early 1880s
and to stifle the tensions that arose, the Relegation law of 1885 led to
the conviction of repeat offenders for forced labour in French Guiana. In
practice, this was tantamount to the criminalisation of petty crimes of
poverty: automatically, repeated theft and larceny led to a life sentence
in prison. In Brazil, the crisis of the ruling Mineira and Paulista oligarchy
led to the development of the prison system and in particular to the col-
onisation of prisons. The Pessoa and Bernardes presidencies embodied
the exhaustion of the oligarchic regime and the café com leite18 formula.
In the name of the assumed positivism of the Brazilian regime19, the Bra-
zilian governments of the 1920s were inspired by European authoritarian
models, particularly Mussolini’s Italy and Salazar’s Portugal.
The legal texts produced at the end of the 19th and beginning of the
20th centuries testify to this cohabitation between liberalism - the Third
Republic is based on the exercise of universal male suffrage, compulsory,
secular and free schooling and freedom of the press - and social order. In
Brazil, the 1890 Penal Code is unquestionably of liberal inspiration. It is
based on conviction and rehabilitation through work of the criminal. For
the first time, prison was the preferred method of punishment, in line
18 Refers to the sharing of power under the Old Republic (1889-1930) between the oligarchs of the
State of Sao Paulo, a major coffee producer, and Minas Gerais, a major milk producer.
19 The motto “Ordem e progresso” is an inheritance in direct line with the philosophy of Auguste
Comte.
53
with the movement towards the bureaucratization of justice highlighted
by Foucault (1975). As a local variation of this judicial policy, the 1907
Code of Criminal Procedure of the State of São Paulo literally refers to
the “dangerous classes”. This offensive rhetoric is also present in Third
Republic France, which develops in the imagination as well as in the legal
framework an arsenal against what Dominique Kalifa gathers under the
term “lowlands”, targeting populations considered “incorrigible”. This is
the spirit of the law of relegation of 1885, which aims to remove from the
national territory individuals whose criminal inclination is considered to
be atavistic. Facing Industrial Revolution and a vast movement of intern
and extern migrations, Brazilian society had to guard against a double
pitfall, social as well as racial. This racial frame of reference is also op-
erative in Third Republic France, which was at the height of its imperial
project. The parliamentary year 1885 was marked not only by the pass-
ing of the Relegation law but also by debates on the Tonkin expedition,
which marked the victory of the colonial party. Ferry, president of the
Council and father of the school laws, was its main voice. The Positivist
Republic relies on the criminology of Cesare Lombroso and Alexandre
Lacassagne to justify a “criminal embarrassment; it also adopts the racial
anthropology of Paul Broca to justify inequality between races, the foun-
dation of the colonial order.
Colonial and penal unanimity crosses the West through a dense
network of circulation of ideas and techniques. It is thus easy to trace
the transfer of criminological theory from France to Brazil at the begin-
ning of the Old Republic. The Senator of the State of São Paulo, Paulo
Egydio, is one of its main vectors. He thus convened a French mission in
1906 to help reform the local police force. Egydio was both a politician
and a theorist. As a fervent supporter of Lombroso’s theses, he stated in
his Studies in Criminal Sociology that “all moral forces, all new scientific
knowledge” must be mobilized by society against crime. In this context,
penal colonies fulfil the political and penal objectives set by the political
centres: they produce territories in a colonial situation, as demanded by
54
many parliamentarians such as Justo Chermont, mentioned above, and
also make it possible to isolate the criminal germ.
Modernity then gave birth in France and Brazil to a society of disci-
plines. To take up the Foucauldian corpus, which has been widely verified
in the selected national cases, a technique that is becoming more refined
and complex is placed at the service of a total project, of which the total
institutions - asylums, prisons, hospitals, prisons, and prisons - studied
by Erving Goffman (1968) are the preferred tools as spaces of intense au-
thority and concentration of disciplinary technical means. As Theodor
Adorno points out, “technique is the coercive tool of alienating society”.
This science of punishment and control of bodies is based on theoretical
models as well as empirical variations. Modernity - always as a discourse
- allows its social acceptability by inserting it into a positivist ideology of
progress, which could be summarized in this diptych: order in prosperity.
It is therefore in the certainty of generous and elevated sentiments that
modern, liberal and democratic man can “wipe men off the face of hu-
manity”. (CAMUS, 1938).
Life and death of the prison communities of

the Oyapock
This political and penal corpus then commanded the establish-
ment of modern prison sites in their design, architecture and disciplinary
regime. The aim was to make a history of these sites from the bottom up,
by comparing models, projects and prison praxis. It is indeed an attempt
at the social anthropology of the prison, the lines of which should be
drawn by proposing an analysis of what Donald Clemmer called prison
communities (1958). This term is particularly appropriate for a micro-so-
cial study of the relationships structuring human groups, which, through
penal or administrative coercion, are forced to cohabit in their daily life
or even their intimacy. This relational diptych becomes triptych in the
penal colonies. The forced labour penalty takes the convict outside the
penitentiary. The face-to-face relationship between prisoner and guard is
55
then increased by a relationship outside, in its broadest sense. In spite of
the imperial discourse of empty territories, prison colonies were built in
previously populated areas, albeit without state and government organi-
zation. This encounter between the penal population, the administration
and the local population is the basis for hybrid territories. This will be
the subject of the last point of our study. The numerical contribution of
the penal colonies is indeed considerable enough to modify the social,
demographic, economic and political structures of the border area. In
1859, there were 600 prisoners at Montagne d’Argent camp, surrounded
by “sixty-eight non-commissioned officers and soldiers, a marshal of the
gendarmerie lodgings and three gendarmes”20. In Saint-Georges, at the
same time, there were about 200 convicts in the prison. In Clevelândia
do Norte, the nucleus of free settlers built in 1922 has 200 inhabitants,
including about 70 civil servants. In its prison period, it has an estimated
population of between 1,000 and 1,700 inhabitants21. Each time, the in-
tensity of administrative authority is high and the demographic impact
of the penal colonization is decisive: when it was closed in 1927, the nu-
cleus of Clevelândia concentrated almost two thirds of the penal popula-
tion of the district.
Consequently, for the historian of penal colonization, the sur-
rounding populations are not the backdrop of a penal lockup. This is
what distinguishes his object of study from the prison studied by Michel
Foucault (1975). For the latter, it is a space enclosed by four walls, where
movement, circulation and relationships are strictly delimited. As such,
it is one of those totalizing institutions evoked by Erving Goffman (1968).
Largely ignoring the issue of the penal colony in his work - probably be-
cause it was closed at the time of writing - Foucault nevertheless gives an
enlightening and distinctive definition of the conventional prison model:
20 Letter from Lieutenant Roux-Duremère to his mother, written around December 1859, cited in
LAMAISON, Denis. Le bagne de la mort. Culture du café et situation sanitaire au pénitencier
agricole de la Montagne d’Argent (Guyane française) de 1852 à 1910.
21 ROMANI, Carlo. Clevelândia, Oiapoque: cartografias e heterotopias na década de 1920.
Bol. Mus. Para. Emílio Goeldi. Cienc. Hum., Belém, v. 6, n. 3, p. 501-524, set.-dez. 20
56
“prison in the open air”. In its extension, we propose to define the prison
as a semi-open space, or to use Miranda Spieler’s expression, a “prison
without walls” (2012). This singular spatial organization is at the basis of
a mode of detention that allows circulation and relational networks that
are impossible in the traditional prison, a confined and almost hermetic
environment. As production centres, the penal colonies base their organ-
isation on the proper functioning of their productive apparatus. It implies
a circulation of the penal population, including outside the penitentiary,
and a confusion of the space of detention, the administrative space, the
private space of the agents and the surrounding populations. The prison
is not a prison but a penal city where all urban functions are concen-
trated under the command of an all-powerful Penitentiary Administra-
tion. On a daily basis, convicts, guards, staff and civilian populations rub
shoulders in a confusion that is nevertheless vigorously proscribed by
the penal theory of modern reformers. Working outside, with no real
possibility of escape in a context of strong isolation, the convicts thus
constitute a penal population “outside the walls” within a prison space
that is not separated from its environment by the usual “no man’s land”
(COMBESSIE, 1992).
Forming a complete micro-society, bringing together all social
functions, largely reinterpreting the traditional dialectic of “outside and
inside” (BACHELARD, 1957), the penitentiary colony is a spatially indis-
tinct prison object. It blurs morphological boundaries, while at the same
time reinforcing social boundaries from the outside world. The strategies
for labelling22 prisoners are one of the pillars of the socio-penal order:
the power of the administration is based on strategies of classification,
evaluation, material and symbolic gratifications that draw a moving and
arbitrary boundary between the affiants of the administrative authority
and outsiders. Placed outside the social field by the exercise of a sentence
that is meant to be infamous, the prisoner must invest social resources in
the framework of a real career plan based on a narrow system of grading
22 Voir BECKER, Howard. Outsiders. Etudes de sociologie de la déviance. Paris : Metaillié, 1985.
57
organized by the supervisory staff. The remuneration of the prisoner is
not only limited to the nature of the work performed but also to his ma-
terial living conditions. Garçons de famille -family lads-, servants in the
service of people, administrative and local elites, do not even return to
the penitentiary at night and sleep at the home of their employers, from
whom they are rented.
However, the administration cannot act as a demiurge: unequal in
the society of free men, all the agents - in the sociological sense - con-
tinue to be unequal in a prison context. Class relations play a major role:
the 3rd class warden and his family share more with the penal population
than with the prison administration’s executives. The prisoner/supervi-
sor relationship then proceeds from the meeting between two proletari-
ats and two exiles. In Ignatieff’s words, the prison is a “small relay in the
immense system of social reproduction”23, not only from the perspective
of the prisoners but also of its agents. In Clevêlendia, Carlo Romani’s
study (2003) refers to the same fault line, where social categorization
transcends the freeman/prisoner dialectic. Thus, he highlights the strong
relationships between tenentist officers and local elites, illustrating that
social status largely prevails over the penal situation in the establishment
of social relationships, including in this singular social context. On the
contrary, the warders embody a figure of profound otherness: the officer
from the educated middle classes, or the anarchist who harbours a hatred
against the state and its active hands, despise and flee the company of a
body of law-class warders. In French Guiana, the treatment reserved for
the transported - criminals convicted during the High Court - is often
more favourable than the fate of the relegated - repeat offenders convict-
ed of repeating minor offences.
Romani shows how the first class of the prisoners concentrates both
loyal former rebels who have made an act of allegiance to the government
and real bandits protected from the authorities. Their power is based on
23 IGNATIEFF, Michel. Historiographie critique du système pénitentiaire. In Petit, Jacques-
-Guy, (dir). La Prison, le bagne et l’histoire, Paris/Genève : Librairie des Méridiens, Médecine et
Hygiène, 1984, p. 9-17.
58
the pressure exerted on the other detainees and the practice of multiple
trafficking that exploits the triptych relationship between agents/detain-
ees/civilians. The prisoner’s cursus honorum through obedience to both
colonial regulations and arbitrary rules, accommodations and traffick-
ing to ensure the affiliation of a penal population that is necessarily re-
luctant to respect authority. The prison is the ideal place to experiment
with this mode of prison government by going beyond the rule, which
only becomes a tool of last resort. It makes it possible to not only ensure
order among the penal population but also among the officers – some
of the most poorly paid public servants - and among the surrounding
population by maintaining rents built on the exploitation of the misery
and deprivation of prisoners. Yet, as in other prisons, the possession of
money is forbidden to convicts. In the case of French Guiana, article 13
of the decree of the18th September 1925 specifies that “the convicts may
not hold any money or value whatsoever”. ». Nevertheless, as soon as they
boarded at Saint-Martin-de-Ré, the convicts obtained a plan, a small met-
al suppository in which they could hide their loot, the tools necessary for
escape and even small makeshift weapons. Money played a central role in
this disciplinary system of accommodation and negotiation. Money thus
makes it possible to reach a point of equilibrium within the framework of
a joint regulation of the relational space. It is also a tool at the service of a
total institutional project. The power constantly retained by the adminis-
tration to return to this network of illegalisms is a fundamental weapon.
At the top of the “global society”, the officials of the prison administra-
tion organise, tolerate, negotiate and manage the terms of trade, inside
and outside the prison. A network of forbidden solidarities then emerg-
es. The prisoner is no longer just a pariah but another self, a comrade of
misfortune with whom one converses, exchanges and deals with. It refers
to all the modes of expression of sociability established by E. Goffman in
1968: coercion, negotiation, giving and receiving. This relational network
goes beyond the prison setting and spreads throughout the surrounding
59
territory: the prison is integrated into a local and colonial market, from
the micro scale, the city, to the macro scale, the Empire.
Thus, in spite of the prescriptions of the penal reformers, of their
characteristic pointillism, the penal project gives birth in its colonial
counterpart to a pragmatic institution, without utopian and redemptive
dimension, of which “cheap government” is the commanding principle.
The “struggle for financial self-sufficiency” becomes the convict’s daily
reality (SHERMAN, 2009). In this context of deprivation, numerous epi-
demics and deadly work, mortality reaches new heights. While this reali-
ty is common to the entire Guianese prison archipelago, the sites of Saint-
Georges-de-l’Oyapock and Montagne d’Argent remain in the memories
and representations as the most resounding failures of prison coloniza-
tion - if, however, the notion of success in this regard can be considered
valid. The year 1856, marked by an epidemic of yellow fever in the Ama-
zon basin, saw 63% of the prison population succumb. The 12.5% mortal-
ity rate among free staff was striking because it aroused strong reticence
within the corps of military warders who saw this assignment as a pun-
ishment. Nevertheless, the large difference in the recorded rates between
the prison population and the personnel allows to correlate working and
living conditions towards mortality. Hunger, forced labour in bare feet
and poor hygiene conditions are far more likely to kill mostly young men
than fevers. Medicine, marked by the influence of racial anthropology
and phrenology, associates this excessive mortality with the maladjust-
ment of the white race to the equatorial environment. These presupposi-
tions would justify the closure, from 1867 to 1885, of the Guianese penal
colonies to prisoners from metropolitan France. On the other hand, in
the comfort of scientific certainties, many colonial prisoners, especially
“Arabs”24, who were obviously more familiar with the torrential rains of
the Amazon basin, continued to be sent to a certain death. This maca-
bre statistic nevertheless provoked a late reaction from the Penitentiary
Administration: the closure of the colonies of Saint-Georges (1863) and
24 Generic term for the entire criminal population from the North African colonies.
60
Montagne d’Argent (1867) was finally decided. Although it started half a
century later, the Brazilian penal project remains just as murderous. Out
of the 1 200 convicts sent to the banks of the Oyapock, about half of them
perished there25. The rare survivors who were lucky enough to return to
the south of the country were reduced to haggard and anaemic figures:
“bent, skinny, yellowish, without courage and vitality”, they showed the
marks of the ordeals in “their scalded and waxed faces”, in which “only
the eyes stood out ... they looked more like mummies” (DIAS, 1926 quot-
ed by ROMANI, 2011).
In very unequal societies where misery rages, in liberal but not
social Republics, punishment must respond to this iron law: any con-
demned person can only live better than the poorest of free citizens. Very
quickly, the utopian impulses of the legislator give way to a man-crushing
prison apparatus, a “dry guillotine”26 that leaves its mark not only on the
men and the prison communities but also on the territories that welcome
it.
“The map is not the territory”27

The temporal inscription of these prison communities was brief.
They were nevertheless the origin of a territorial fabric based on two pil-
lars: a national political project strongly structuring the political regimes
of both the French Second Empire and the Old Republic of Brazil, and the
creation of penitentiary territories inscribing public authority in space
with an uncommon suddenness and intensity. These colonial experienc-
es thus have the value of turning points in the histories of the respective
states, not only through the extension of sovereignty to marginal areas,
but also through the concentration of the coercive technology specific
25 DIAS, Everardo. Bastilhas modernas. São Paulo: Editora de Obras Sociaes e Literárias, 1926,
p. 237. Cited par ROMANI Carlo, . Antecipando a era Vargas: a Revolução Paulista de 1924 e a
efetivação das práticas de controle político e social. Topoi, v. 12, n. 23, jul.-dez. 2011, p. 161-178.
26 Title of René Belbenoît’s famous testimony., René. Guillotine sèche. Paris : Manufacture des
livres, 2012.
27 HOUTE, Arnaud-Dominique. Le triomphe de la République, 1871-1914. Paris : Points, 2014,
p.143.
61
to the modern state. Carlo Romani highlights this for the Brazilian case:
“the use of prison camps in Brazilian forests, widely used at the begin-
ning of the Republic, was elevated in December 1924 to the rank of state
policy with the transformation of the agricultural colony of Clevelândia
do Norte, on the border with French Guiana, into a penal colony” (RO-
MANI, 2011, p.162). In the French case, the scale of the penitentiary col-
onisation of French Guiana - a century of existence, around forty sites,
more than 70,000 detainees - places it in an eminent position, both in
the judicial system and in the national imagination. Albert Londres thus
relies on this terrible reputation to introduce his investigation: “for half a
century, unruly children have been told: ‘if you keep going this way, you’ll
be breaking rocks on the roads of French Guiana’.” (LONDRES, 1923). In-
deed, the making of a territory is based as much on integration into a
national space and the link to its political centre as on the creation of a
“lived” space, a vector of representations and identities. “The map is not
the territory” (HOUTE, 2014): a messianic project, prison colonization
fails in the metempsychosis of the convicted, where it reaches the palin-
genesis of prison territories.28
In this prison metaphysics, in the beginning was the convict. He
is chosen as a pioneer figure of the national project, sent to its confines
to widen its scope. It is then characteristic that the French Guyanese ar-
chipelago is concentrated on the borders: first on the Oyapock and then
on the Maroni. The foundation of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in 1858 was
in response to a visit by the director of the Penitentiary Administration
Laurent Mélinon to the Dutch colony of Albina, opposite the site he had
chosen. For Brazil, the choice of the Clevêlandia site was also dictated by
geopolitical pressure on the disputed border with French Guiana. Not a
very isolated case in Brazil, which is still mostly deserted; the develop-
28 These are two twin notions in the sense of ancient Greek philosophy: metempsychosis consists
in the transmigration of souls. In penal matters, this refers to the utopia of the prisoner’s redemp-
tion through work. Starting from the presupposition of the criminal gene, it is therefore an almost
magical translation from the atavism of evil to the man of good. Palingenesis, or “new birth”, refers
to the idea of spatial “emptiness” and a new beginning under the flag of the Nation in its organic
dimension.
62
ment of the Oyapock was truly a colonial project. The Boletim da Socie-
dade Central de Imigração assumed the use of this terminology in 1890 by
calling for “the founding of national colonies”. The modality of peniten-
tiary colonisation was the modality of territorialisation of this marginal
space chosen by the two States, as they were “cursed” territories: in three
centuries of colonisation, French Guiana had only around 25,000 inhab-
itants and a European population of around 300 individuals outside the
Penitentiary Administration. In the absence of volunteers, in the absence
of commercial outlets in a region far removed from commercial circuits29,
and in the absence of an exploited indigenous population, the prison-
er-colonist becomes the only recourse for the two states engaged in an
imperialist confrontation at their borders. “Transportation was a means
of punishment, deterrence, population management and, through the
expropriation of the convicts’ labour, to occupy and regulate distant bor-
ders. (ANDERSON, 2019, p1).
In these spaces of frontiers, “seen not yet as a line in permanent
movement, but as an incomplete space of conquest” (ROMANI, 2014),
territories are reconfigured by the spatial hold, understood as a relation-
ship of domination and exclusivity. The Promethean nature of colonial
action is to be placed among the most powerful and sustainable enforce-
ment tools available to the colonial state. Imperialism is truly an “act of
geographical violence”30. In order to manufacture this national territory,
the authorities methodically proceed : from the Roman settlers to the
agents of the Penitentiary Administration, the layout of the road network
is the first step in the making of the territory. The Rio Branco Boulevard,
the main artery of the core of Clevelândia do Norte, marks the patronage
of the main craftsman of the colonization of the North of Brazil by the
Republic. As Hélène Blais points out, “delimiting and naming are two
geographical activities that take on special significance in an imperial
29 This explains the low penetration of other modes of forced labour, such as the widely used in-
denture regime in Dutch Guiana and Dutch Guyana or the status of seringueiro, dominant in the
Brazilian Amazon.
30 SAID, Edward W. L’Orientalisme. L’Orient créé par l’Occident. Paris : le Seuil, 1980.
63
context. They refer, in fact, to the invention of territories partly recon-
figured according to the standards of the colonizers” (BLAIS, p.171). The
second stage of this territorial reconfiguration lies in the construction of
a profoundly heterotopic urban environment in the sense of Michel Fou-
cault: an “other” space, a privileged place of utopia31. It is a need to build
an architectural ensemble that meets the standards of modernity and
hygienism, especially in the cases of prisons. These works were not only
pragmatic and utilitarian, but also carry a strong symbolic dominance.
As C. Romani (2013), the construction of such buildings is a totally new
contribution from the Brazilian side. It allows at the same time to send
back to the French the image of a so-civilized country, and to relegate the
nomadic and state-free lifestyle previously in progress in the district of
Oiapoque as the sign of a lower level of civilization. The town of Martini-
ca is thus relegated to the status of a counter-model. The penal colonies
were then true brick monuments to modernity, an all-encompassing and
transnational project. Once this framework is established, the colonist’s
territorial hold can extend to his environment by disrupting econom-
ic relations - we have seen how much neighbouring populations were
involved in trafficking but also in supplying prisoners and cross-border
commuters - by restricting or, on the contrary, creating traffic. “The co-
lonial city drawn with a line, artificial borders, forced agricultural recon-
versions and the upheavals in the relationship between town and country
are all symbols of the spatial hold of the colonial fact.”(BLAIS, p169). With
this framework in place, the history of the two spaces can begin: for each
government, what precedes the pioneering installation of the convicts
constitutes a protohistory excluded from the national narrative. Colo-
nization is certainly promethean: colonization is one of the pyromènes32
of the modern state, bringing a creative and vital impulse to the ashes of
occulted human life forms.
31 FOUCAULT, Michel. « Des espaces autres. » Conférence au Cercle d’études architecturales, 14

mars 1967, In : Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, no 5 (1984): 46-49.
32 Manifestation of the fire element in the terminology developed by Gaston Bachelard in Psycha-
nalyse du feu. Paris : Gallimard, 1949.
64
Through this process of territorialization and integration into the
national space, the colonizing powers fabricate a border. Henceforth,
through the material and symbolic presence of the state, the Oyapock
became a frontier line from the 1920s onwards, both a consequence and
an objective of prison colonisation. The settling of populations in popu-
lation centres, the francization and brasilianization of the territories, and
the control of the flow of men and goods were the counterpart of this ter-
ritorial policy. The aim was to push back the limes of the barbaric world,
transforming cartographic abstraction into a lived experience for border
populations. The projection towards the margins of the Nation is a cen-
tripetal force that feeds the State project: “the drawing of borders allows
the establishment of maps, which directly participate in the invention of
States”. (BLAIS, 2013, p.172). As Ernest Renan puts it in his canonical defi-
nition of “everyday plebiscite”, the Nation is an empirical construction.
It refers in an imperialist conception shared by Brazil and France to a
centripetal imperial dynamic, where the legitimacy of political authority
rests on a constant expansionist dynamic.33 Without contradicting Ste-
fan Zweig, who emphasized its ontological pacifism, Brazil nourishes its
national narrative and its messianic aspiration through the colonization
of its immense interior space. As a continent, it is pursuing a very long-
term project related to the conquest of the West by the United States
at the same time. As such, penal colonization is part of this mobilizing
project, which, in the Brazilian case, is not yet complete and continues to
structure the public voice and the national project. It is part of a dialectic
centre/periphery that creates both margins and centralities. By attaching
the border territory to the national space, the two states effectively mar-
ginalize them. It becomes a space of confines, labelled as such, the last
milestone of the national space and dedicated to welcoming the “patho-
genic” portions of the social body. On the other hand, the borderline and
territorialization of these spaces connect them intensely to the centers of
power, without intermediaries. By being placed in an exceptional legal
33 COOPER, F., BURBANK, J. Empires. De la Chine ancienne à nos jours. Paris : Payot, 2011.
65
regime, these territories are devoted to the action of the State in its most
sovereign functions: monitoring and punishing, controlling populations.
In French Guiana, the most notorious criminals, political prisoners of
national importance and prisoners from all over the Empire are gathered
together. In Oiapoque, it is political prisoners from Rio de Janeiro and
Sao Paulo who populate the penitentiary. As pointed out by C. Romani
(2013), Clevelândia becomes one of the densest places of political and
intellectual concentration in the country.
On these foundations, specific identities were established, the bor-
ders of which should be delimited: was it a question of nationalisation
of populations and territories or, on the contrary, the ad hoc creation of
a cross-border territory? There is no doubt that it is advisable to guard
against any desire for labelling and essentialization, but on the contrary
to trace the superimposition of identities in these polymorphous and
shifting territories. To this end, the notion of hybrid frontier developed
by the philosopher Amadeo Lopez is enlightening. He defines it as “a
place of separation and union, the border has the characteristic of intro-
ducing between the Same and the Other this ambiguous zone - border
zone - and at the same time inside and outside the relationships with the
other and with oneself”34. By asking the question of the national, and
therefore of nationality, not only in its bureaucratic but also in its iden-
tity dimension, the setting of borders imposes a new dialectic, familiar/
foreign, linked to the construction of a space split between the here and
the there. “We want to fix the being” (BACHELARD, 1957, p.192) and thus
make the national penetrate the personal ontology of individuals. Pen-
itentiary colonization thus participates in the fabrication of French and
Brazilian people. It is a linguistic vector, through the power of the admin-
istrative form but also through the construction of schools for the staff.
It is a cultural vector through the contribution of customs and practices
from the metropolises. It is a social and anthropological vector, by in-
34 LOPEZ, Amadeo.Présentation. La notion de frontière. In : América. Cahiers du CRIC-

CAL, Année 1993,13, pp. 7-20. Cited par Romani, 2014, op. cit.
66
stalling as a hegemonic model the sedentary life, the Christian religious
practice, the reading of the newspaper. But it is indeed a question of cre-
ating a new humanity. As the Cameroonian intellectual Achille Mbembé
points out, “like Islam and Christianity, colonization is a universalizing
project. Its ultimate goal is to inscribe the colonized in the space of mo-
dernity35.” From this forced march of modernization was born, as in the
whole colonial space, a negotiated and moving identity.
Prison colonization, an Amazonian story:

Concluding remarks
“Many metaphysics would ask for cartographies” (BACHELARD,
1957, p.192). In the two spaces that concentrated our study, cartography
precedes territory. By founding mixed and moving identities, the impe-
rial powers have an action on spaces as well as on individuals. Oyapock’s
prison projects were totalizing and drew intimate cartographies by spati-
alizing both individual and collective metaphysics. In this sense, the pen-
itentiary colonies were deeply situated institutions, the foundation of a
sensitive experience that mixed prison and environmental experience. In
this sense, the history of the penal colonies is a history of representations
that is part of an Amazonian history. As Genet pointed out in a recorded
interview at the end of his life (1983), what remains of an existence is “a
history and a geography”.
The history of the Oyapock does not begin with the installation of
the first French prison in 1853 and the first Brazilian one in 1924. Howev-
er, it only became French and Brazilian, national and imperial, at those
dates. It is then necessary to link the history of this river to a general
history of the Amazon basin. The great march towards the West, initiat-
ed in the 17th century by the Portuguese colonizer, reached these shores
at the beginning of the 20th century. For French Guiana, it is the ump-
teenth isolated attempt at a dispersed colonization, to be placed in a co-
35 MBEMBE, Achille. On the power of the false. Public Culture, 14, 2002, p634. Cited in Frederick
Cooper, 2005, p.192
67
lonial history in the long term. It is each time the history of a settlement
by marks or even by dotted lines. In this sense, the territorialization of
both the Oyapock and the Amazon is deeply archipelagic. The green im-
mensity replaces the maritime infinity: the Amazon experience is fun-
damentally insular. The individual was first confronted with relegation
and loneliness. We then find a dialectical kinship between forest and
maritime space. Ladislau’s work Terra Immatura36 (1924) synthesizes this
discursive heritage with ancient roots. He describes a “place of illusion
of splendour and where a civilization would remain hidden in the midst
of the immensity of its forest” (p.30). In this absolute isolation live “men
who are strangers to their own land”.
Ladislau is turning this promised land into a political project. “The
Amazon needs to be invaded by successive and massive human waves, of
a race different from ours, because it has no capacity for initiative. “This
statement concentrates the two pillars of imperial politics in the Ama-
zon: filling the “void”, dispossessing Amazonians of their Amazon. Taken
up by President Vargas in his speeches, Ladislau’s rhetoric leads to draw a
dividing gap between the adventurous, lazy, easy-going Amazonian man
to the action of the state and enterprising actors, helping the Amazoni-
an man to take possession of his own territory. It is characteristic that
more credit is given to criminals and enemies of the State from the me-
tropolises than to the local population for developing the territories of
French and Brazilian Guiana. Vargas takes up the fables of La Fontaine
in an exemplary manner, pitting the Amazonian Cicada against the Met-
ropolitan Ant. Man must therefore be fixed in a nucleus of population,
a metonym of the modern, sedentary and disciplined state. In line with
these socio-spatial and racial segregations, prison colonisation appears,
by imposing forced labour and importing Western workers as the ideal
remedy for the laziness of the Indian. Transportation then gave rise to
two relegations: that of criminal deportees and that of free men in their
own territory.
36 LADISLAU, Alfredo. Terra Imatura. Manaus : Editora Valer, 2008,
68
Thus, the territorialization of the Amazon has contributed to its
barbarization. If it is central to the national imagination, whose territory
stretches from Oiapoque to Xuí, the French-Brazilian border is associat-
ed with the tenacious image of the “green hell”. In France, the evocative
power of the bagne makes the term synonymous with French Guiana.
The prison experience does not only found a shameful territorial identity,
based on the experience of suffering, but also of a state practice that has
never become completely normalized. The interior of French Guiana re-
mained under the direct administration of the central authority, without
political and civic rights for the population, until 1969 under the colonial
toponym of “territory of the Inini”. At the same time, it is an under-ad-
ministered state, which does not meet the needs of the communities.
The historian then questions modernity: “why in such and such a time
did the “moderns” try to make everyone modern, and why in such and
such a different time they did not? “(COOPER, 2005, p.190).
Today, the Oyapock is the scene of increasingly intense exchang-
es - as evidenced by the construction of a binational bridge in 2008 - at
the same time as new reasons for withdrawal and closure. The migra-
tion issue is added to the economic and identity difficulties already en-
countered by the local populations, making it a space under pressure.
The memory of the prison, which is hidden because it is not very visible
and not very long-termed, must be reinvested in a territory that is still
perceived as a place of exile: populations from all over Brazil are now
concentrated there, as a result of administrative changes and econom-
ic migration. On the French bank, the penal genesis of the territoriali-
sation of the Oyapock refers to the question of the political and social
project in territories that are now deserted. The researcher must strive
to go beyond the national borders of analysis in order to trace lines of
strong convergences, as much as the diversity of Amazonian societies.
Based on a spatial and environmental historical analysis, a Pan-Amazo-
nian history opens up, opening rich perspectives. Because, like the poet,
69
he participates in “pulling the eternal out of the transitory”37, the histori-
an reveals chronologies and cartographies from the jumble of incomplete
memories and hazardous reconstructions. He helps to make the territory
intelligible to its inhabitants. It is surely a key for the affirmation of Ama-
zonians by themselves, beyond national histories that place them in a de
facto foreign situation. For them, as for the prisoners, and all the “fragile
lives”38, the historian and his material, the archive, “deliver the unsaid”39.
By formulating it differently, they give a voice to the voiceless.
Na negrao solidao deste degrade infinido,
Neste recanto agreste onde a malaria impera,
Numa angustia ferina e atroz que desespere
A vida a pouco e pouco se vai, alem sumindo40
Referencies
BECKER, Howard. Outsiders. Etudes de sociologie de la déviance. Paris :
Metaillié, 1985.
BLAIS, Hélène. Reconfigurations territoriales et histoires urbaines. L’em-
prise spatiale des sociétés coloniales. In : SINGAVARELOU, Pierre. Les Em-
pires coloniaux. XIXè-XXè siècles. Paris : Points, 2013.
COMBESSIE, Philippe. Sociologie de la prison. Paris : La Découverte, 1992.
DIAS, Everardo. Bastilhas modernas. São Paulo: Editora de Obras Sociaes e
Literárias, 1926.
FRANCO FEREIRA, Dirceu. Rebelião e Reforma Prisional em São Paulo:
uma História da Fuga em Massa da Ilha Anchieta em 1952. São Paulo : Revan,
2018.
HOUTE, Arnaud-Dominique. Le triomphe de la République, 1871-1914. Paris :
Points, 2014.
37 Baudelaire, Charles. Op. cit.

38 In reference to Arlette Farge’s book, La vie fragile : Violence, pouvoirs et solidarités à Paris au
XVIIIè siècle. Paris : Hachette, 1986.
39 Quote from the indispensable work of the same Arlette Farge, Le goût de l’archive. Paris : Seuil,
1989.
40 Quatrain from a poem by Domingo Braz, held in Clevelândia do Norte, written in 1925. Quoted
in C. Romani thesis, 2003. “ In the black loneliness of this infinite exile/ In this wild corner where
malaria reigns,/ In a fierce and atrocious anguish that despairs/ Life is going little by little, until it
disappears»
70
IGNATIEFF, Michel. Historiographie critique du système pénitentiaire. In
Petit, Jacques-Guy, (dir). La Prison, le bagne et l’histoire, Paris/Genève : Li-
brairie des Méridiens, Médecine et Hygiène, 1984, p. 9-17.
KALIFA, Dominique. Les Bas-Fonds. Paris : Seuil, 2013.
LACASSAGNE, Alexandre. Les transformations du droit pénal et les pro-
grès de la médecine légale, de 1810 à 1912. Archives d’anthropologie criminel-
le, 1913, p. 364.
LAMAISON, Denis. «Le bagne de la mort». Culture du café et situation
sanitaire au pénitencier agricole de la Montagne d’Argent (Guyane fran-
çaise) de 1852 à 1910. Outre-Mers Revue d’Histoire, Société française d’histoire
d’outre-mer, 2016, 104 (390-391), pp.311-340.
LOMBROSO, Cesare, L’homme criminel : criminel-né, fou moral, épilep-
tique : étude anthropologique et médico-légale. Trad.de l’italien par Albert
Bournet et G. Regnier, Paris : Félix Alcan, 1887.
LONDRES, Albert. Au bagne. Paris : Aubier, 1992 (1ère ed. 1923).
ROMANI, Carlo. A história entre o oficial e o lendário: interações culturais
no Oiapoque. Antíteses, vol. 3, n. 5, jan.-jun. de 2010, pp. 145-169
ROMANI, Carlo. Clevelândia, Oiapoque: cartografias e heterotopias na dé-
cada de 1920. Bol. Mus. Para. Emílio Goeldi. Cienc. Hum., Belém, v. 6, n. 3, p.
501-524, set.-dez. 2011
ROMANI, Carlo. Antecipando a era Vargas: a Revolução Paulista de 1924
e a efetivação das práticas de controle político e social. Topoi, v. 12, n. 23,
jul.-dez. 2011, p. 161-178.
ROMANI Carlo. As representações nacionais e a população residente em
territórios litigiosos: o caso do Contestado franco-brasileiro. Uma refle-
xão teórica sobre as áreas de fronteira. Anais Eletrônicos do 14o Seminário
Nacional de História da Ciência e da Tecnologia – 14o SNHCT - Belo Horizonte,
Campus Pampulha da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais – UFMG 08 a 11 de
outubro de 2014
SANCHEZ, Jean-Lucien. À perpétuité. Relégués au bagne de Guyane. Paris :
Vendémiaire, 2013.
SHERMAN, Taylor C. Tensions of Colonial Punishment: Perspectives on
Recent Developments in the Study of Coercive Networks in Asia, Africa
and the Caribbean. History Compass, 7 (2009), pp. 659–677, 661
ZWEIG, Stefan. Le Brésil, terre d’avenir. Luxembourg : l’Aube, 1992.
71
FRENCH GUIANA, AN OUTERMOST
REGION OF THE EUROPEAN
UNION: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
IN THE XXI CENTURY
Rosuel Lima Pereira
Introduction
The arrival of the Italian navigator Cristóvão Colombo (1451-1506)
to the New World in October 1492 sets the Iberian maritime expansions
and awakens the greed of other European powers such as England, the
Netherlands and France. These countries, involved in religious quarrels,
contest the division of the world between the Catholic kingdoms of Cas-
tile and Portugal. This division is granted by the papal bulls of June 1481,
Aeterni regis of Pope Sixtus IV (1414-1484) and Intera caetera of May 1493,
edited by Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503). In June 1494, this pope defined
the line of division of the world with the Treaty of Tordesillas, which led
other powers like France to challenge the Iberian monopoly on the mar-
itime trade. This is how, at the beginning of the occupation of the New
World in the XVI century, France, to also benefit from its wealth, resort
to piracy and smuggling (BOWN: 2013, p.11-16).
During his third trip to America, in August 1498, Christopher Co-
lumbus traveled for the first time to the coast of Guiana. As for France
and its project of colonization and foundation of an Equinoctial France
between the Orinoco and Amazonas rivers, the first attempt is made in
Maranhao. After three years of occupation (1612-1615) and the founding
of the São Luís fort, this unsuccessful attempt at expansion takes the
French to Guiana. Around 1624, some French merchants from Rouen set-
tle by the Sinnamary river. Then, explorer Charles Poncet de Brétigny
(+1644) created the Rouen Company in 1633 and in November 1643 he
landed in Guiana with 300 men where he founded the city of Cayenne.
His company, ruined, is dissolved and he assigns its assets to the new
Company of Equinoctial France re-founded in 1663, the first had been
created in 1651 and went bankrupt in 1653. In 1663 this company was part
of the West India Company created by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683),
minister of King Louis XIV (1638-1715). Between 1668 and 1764 the colony
thrives (BUREAU, 1935).
From a religious point of view, Jesuits are the first to settle in Gui-
ana with the objective of evangelizing the Amerindians by creating agri-
cultural establishments and planting cocoa, coffee, cassava, cotton, and
sugar. Dominating the colonial economy in Guiana, the priests of the So-
ciety of Jesus until their departure also provide spiritual service to settlers
and slaves (LE ROUX, 2013).
In the XIX century, during the provisional government of the Sec-
ond Republic (1848-1852), the decree that abolished slavery was signed
on April 27, 1848, thus freeing almost 13,000 slaves in Guiana. Guianese
citizens receive French citizenship and voting rights on this occasion,
which is restored in France on August 11, 1848. As for the economy, with
the closure of plantations, it collapses until 1855 when a gold deposit is
discovered in eastern Guiana, in Arataye, an affluent of Approuague. At
the height of this gold rush, 10,000 gold prospectors arrive in the territory
and the mining has its decline with the Second World War. Thus, another
important event that debuts in the XIX century and ends in the XX centu-
ry is the creation of a penal colony in Guiana (BASSIÈRES, 1936).
74
Since the revolutionary period, Cayenne has received outlawed
monarchists arrested after the coup d’état on September 4, 1797. Under
the Second Empire, Napoleon III (1808-1873) formalized, on May 30,
1854, the creation of a penal colony whose objective is also to populate
Guiana, thus receiving more than 3,000 prisoners. Convicts are identified
according to the crimes and offenses committed as “transported”, “rele-
gated” and “deported”. In nearly a century of the penal colony existence,
70,000 prisoners have died in Guiana (SANCHEZ, 2015). It was only on
June 17, 1938 that the penal colony was abolished under the initiative of
the colonies’ Undersecretary of State, Gaston Monnerville (1897-1991).
However, this became effective on March 19, 1946 when Guiana changed
from colony to overseas department status (BUREAU, 1935).
Guiana’s history is characterized by the claim of its territory by the
Dutch, English and Portuguese in Brazil during the Napoleonic Wars
(1792-1815). After the Taking of Cayenne in 1809 and its occupation for
almost ten years, Guiana is definitely attributed to France in 1817, by de-
cision of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815)1. Historically, Guiana derives
from the first French colonial empire, with an economy based on sugar
cane plantation and slavery. The Constitution of the IV Republic (1946-
1958) that confirms the existence of the Departments abroad, meaning
the complete integration, for example, from Guiana to the Republic.
Guadalupe, Martinique and Guiana become French Overseas Depart-
ments, DOM (Departementos Ultramarinos), also known as French
Departments of America, DFA (Departamentos Franceses da América)
(OLLIVIER, 2002).
The laws and decrees applied in the Departments2 of Hexagonal
France3 are applicable in Guiana sometimes with some particularities.
1 Guiana’s political relationship with Brazil is characterized by two events: the occupation of Guiana
by the Portuguese-Brazilian troops from 1809 to 1817 in retaliation for the invasion of the kingdom of
Portugal by the French army commanded by Napoleão Bonaparte; and the Franco-Brazilian dispute
on the delimitation of the border between the territory claimed by the two States. The issue is resol-
ved with the Swiss trial in favor of Brazil in December 1900
2 In January 1790, the Constituent Assembly revoked the provinces of France and created the De-
partments. The current map of the Departments has not changed much, with the exception of the
creation of the Overseas Departments, the reorganization of the Paris Region in 1964 and the border
areas with Germany and Italy.
3 France is often referred to as “The Hexagon” because of the geometrical shape of its territory. This
75
With the Treaty of Rome signed on March 25, 1957 and the creation of
the European Economic Community, EEC, the Treaty on the Functioning
of the European Union, TFEU, is also signed. This treaty stipulates in Ar-
ticle 227, paragraph 2, that European law applies to the external borders
of the European Union. These are the external borders:
- the French overseas collectivity: Saint-Martin;
- the French overseas departments: Guadeloupe, Martinique,
Réunion, Mayotte and Guiana.
These five overseas departments are French outermost regions, OR.
The European Union considers Azores and Madeira as Portuguese ORs
and the Canary Islands as Spanish ORs. The overseas countries and terri-
tories, OCT, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom
benefit from an association regime with the European Union but are not
yet part of it, however, they receive financial assistance4.
After these historical and legal considerations, our study proposes
to approach the place of Guyana as a French OR in three aspects. From
an institutional point of view, what are the treaties, conventions, proto-
cols adopted by the European Union, and therefore by France, in which
Guiana is included as an overseas department and an OR. Under the eco-
nomic and national security aspect, what are the neighborhood relations
between France and the neighboring countries, Suriname and Brazil. Fi-
nally, what regional integration Guyana can aim for on the Guiana Shield
taking into account its demographics and economy, given its historical
past and geopolitical location. Essentially, our study proposes to analyze
the challenges that Guiana has to face in a globalized and socially chang-
ing world in the XXI century.
metonymy dates from the 1960s after the regional planning policy initiated by President Charles de
Gaulle and the opening of its borders with the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
BŒUF, J.-L; LEONARD, Y.. La République du Tour de France. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2003, p. 75.
4 ZILLER, J. “L’Union Européenne et l’Outre-mer”. Pouvoirs. Paris: Presses universitaires de France,
vol. 113, n°. 2, 2005, pp. 125-136. Available on: https://www.cairn.info/revue-pouvoirs-2005-2-pa-
ge-125.htm# Available on: May, 8, 2020.
76
Institutional inclusion and exclusion of
an Outermost Region: the case of overseas
Departments
The constitution of the Fourth Republic of October 27, 1946 creates
the French Union that refers to the political organization of France and
its Second colonial empire (1830-1954). This constitution in its article 60
unifies the territories associating the metropolis, metropolitan France,
the overseas departments, DOMs, and the overseas territories, TOMs. It
also suppresses the differentiated status that existed between “citizens”
and “indigenous”, according to the definition of the Preamble of that con-
stitution: “France shall form with its overseas peoples a Union founded
upon equal rights and duties, without distinction of race or religion”. The
same idea is repeated in article 80: “All individuals from overseas territo-
ries have the status of citizens, in the same way as French citizens in the
metropolis or overseas territories. Special laws shall determine the condi-
tions under which they may exercise their rights as citizens5”. The French
Union is replaced by the French Community defined by the constitution
of October 4, 1958 and with the establishment of the Fifth Republic.
After the Second World War, the first debates that would later lead
to the establishment of the European Economic Community, EEC, be-
gan. The completion of the single market is progressive and begins on
April 18 1951 when the Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal
and Steel Community, ECSC, is signed. Signed by France, Italy, Belgium,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany, this
treaty comes into force for a period of 50 years (1952-2002) and is applied
only to European territories depending on the member States. Conse-
quently, Guiana is not concerned by that treaty.
The second major step towards European construction is the sign-
ing on March 25, 1957, by the six ECSC countries of the Treaty of Rome or
the Treaty establishing the European Community, TEC. This treaty con-
5 Available on: https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/les-constitutions-dans-l-histoire/constitu-
tion-de-1946-ive-republique Consulted on: July, 04, 2020.
77
sists of two treaties: the first creates the European Economic Community,
EEC; and the second creates the European Atomic Energy Community,
EAEC or Euratom. The first treaty, in its Fourth part, entitled “The asso-
ciation of overseas countries and territories”, and its article 131 stipulates
the following: “The Member States hereby agree to bring into association
with the Community the non-European countries and territories which
have special relations with Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
These countries and territories, hereinafter referred to as “the countries
and territories”, are listed in Annex IV to this Treaty6.”
Annex IV “Overseas countries and territories to which the provi-
sions of Part IV of the Treaty apply” applies to the overseas territories of
the French colonial Empire. French territories in Africa are: Ivory Coast,
Dahomey, Guinea, Mauritania, Nigger, Senegal, Sudan and Upper Volta,
Congo, Gabon, Ubangui-Chari and Chad; The territories under protec-
tion of France are: Togo and Cameroon; the territories of the Comoros is-
lands, with the exception of Mayotte, for which the OCT regime remains
in force, Madagascar, the French Somali coast, Djibouti. The status of
overseas territories continues to apply to Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, New
Caledonia and French Polynesia7. During the French colonial empire,
these territories were recognized as French establishments in Oceania,
as were Wallis and Futuna, who were a French Protectorate. The French
Southern and Antarctic Lands, (Terres australes et antarctiques français-
es - TAAF), are recognized as overseas territory by the Law of August 6,
19558.
The Treaty of Rome, however, in its Sixth part entitled “General
and final provisions”, provides in Article 227, at the request of France,
that “Algeria and the French overseas departments, the general and spe-
cial provisions of this Treaty [...] shall apply as from the date of the entry
6 Available on: https://op.europa.eu/pt/publication-detail/-/publication/ea300365-230f-41be-b8ce-

-ed1ec10a9d72 Consulted on: July, 04, 2020.
7 Available on: https://trade.ec.europa.eu/tradehelp/pt/paises-ou-territorios-ultramarinos-ptu
Available on: July, 04, 2020.
8 Law n° 55-1052, “Estatuto das Terras Austrais e Antárticas Francesas”, in French. Available on:
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jo_pdf.do?id=JORFTEXT000000879815&pageCourante=07979
Consulted on: July, 04,2020.
78
into force of this Treaty9.” This paragraph remains unchanged until the
Amsterdam Treaty signed on October 2, 1997, when it is replaced by arti-
cle 299 covering all outermost regions, OR. However, it is the Maastricht
Treaty signed on February 7, 1992 that gives a political vocation to the
European Economic Community, EEC, which will become the European
Union, the EU. This treaty recognizes for the first time the term outer-
most regions, OR, in a declaration annexed to the Treaty10.
On January 1, 1986, Portugal and Spain joined the European
Community, EC, thus forming part of the 12 member States composed
of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxem-
bourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. With the accession of
Portugal and Spain, three new outermost regions located in Europe are
incorporated into the European Community: Azores, Madeira and the
Canary Islands. Thus, the Treaty on European Union or Maastricht, in
the “Declaration on the outermost regions of the Community” states the
following:
The Conference acknowledges that the outermost regions of the
Community (the French overseas departments, Azores and Madeira and
Canary Islands) suffer from major structural backwardness compound-
ed by several phenomena (remoteness, island status, small size, difficult
topography and climate, economic dependence on a few products), the
permanence and combination of which severely restrain their economic
and social development.
The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam amends the 1957 Treaty of Rome
establishing the European Economic Community, EEC. It also amends
the 1992 Maastricht Treaty that structures the European Union, EU. It is
the Amsterdam Treaty that proposes the creation of a single currency, the
Euro, in circulation since January 2002. That same Treaty rewrites article
227 of the Treaty of Rome, updating it in these terms according to article
299, § 2:
9 Available on: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:11957E/TXT&-
from=FR Consulted on: July, 04, 2020.
10 Available on: https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/docs/body/treaty_of_ams-
terdam_pt.pdf Consulted on: July, 04, 2020.
79
The provisions of this Treaty shall apply to the French overseas de-
partments, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands.
However, taking account of the structural social and economic sit-
uation of the French overseas departments, the Azores, Madeira and the
Canary Islands, which is compounded by their remoteness, insularity,
small size, difficult topography and climate, economic dependence on
a few products, the permanence and combination of which severely re-
strain their development[...].
The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 when establishing the European
Union, EU , in document No. 30 Declaration on island regions, “island
regions suffer from structural handicaps linked to their island status, the
permanence of which impairs their economic and social development.”.
In the case of the ORs, the term “island regions” is synonymous with
“distance”. Geographically, they are islands, archipelagos, and a continen-
tal territory, French Guiana is 7,000 km away from the Metropolis. The
French ORs, unlike the Portuguese and Spanish ORs, face besides the
geographical distance, difficult climate, economic dependence, scarce
and limited production.
Altogether, these regions are inhabited by more than 4.8 million in-
dividuals. Despite these disadvantages, the French Departments, Guade-
loupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion, Guiana and the Collectivity, Saint
Martin, are regions that are part of the European Union, EU. As such, its
legislation applies to these Departments and Collectives, with rights and
duties associated with France’s accession. However, we can question how
Guiana stands between this community legislation and its geopolitical,
economic, and cultural context.
Guiana, between cooperation and economic

and regional geopolitical interests
Guiana’s geographical position has unique potential. It is a strate-
gic area in the world with its own characteristics; in the field for research
and innovation, in the area of biodiversity, in the study of terrestrial and
80
marine ecosystems, in pharmacology, in the development of renewable
energies, in the application of space technologies. These elements allow
an European presence on the South American continent due to France.
The natural and economic challenges facing Guiana have led the EU to
resort to strategies for its development while exploiting the assets of this
OR.
Another objective of the EU is to make these regions known. In
March 2017, in Brussels, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European
Commission, concluded his speech at the Forum of the outermost re-
gions in these terms: “The outermost region is not yet known to the Euro-
pean public in general, but it is under this status that nine large European
overseas territories are brought together. They are part of the European
Union and, in fact, are subject to community law, as they fall within the
scope of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and its Ar-
ticle 349.”11 (STOKKINK, 2018).
Guiana is a territory of 84,000 km², 96% of which is covered with
tropical forest. According to the estimates of the National Institute of
Statistics and Economic Studies (Institut national de la statistique et des
études économiques - INSEE), Guiana has a population of 282,000 in-
habitants concentrated mainly in the coastal area and in the north of
the Department. With a demographic growth of 2.6% per year and a cos-
mopolitan population, one in three inhabitants in Guiana is of foreign
nationality. It is in this context of immigration that the question of Gui-
ana’s borders arises. According to the French geographer Michel Foucher
(1988, p.38) “borders are elementary spatial structures, in a linear way,
11 Free translation: “Si la dénomination de Région ultrapériphérique (RUP) n’est pas encore connue
du grand public européen, c’est pourtant sous ce statut que sont réunis neuf territoires ultrama-
rins européens majeurs. Ces derniers font partie de l’Union européenne et sont de fait assujetti au
droit communautaire puisqu’ils entrent dans le domaine d’action du Traité sur le fonctionnement de
l’Union européenne et de son article 349 qui leur est dédié”.
STOKKINK, D. “Les régions ultrapériphériques. Défis et perspectives”. Collection Études & dossiers.
Bruxelles: fév. 2018, p.4. Available on: http://www.pourlasolidarite.eu/fr/publication/les-regions-ul-
traperipheriques-defis-et-perspectives Available on: Jun. 10, 2020
81
with a function of geopolitical discontinuity and marking or reference, in
the triple register of reality, representation, and imagination12.”
Guiana’s borders are delimited on the east by the Oiapoque River
and on the west by the Maroni River. It is surrounded by the countries,
Suriname and Brazil, and to the north, by the Atlantic Ocean. As we have
already seen, the colonization of America and the occupation of the Gui-
ana Shield dates back to the beginning of the XVII century and involves
the kingdoms of France, England, and the Netherlands. In this compe-
tition, the borders advance according to colonization and military con-
quests. We recall that in 1633, the Company of Rouen obtains the right to
sell and navigate in this maritime space and that, in 1663, the Equinoctial
Company, enjoying the same prerogatives, wishes to extend the French
colonization from the Orinoco to the Amazon (MONTABO, 2004, p.61-
65).
The French try to limit Dutch expansion in the West by consolidat-
ing their positions to the Maroni River. In 1666, Governor Joseph-Antoine
De la Barre (1622-1688) elaborates a map establishing the Franco-Dutch
border at the Maroni without, however, a treaty being signed. A treaty
between France and the Netherlands is signed only in 1915, establishing a
partial demarcation of the border on the Maroni River. The final border
line is the subject of a disagreement between France and the Netherlands
and then between France and Suriname, which had its independence in
November 1975 and takes the Dutch position. In the next chapter, we will
see that recent incidents in the fight against illegal mining on the Maroni
River have updated the question of the border dispute between Suriname
and French Guiana.
The delimitation of the borders of the territory of Guiana arises
from disorderly colonization and disputes over its sovereignty. In the
XVII century, the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) guarantees Portuguese sover-
12 Free translation: «Les frontières sont des structures spatiales élémentaires, of forme linéaire, à
fonction de discontinuité géopolitique et de marque or de repère, au triple registre du réel, du sym-
bolique et de l’imaginaire.»
FOUCHER, M. Fronts et frontières, un tour du monde géopolitique. Paris: éditions Fayard, 1988, p.36.
82
eignty in Northern Brazil and defines the Oiapoque River as a mark of
this delimitation. However, France does not recognize this border be-
cause, according to the country, Guiana was extended to the Araguari
river. In the XIX century, in a context of rivalries and wars, in January
1809, the Portuguese-Brazilian army in retaliation against the invasion
of Portugal by Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops (1769-1821) occupies Guiana.
French historian Jean Soublin (2003, p. 41-42) notes that “Portugal wishes
to restore its honor by taking military action against the French, and it
naturally turns its attention to Guiana. But this symbolic revenge is not
the government’s priority. In Rio, what occupies, or obsesses everyone, is
the Rio da Prata question”.13 This occupation ends in November 1817, with
the Bourbon Restoration in France and the Congress of Vienna (1814-
1815).
The discovery of gold in 1854 activates the interest of the French
authorities who claim a space that is larger than the one occupied and
populated by almost 28,000 inhabitants according to the 1854 census14.
Both the abolition of slavery and the discovery of gold have direct con-
sequences on the growth of spontaneous immigration to the territory
inland. These movements are part of a certain resistance to the central
power and the desire to establish an export agricultural colony in Gui-
ana. These disadvantages disregard the French ambitions and its policy
of appropriation of the space that continues to be disputed by Brazil and
the Netherlands. In December 1900, Swiss arbitration ended the Fran-
co-Brazilian dispute, favoring Brazilian claims. According to the French
geographer Stéphane Granger (2011, p. 167), Brazil’s triumph by peaceful
means, even facing one of the greatest powers of the time, was the prod-
uct of a geopolitical reflection that caused the birth of a Brazilian school
13 Free translation: “Le Portugal désire restaurer son honneur par un geste militaire contre les Fran-
çais, et c’est naturellement vers la Guyane qu’il tourne son attention. Mais cette revanche symbolique
n’est pas du tout la priorité du gouvernement. A Rio, ce qui occupe, ou obsède, les esprits, c’est la
question du Plata”.
14 PAPY, L. “La Guyane française. Premier article”. Les Cahiers d’outre-mer. Bordeaux: Presses univer-
sitaires de Bordeaux, n ° 31, Juillet-septembre 1955. pp. 209-232. Available on: https://doi.org/10.3406/
caoum.1955.1967. Consulted on: April 10, 2020.
83
of geopolitics and characterized the Latin-American continent during
the Cold War.
The Franco-Brazilian border is not limited to the Oiapoque River.
At the southern end of this border, a non-fluvial and difficult to access
region exists. This dyad was established in 1938 when France, Brazil, and
the Dutch Suriname established a connection point. In 1950, France and
Brazil delimited the border between the Amazon basin and the hydro-
graphic basins of the Guiana rivers that flow into the sea. As for the At-
lantic Ocean, Guiana’s coastal border corresponds to 200 miles, or 370
km. Which is its exclusive economic Zone (EEZ), a reserved area where
France can explore and protect all its marine and submarine resources.
Thus, France has the second largest EEZ in the world, behind the United
States (11.4 million km²) and ahead of Australia (8.1 million km²).15
As we have seen, since 1854, the discovery of gold in Guiana has
taken prospectors and the population of the coast to the interior of the
territory, causing depopulation and abandonment of agriculture. The
gold rush also brought many adventurers from the French West Indies,
which at their peak, in the early XX century, have between 20,000 and
30,000 gold prospectors. Many die of malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, or
simply alone. For almost 100 years, Guiana has been extracting just over
200 tons of gold. With the price of gold in dollars/ounces resulting from
the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire in July 1944, the min-
ing activity in Guiana collapses. After 1945 with the fall in gold prices,
the resumption of its exploration is not encouraged. Guiana goes from 2
to 3 tonnes of gold mined per year in the early XX century to just 100 kg
per year in 1980. It is only with the end of the Bretton Woods agreement
in 1971 that leads the United States to abandon the convertibility of gold
into dollars and the implementation of the Guiana mining inventory by
the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (Bureau de recherches
15 GIRAUD, J.-P. “Zone Économique Exclusive française. 11 millions de km², pour quoi faire?”
Publication de l’ANAJ-IHEDN. Toulouse: March 2016. Consulted on: April 10, 2020.
https://jeunes-ihedn.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ANAJ-ZEE-2016.pdf Consulted on: June 10,
2020.
84
géologiques et minières - BRGM), created in 1959, that a resumption of
gold activity restarts16.
In the 1990s, new mining operators in Guiana introduced the meth-
od of extracting alluvial gold already used in Brazil. This technique en-
courages Guianese Small and Medium-sized companies, SMCs, to engage
in legal alluvial production, producing four tons of gold in 2001, despite
the low price of gold on the market. Gold mining has provoked an appeal
for labor, mainly from Brazil. There is a diversification of traditional em-
igration spaces and types of migration. Gold prospectors come mainly
from western Pará, northern Mato Grosso do Sul, Roraima and Maran-
hão. This migratory dynamic is composed of single men, from 25 to 40
years old, with little connection to the urban environment (PIANTONI,
2008, p. 140). We will see that with legal mining controlled by the State,
illegal or clandestine mining activities conducted by illegal prospectors
are developed in parallel. This type of gold mining, confronted today by
the armed forces, has harmful consequences for the environment and
directly impacts indigenous populations.
Guianese challenges in the face of its internal

issues in a changing world
The Mining Code was created by decree on August 16, 1956. How-
ever, its foundation is already constituted by the imperial law of April
21, 1810. Reforms are conducted in 1970, 1977 and 199417. The new Min-
ing Code results from the ordinance of January 20, 2011, applicable from
March 1, 2011. Only the legislative part was composed. On April 13, 2011, a
bill that ratifies this ordinance is delivered, strengthening the participa-
tion of public authorities in this activity. The title of mining, concession,
exploration permit, exists only in the Overseas Departments nowadays.
16 Available on: https://www.geosoc.fr/liens-docman/reunions-scientifiques-et-techniques/6eme-

-edition-des-journees-mines-en-france/1379-exploitation-de-l-or-en-guyane/file.html Consulted
on: April 10, 2020.
17 Sociedade geológica da França. “Algumas etapas da legislação recente”. Available on: https://www.
geosoc.fr/code-minier/historique.html Available on: June 12, 2020.
85
The legal mining industry prefers to use the term “mining operator” rath-
er than gold prospector who has a negative connotation and is linked to
illegal or clandestine mining.
In Guiana, it is estimated that, on average, 10 tons of gold are
mined illegally and that between 6,000 and 10,000 gold prospectors live
illegally in the territory. Illegal mining activities in Guiana lead to defor-
estation of large areas of primary forest, mercury pollution, destruction
of rivers, insecurity, prostitution, drugs, armed attack, diseases linked
to precariousness such as malaria, yellow fever and dengue. Faced with
the proliferation of illegal gold mines, the French State decides to create
“Operation Anaconda” which aims to destroy pumps’ engines, generators
and clandestine gold mining sites. Between 2002 and 2008, this opera-
tion was directed by the French national Gendarmerie with the objective
of making gold exploration unprofitable, thus discouraging future pros-
pectors18.
During the term (2007-2012) of the President of the Republic, Nico-
las Sarkozy (1955-), Operation Anaconda, which also aims to guarantee
respect for the sovereignty of the national territory, is replaced in Feb-
ruary 2008 by “Operation Harpy” (royal-hawk). This operation aims to
eradicate illegal mining, to protect the aquatic and forest environment,
to guarantee the safety of the local population against trafficking and
criminal activities. Operation Harpy is directed by the regional Mayor
and the Public Prosecutor and has as a new target to attack the logistic
networks of illegal mining, that is, to dismantle the network that supplies
materials and food to the prospectors. This tactic of establishing dams
on rivers used by the military causes changes in routes, delays, increased
prices and decreased transported products19.
In 2007, 113 “Anaconda” operations were conducted in Guiana
against illegal prospectors. These operations helped to slow the expan-
18 PETIT, R. “2008-2018: l’opération Harpie fête ses 10 ans”. Soutien logistique défense sécurité. Paris:
janeiro 2018. Available on: https://operationnels.com/2018/01/31/2008-2018-loperation-harpie-fete-
-ses-10-ans/ Consulted on: July, 04, 2020.
19 Available on: https://www.senat.fr/rap/r10-271/r10-2716.html Consulted on: July, 04, 2020.
86
sion of illegal mining. When the operation “Harpy” was created, the
armed forces increased the number of attacks on clandestine locations,
destroying the confiscated equipment. Even with improved controls on
roads and rivers, illegal prospectors have nevertheless become more mo-
bile and discreet. They operate at night making it more difficult to be
detected (FAGARD, 2013). In 2010, almost 600 Harpy Operations are con-
ducted, causing the arrest of 1500 illegal foreigners. Between 2010 and
2020, the direct or occasional human losses of French forces in the fight
against illegal mining had 9 military personnel. In 2018, Operation Harpy
destroys 765 illegal gold mining sites, 401 motor bombs and confiscates
205 weapons and 120 kilograms of mercury20. Confident with the success
of Operation Harpy, the president-elect in May 2017, Emmanuel Macron
(1977-) renews Operation Harpy 2. In addition to the National Gendar-
merie, the Guiana Defense Force, GDF, the Regional Mayor and the Pub-
lic Prosecutor, gathered to combat illegal mining, the Guiana Amazonian
Park, GAP, the National Forest Bureau, NFB, the Border police, BP and
customs control are now part of the combat21.
In Guiana, Operation Harpy’s mission is to fight against illegal gold
mining, which suffers mainly from illegal immigration of prospectors
from Brazil, Suriname, and Haiti. In the context of an interministerial
action, Operation Harpy groups administrations that operate in the for-
est and rivers in an intensive campaign aimed at reducing illegal gold
mining in Guiana. Thus, the Border Police Department, DDPAF, with
the armed forces try to: disorganize the flow of goods traffic destined for
illegal mining; identify the individuals involved in this crime so that they
can be prosecuted; deport the irregular prospectors to the border and,
finally, destroy materials used in the extraction of gold, rehabilitating the
rule of the State in these spaces invaded by illegal immigrants22.
20 Available on: https://www.defense.gouv.fr/operations/actualites2/fag-bilan-2018-de-l-opera-
tion-harpie. Consulted on: May 12, 2020.
21 Available on: http://geoconfluences.ens-lyon.fr/informations-scientifiques/dossiers-themati-
ques/la-frontiere-discontinuites-et-dynamiques/articles-scientifiques/maroni-frontiere-guyane-
-suriname Consulted on: May 12, 2020.
22 “Balanço da Luta contra a mineração ilegal de ouro, LCOI-2018”. Préfet de la Région Guyane.
Les Services de l’État en Guyane. Paris: 17/01/2019. Available on: http://www.guyane.gouv.fr/Poli-
87
In Guiana, the starting point of a spontaneous economic immigra-
tion is the failure of the French State’s economic planning in 1975. Gui-
ana’s status as an overseas department as an indivisible national space
did not allow the establishment of appropriate public policies for the ter-
ritory. Therefore, since then, France has resorted to social legislation that
consists of transferring public funds. As an example, we can mention the
Family Aid Fund, CAF, which is a private law body, with departmental
competence and responsible for the payment of financial benefits of a
family or social nature. This fund also has a social action policy to en-
courage and support local actors, authorities, and associations, in the
development of services adapted to the necessities of families, such as
daycare centers, leisure centers, actions to support parenthood, anima-
tion of social life, among others (BICHOT, 2012).
In Guiana, CAF offers benefits to seven out of ten families, including
families with children. In 2013, 183 million euros were paid to the 36,200
families benefited through family allowances. Of these 36,200 supported
families, the majority are single parents (58%), followed by couples with
children (39%) and more marginally couples without children (3%). The
Family Aid Fund provides housing or social assistance to 65% of isolated
people, including 35% men and 30% women. Finally, even if people in an
irregular situation on the French territory are not beneficiaries of this aid
fund, this situation of false progress without real endogenous develop-
ment thus generates a migratory appeal in the region.23
From the point of view of the international context at the end of
the XX century, three political events will influence the immigration flow
towards Guiana:
- the economic and political crises in Haiti with the death of dic-
tator François Duvalier (1907-1971) and the succession of his son Jean-
Claude Duvalier, the “Baby doc” (1951-2014);
tiques-publiques/EMOPI/Bilan-LCOI-2018 Consulted on: June 13, 2020.

23 CHARRIER, R. (direction). Dossier Antilles-Guyane. INSEE Guyane. Guiana: n.4, maio 2017. Avai-
lable on: file:///C:/Users/lsh/Downloads/gy_ind_04.pdf Consulted on: June 13, 2020.
88
- the acquisition of independence from Suriname in November
1975, the coup d’état in February 1980 as well as the civil war in April 1986;
- the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985), the increase in pov-
erty, social unevenness, and violence in the country; all of these events
are factors that drive regional immigration to Guiana. The French state’s
social interventionism with its funds transfer economy, wage costs, and
social benefits allow Guiana to have the highest standard of living in
South America. This situation of social progress and dependence without
local development therefore creates a paradox and a migratory attraction
to Guiana24.
In France, ethnic statistics are prohibited under Article 1 of the
Constitution of October 4, 1958: France “shall be a Republic, indivisible,
secular, democratic, and social. It guarantees equality before the law for
all citizens, regardless of origin, race or religion ”; and Law No. 78-17, of
January 6, 1978, “Informatics and freedoms” which states: “The collec-
tion and processing of personal data that reveals, directly or indirectly,
the racial and ethnic origins, the political, philosophical, religious opin-
ions or trade union affiliation of persons, or which concern their health
or sexual life, is prohibited”. Thus, to establish the origin and number of
illegal immigrants is difficult. INSEE’s official statistics are based on legal
immigration and data provided by city halls that issue residence permits.
In metropolitan and overseas France, immigration, be it chosen,
legal, or spontaneous, irregular economic, severely suffers from a seg-
regationist process. Unemployment rates reveal system inconsistencies.
16% of immigrants are unemployed, this rate is twice the rate of people
born in France. Another notable segregation is socio-spatial segregation,
and this is noticeable in the location of immigrant neighborhoods. Final-
ly, in Guiana, economic and socio-spatial segregation is compounded by
the identity crisis that overwhelms the creoles. The first is endogenous in
the face of a multiform society and in full demographic dynamism; the
24 Available on: file: /// C: /Users/lsh/Downloads/hommesmigrations-259.pdf. Consulted on: May

14, 2020.
89
second is and exogenous regarding the creole process of assimilation to
the nation without losing its Caribbean and Amazon specificity.
Conclusion
Guianese society is undergoing changes and an internal rebalanc-
ing due to its demographic growth. In the 1970s, creoles represented 70%
of the population, in 1999 that percentage increased to 45%. Another im-
portant factor of this mutation, in addition to immigration, is the politi-
cal emergence of the local communities, the Marrons and Amerindians,
who introduce a new dynamic in the relations of power and influences.
The creoles who until then guaranteed social integration through eco-
nomic superiority, the occupation of public and political positions are
today seen in the turmoil and socio-political demands radicalizing and
stigmatizing immigration in their discourse.
This is seen, for example, in the March 2017 social movement25 and
its main demands focused mainly on combating insecurity, improving
health services, combating illegal mining and uncontrolled immigration.
Between virulent demands and urban violence what is at stake is the au-
thority of the State and a criticism of the policy of territorial and func-
tional Decentralization, that is, the transfer of powers from the State to
the local communities that advocates the law of March 1982, of the Min-
ister of the Interior, Gaston Defferre (1910-1986), in the government of
the first term of President François Mitterrand (1916-1996). In the case of
Guiana, Decentralization gives the hegemonic creole community, above
all, the role of mediator with the State. This role is questioned leading the
local society to reevaluate its socio-cultural foundations.
25 The social crisis in Guiana began in February 2017, following the murder of a young man in Cayen-
ne. The movement of “500 brothers” was born after this murder, they were a group of people in
hoods, more visible than the unions in Guiana. On March 17, a union collective launches a call for a
“Marshall Plan” in Guiana. In the complaints document, we find the evocation of insecurity and lack
of investments by the State. In 2008, Guiana had already experienced this type of upheaval, that time
triggered by the very high price of gasoline. COMBRIER, E. “Comprendre la crise sociale en Guyane,
en trois questions”. Les échos. Paris: 27/03/2017. Available on: https://www.lesechos.fr/2017/03/com-
prendre-la-crise-sociale-en-guyane-en-trois-questions-163793 Consulted on: June 13, 2020.
90
One of the limits of the Decentralization law is the one of the
French State’s policy of always wanting an economic, social, and cultural
alignment with the metropolitan model. To try to remedy these limits, the
Overseas Guidance Law, (Loi d’orientation pour l’Outre-mer - LOOM),
No 2000-1207, was enacted on December 13, 2000. This law considers two
observations: the heterogeneous nature of the realities of the overseas de-
partments and the deep inequalities that exist in these societies. LOOM’s
drafting is based on Article 299, paragraph 2, of the Amsterdam Treaty
which consolidates the creation of the European Community, EC and the
legal integration of the overseas Departments. According to Article 1 of
the LOOM (free translation), “economic development, regional planning
and employment in the overseas departments are, due to their economic,
social and structural situation recognized [...] as priorities for the nation”.
These two laws, national and supranational, agree on the necessity for
reforms but do not define development strategies. Meanwhile, debates
disturb Guiana that seeks policies for economic and social integration at
the risk of social explosion.
The outermost regions, ORs, first recognized in 1992 by the Maas-
tricht Treaty and defined in 2009 with Treaty of Lisbon coming into force,
are defined by Article 349 of the Treaty on the functioning of the Europe-
an Union, TFEU. According to this Treaty the “structural economic and
social situation” of these nine remote regions, with difficult and depen-
dent climates, “severely restrain their development”; Guiana, as an OR, is
concerned with the EU’s cohesion policy, which consists of reducing the
differences in wealth and development between the regions of the Euro-
pean Union as it falls under the category of “least developed region”. This
qualification is given according to economic and social criteria, which
allows it to benefit from larger allocations from the European Structural
and Investment Funds, ESIF, or obtain specific assignments from the Eu-
ropean Regional Development Fund, ERDF.26
26 The European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, operates in the policy of economic, social and
territorial cohesion. Its aim is to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union, by
correcting imbalances between its regions. In France, in 2014-2020, the ERDF represents 8.4 billion
91
Finally, the ORs participate in the Territorial Cooperation Pro-
gram, INTERREG, co-financed by the ERDF fund. These development
programs made € 13.8 billion available between 2014-2020, allowing Gui-
ana to participate in regional cooperation projects with Brazil or Surina-
me, for example. The construction of the 378-meter cable-stayed bridge,
15 meters above the river, opened in 2017, at a cost of 22 million euros,
between the border cities São Georges and Oiapoque is the result of these
investments.
The “bridge of friendship”, useless for now, but symbolic, has the
geopolitical objective of breaking the isolation of the city of São Georges
and its 3500 inhabitants. In the future, it should also promote an open-
ing to South America for France, as well as commercialization between
the European Union and the Southern Common Market, MERCOSUR.
Even if Guiana’s borders are areas of interfaces, places of exchange, zones
of passage, contacts with cities on both sides of the rivers, nevertheless
no cultural discontinuity exists. We can confirm this with the Amerin-
dian population that live and circulate on the right or left bank of the
rivers, claiming the forest space as their land and demanding freedom
of movement and activities. In Maroni, the Indians do not refuse French
citizenship, which offers legal protection against the violence commit-
ted against them. In Oiapoque, many Indians flee from intolerant evan-
gelical churches accepting a French influence transmitted by the school
and administration, receiving free medical care and social benefits such
as the Minimum Integration Income, (Revenu minimum d’insertion -
RMI), created in 1988 and the Solidarity Active Income (Revenu de soli-
darité active - RSA) created in 2007.
To conclude, we can say that Guiana’s difficulties of a material na-
ture are recognized and depend mainly on funding in the sectors of edu-
euros devoted to “investment for growth and employment”, consolidating the labor market and re-
gional economies. To this budget, 1.1 billion euros is added for “European territorial cooperation”,
which aims to support cohesion in the European Union through cross-border, transnational, and in-
ter-regional cooperation. Agence nationale de la Cohésion des territoires. Available on: https://www.
europe-en-france.gouv.fr/fr/fonds-europeens/fonds-europeen-de-developpement-regional-FEDER
Consulted on: June 13, 2020.
92
cation, health, infrastructure, and security. From a regional point of view,
it must increasingly integrate the Guiana Shield even if it adds new geo-
political problems. Our study aims to provide a brief reading of the chal-
lenges that Guiana must face in the light of three ranges: legal, economic,
and social. This study seeks to go beyond the declaration of uncertainties
and tries to detect the signs of a possible reconciliation between Guiana
and its neighbors. The Guiana Shield, as a region, must recognize the
legitimacy of differentiation and the cooperation requirements for better
integration of the Amazonian population. The result of this article can
be disappointing if we consider only the economic and legal aspects of
neighborhood relations without considering the circulation of individu-
als and the socio-cultural wealth.
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June 08, 2020.
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96
CROSS-BORDER INTEGRATION
AND SOCIAL REPRESENTATION:
THE BINATIONAL BRIDGE AND THE
CATRAIEIROS ON THE FRANCO-
BRAZILIAN BORDER
Miguel Dhenin
Introduction
T
his study1 aims to discuss the cross-border integrating proj-
ects and their respective social representations to local
groups. As a case study, we present the social representation
of boatmen who drive their catraias2 between Brazil and France on the
construction of the Binational Bridge. The catraieiros3 are currently re-
sponsible for much of the logistics between Amapá and the French Over-
seas Department of French Guiana. The bridge is between the cities of
Oiapoque (Brazil) and Saint-George de l’Oyapock (French Guiana) in the
Amazon region of the Guiana Plateau. We present the following guiding
1 This work had the collaboration of Ana Patricia de Souza Teixeira as an Undergraduate student.
This study was funded by Capes (Pró Defesa, Chamada 031-2013) and l’OHM Oyapock via Labex
DRIIHM (CNRS).
2 Small boat, manned by one man.
3 Crew member of a small boat, manned by one man.
questions: how is the representation of local actors placed as a variable
in the construction of cross-border projects? What does the Bination-
al Bridge represent for catraieiros? What are the possible consequences
in the existence of representation conflicts over the same object? Our
theoretical framework is based on literature about regional integration
(International Relations) and social representation (Social Sciences). In
our field work, we used as a methodology semi-structured interviews ap-
plied to fifty catraieiros in the city of Oiapoque and Saint-George, which
is approximately one third of the community in the researched group4.
Brief theoretical debate on Regional

Integration
Since the 1980s, the regionalization of States’ foreign policy has
become a stronger tendency, especially with the end of the Cold War.
These processes are associated with economic issues based on free trade
agreements, such as NAFTA or MERCOSUR. In the past three decades,
they have become more comprehensive, transcending the economy and
comprising political, cultural, historical and international security ele-
ments. The integration between different States from a region may show
great diversity in its conformation process. The idea of region itself, usu-
ally linked to geographic limits, will present variations with what we are
trying to understand (SARAIVA, 2013). We can define a region based on
economic, social, political, historical, religious, cultural dimensions. The
degree of interdependence of these dimensions, taken individually or as
a whole, can serve as a basis for a definition of a region and regionalism.
The determinant way in which political actors perceive and interpret the
concept of region is also decisive for its construction. When referring to
political actors, States form the fundamental but not unique units in re-
gional integration processes. Andrew Hurrell describes five categories of
4 According to a statement in the interviews with representatives of the catraieiros’ cooperatives,

the community in this category has approximately 150 workers.
98
regionalism that, in a way, show themselves as steps to deepen the pro-
cess:
1. Regionalization: refers to the growth of social integration
within a region and, by an indirect process, a growth of so-
cial and economic integration (soft regionalism);
2. Regional Awareness and Identity: these are diffuse no-
tions. Regional awareness is built from the discourse and it
is an understanding and meaning given to a political activity
of the actors involved. They can be defined by endogenous
elements such as the sharing of culture, history, and reli-
gion, or even by exogenous elements such as the approach
against an “other” that threatens their security;
3. Regional Interstate Cooperation: negotiation and con-
struction of intergovernmental agreements or international
regimes with strong participation of states;
4. Regional integration through the promotion of the
State: presents direct involvement of the State in the reduc-
tion and removal of barriers in the search for greater com-
mercial exchange (goods, services and capital) and people;
5. Regional Cohesion: the combination of the four categories
described above. It can lead to the emergence of a cohesive
regional unit (HURRELL, 2000, p. 39-45).
The theoretical analysis of regionalism is inserted within the de-

bates between different theoretical perspectives of International Rela-
tions. Systemic elements and domestic factors are considered with dif-
ferent intensities in the different theories that analyze contemporary
regionalism. Between the 1970s and 1980s, three theories stand out in
the theoretical debate on International Relations: Neorealism, Neolib-
eralism and Constructivism (MARIANO, 2007). Other theoretical per-
spectives were present in the debate on regionalism, however these three
predominated and considerably influenced studies and decision-making
in international politics.
When starting the theoretical debate, we need to pay attention
to the meaning of the concepts (terms) used in this discussion, that is,
region, regionalism, and finally, regional integration. To the layperson,
the first two appear as relatively close, but they are relatively ambiguous
99
and therefore the consensus on the concept is still lacking in the area
of international relations (HURRELL, 2000). One of the starting points
for analyzing the concept is to start from the geographical definition of
the concept to refine it. We need to consider disputes around the issue
of deterritorialization within geography (AGNEW, 1996; TAYLOR, 1996).
Nevertheless, we realize that we are still “hostages” to the limits
guided by geographical premises, making the concept more abstract and
therefore, more difficult to interpret. As mentioned before, we need the
etymological tool to understand the concept. The word “region” finds its
origin in the Latin regio, used to determine a distinct administrative or
geographical area. Another source indicates that the word regere has the
meaning of commanding or governing, thus having similarities in the
definition (TAVARES, 2004). Therefore, we observe that a geographical
definition can assume a political content (SODERBAUM & SHAW, 2003),
which does not exclude the fact that there are semantic disputes and dis-
putes based on the fact that natural rules exist.
According to the constructivist view, the regions are elements
marked by the social construct before being considered, geographical-
ly, as delimited and natural territories (KATZENSTEIN, 1996). This view
gained recognition in the mid-1990s, when States began to lose recog-
nition in the face of international organizations. We can also consider
another view of the role of the regions, taking the degree of internal co-
hesion as the main criterion.
Thus, constructivist literature emphasizes the role of social inter-
actions, such as language, culture, ethnicity, or a common cultural heri-
tage. There are also political elements, such as institutions, ideology, or
even regimes, and finally economic components (options in internation-
al trade and formal arrangements in the integration process). In short, we
can say that both constructivists, institutionalists and realists recognize
the importance of the State as a driving force in the regions. The initial
studies by K. Deutsche et al. (1957), J. Nye (1968), followed by P. Kat-
zenstein or Buzan & Waever (2003) clarify that their definitions do not
100
relinquish the State to determine the criteria of the region. Therefore,
we consider that the regions are not diminished representations of the
international system.
The importance of the Brazil-French Guiana

(France) relationship
French Guiana (FG) is one of the French Overseas Departments
(France d’Outre-Mer). Its area is approximately 84,000 km² and is insert-
ed within the Transnational Amazon and has a low population density
(3.2 people per km² in 2016). Its department-region status means that
the political administration of French Guiana has a Regional Council
(Conseil Régional de la Guyane - Région) and a General Council (Conseil
Général de la Guyane - département) that grant it limited autonomy in
the Department’s relationship with countries in the region.
French Guiana shows a peculiar situation in multiple aspects. As a

French Department, it is part of the European Union. However, as we can
see on the map below, with all its territory within the Amazon region and
with a population concentrated on its Atlantic coast, the Department is
very close to a Caribbean territory, as well as its neighbors Guyana and
Suriname.
101
Map 01: French Guiana
Source: CORREA (2014, p.96)
Another characteristic of French Guiana is its condition as an out-

ermost region (PORTO, 2010) which, in general, has lower development
rates than its metropolis and it is a low-density territory such as Azores
and Madeira, that belong to Portugal, and the Canary Islands to Spain.
This condition and its distance from the political decision center (Paris)
does not mean less presence of the State. The metropolitan France has
an influence in the Department, stimulating an economic and political
dependence on the central power and the European Union. The rela-
tionship processes between Brazil and French Guiana are far from being
in intermediate or advanced stages of the integration steps mentioned
above (SILVA et al., 2016).
Among the reasons for this situation, we can highlight the struggle
of the South American subcontinent in relating to a European country
102
in regional integration processes. We can see this in regional initiatives
such as the Union of South American Nations (USAN), the Southern
Common Market (MERCOSUR), and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty
Organization (ACTO), French Guiana is excluded as a permanent mem-
ber5. However, this did not mean the absence of relations between Brazil
and French Guiana through the State of Amapá and the Guyanese neigh-
bor. In the last two decades, cooperation initiatives have sought to bring
these territories closer together. Silva (2013) highlights that:
It is noticeable, however, that this variation remained much
more on cooperation intents. In such a context, it is clear
that we live in a moment of expectations. These are expecta-
tions for a new page in Brazil-France cross-border relations.
The current moment, in fact, is characterized by tests of this
cross-border cooperation. This brings us to a moment that is
being structured to what we call Proto-Cooperation, a type
of cooperation prototype with clear and substantial results,
which has structures aimed eminently for its evolution.
(SILVA, 2013, p. 240)
In this proto-cooperation, we want to draw attention to the project

of strong logistical value as we are talking about a region with low acces-
sibility, and of great symbolic value: the Binational Bridge. From the et-
ymological point of view, the word bridge is associated with connection,
communication, union, intermediation. As such, the construction of a
bridge between two countries has its logistical value, but its symbolic
value is emphasized (SILVA et al., 2019). Some bridges are named pre-
cisely referring to this etymology, such as the Friendship Bridge, between
Brazil and Paraguay, the International Fraternity Bridge, between Brazil
and Argentina and the Brazil-Peru Integration Bridge (ARAÚJO, 2017).
We emphasize this symbolic value, because in a border region, where the
national and international (where we and others) meet, the bridge will
exercise influence by the various social actors in its surroundings, wheth-
er by the States that designed it to be, but especially, by social groups
5 France and French Guiana are members as an observer or guest member.
103
directly linked to the project or region where the bridge is built (NEW-
MAN, 2016).
However, the practice of central governments of States in develop-
ment of regional integration projects does not usually operate by analyz-
ing local impacts, which is a latent reality in Brazil. The development of
the projects is conducted in a top-down manner. Local assemblies and
even international agreements (such as the Convention No. 169 of the
International Labor Organization, which provides for consultation with
native peoples on projects that impact them) are lacking studies of nec-
essary impacts (BRASIL, 2011). The construction of the Binational Bridge
between Oiapoque and Saint-Georges-de-l’Oyapock did not escape the
top-down model decided between Brasilia and Paris without working
with local populations, at least on the Brazilian side. Thus, we consid-
er important to understand the social representations of a project with
strong symbolic appeal on the part of a group that will be directly affect-
ed by the Bridge operation, which is the case of the boat (catraias) driv-
ers currently responsible for logistics between Brazil and French Guiana.
From now on, we will call them only catraieiros.
Social representation and its use as a research

method
The predominant approaches of the International Relations did
not heavily use the social psychology framework in their analyses. The
States, actors and central objects of the traditional analyses, were tar-
gets of the instruments from other theoretical currents. For Durkheim:
“What collective representations translate is the way in which the group
conceive its relations with the objects that affect it” (DURKHEIM, 1987, p.
17). However, the strengthening of constructivist theories in Internation-
al Relations from the 1990s allowed that the views on groups other than
the States composed an important corpus and their representations, vi-
sions, and speeches became an important material for understanding the
processes prompted in international relations. Moscovici’s work is com-
104
posed of dozens of studies that developed the theory of social represen-
tations and the book La psychanalyse, son image et son public (1961) was
a milestone in the French constructivist psychosocial school. We affirm
that the concepts and research methodology are important in this text.
According to Moscovici, social representations make the world
what we think it is or should be. Social groups are established based on
their own ideas, history, social role, and rules. These are the elements
that construct the identity that distinguish them from other groups of
the societies they are inserted. Among the catalysts in the formation of
a social group, or local actors as we often use in this text, the work de-
veloped by a group can be its forming element. The developed work or
craft places a group in a role in its society, in a social class that establishes
access and limits on consumption, ascension, or importance in its place.
Araújo (2008) highlights that:
When the elements of collective identity are questioned or
underestimated, a new process begins: the emergence of so-
cial representations. For Moscovici (1961), social representa-
tions are the group’s response to external interventions that
endanger its collective identity, that is, the way the group
sees itself and wants to be seen by others. (ARAÚJO, 2008,
p.100, free translation)
This means that social groups conform a set of information about

the reality they are inserted. To Moscovici:
Social representation is an organized corpus of knowledge
and one of the psychical activities that allow human beings
to make physical and social reality intelligible, to insert
themselves into groups or day-to-day relations of exchange
and to free the powers of their imagination. (MOSCOVICI,
1961, p. 28)
Other authors also used social representations as a theoretical and

methodological basis for their study. According to Denise Jodelet, social
representation, “is a form of knowledge, socially elaborated and shared,
with a practical objective, and that contributes to the construction of a
105
common reality to a social group” (JODELET, 1993, p. 53, free transla-
tion). Therefore, we need to understand the relationships between, on
the one hand, the conditions of production and circulation of social rep-
resentations (such as culture, language, and society) and, on the other
hand, the epistemological status of social representations (value of truth,
representations and real, and value of reality). To illustrate this concept,
we can observe the detailed analysis performed in the chart “Study spaces
in social representations” that summarizes the process of building rep-
resentations between the subject and the object. It is important to note
that an ideal model is accepted, in the Weberian sense understood in
social sciences.
Chart 01: Social Representations
Source: JODELET, 1993, p. 60
In this same line of thought, Wachelke and Camargo indicate

that: “a representation is not a reliable copy of some object existing in
the objective reality, but a collective construction in which the group’s
knowledge structures re-create the object based on already existing rep-
resentations, replacing it” (WACHELKE & CAMARGO, 2007, p. 380, free
translation). Since it is not a reliable copy, it means that a noise happens
between perceptions of reality. A difference between scientific knowl-
edge and common sense, hegemonic knowledge and common sense. The
106
decision to build a bridge between two territories as a project for regional
approximation by two States, a project that can strengthen economy and
interactions in general between territories, is a hegemonic perception.
Such perception is not necessarily shared by other groups that are af-
fected by the given project. A common sense that can be constructed in
the perspective of a group about this object (the bridge). Therefore, it is
important to realize that the process of capturing this common sense is
done through the theory of social representation, in which qualitative
interviews are considered to be something fundamental. It was from this
theoretical basis that part of the field research study was conducted with
the catraeiros.
Social representations of catraieiros on the

Binational Bridge
Céline Crété in “Piroguiers, Flux et Structuration de l’espace: les
piroguiers de l’Oyapock et le pont Binational” (2015), made a study on the
dynamics of the catraieiros. As we can see in the images below, the data
collected show that the crossing between Oiapoque and Saint George is
mostly performed by catraieiros, representing the main transport, 80%
of the total logistics. Most passengers travel between Oiapoque, Saint
George and Vila Vitória. A predominant local dynamic.
Graph 01: Type of boat and number of routes
107
Graph 02: place of residence of catraia users
The data collected by Crété (2015) shows that the majority of users
frequently use the catraia. In the dynamics of the three cities (Oiapoque,
Saint George and Vila Vitória) more than six thousand trips are made.
An expressive number when comparing with the population density of
these cities. As we can see in the image below, another important piece of
information is about the change of the traveling habits after the opening
of the bridge. Most users will use the catraias more often and the reasons
are linked to cost, agility, and comfort.
Graph 03: User frequency of use
108
Graph 04: User habit change after the opening of the bridge
Our research consisted of a few fieldwork missions. The first ones

were focused on getting closer to the catraieiros and the last ones on
the application of the semi-structured questionnaire. The number of
catraieiros is not exactly accurate as the profession is highly informal.
According to one of the presidents of one of the catraieiros associations,
there are approximately 140 catraieiros divided into eight associations.
Fifty interviews were conducted with workers from all associations, with-
out the concern for an equitable distribution of interviews by cooperative
associations. An expressive number in relation to the amount of the total
catraieiros population. The questionnaire sought the following informa-
tion:
-Time of activity as a catraieiro;
-Number of people in the household who depend on the income from that
work;
-The meaning of the bridge for the catraieiro;
-The meaning of the profession;
-The relationship of the bridge with the development of the city of
Oiapoque;
-The popular consultation process;
-The bridge’s impact on the development of Oiapoque;
109
-The relationship of the bridge in the interactions between French Guiana
and Brazil;
-Changes in local dynamics after the construction of the bridge;
-Future perspectives after the opening of the bridge.
The profession of catraieiro is very old and important in the region

as it represents the great part of the transport between the two countries.
48% of respondents have worked for more than 10 years and 28% of them
between 7-10 years. The number of people who depend on the income of
each catraieiro is also expressive. Families composed of 6-8 people are
64% of respondents and families composed of 3-4 people represent 26%
as we can see in the tables below.
Table 01: Working time in the profession
Working Time: Number of catraieiros in months and years
More than
1 to 2 3 to 4 5 to 6 7 to 8 9 to 10
10 years
MONTHS 1 1 2 0 0 0
YEARS 5 1 3 6 8 24
Source: Own elaboration
Table 2: Number of people who depend on the catraieiro’s income

People who depend on the catraieiro’s income
More than
AVERAGE 1 to 2 3 to 4 5 to 6 7 to 8 9 to 10
10
Number of
PEOPLE 1 13 23 9 3 1
(50)
Of the most expressive data is the meaning of the bridge. At that

moment, the representation of the project prepared by the national au-
thorities show an inversion of representation. The responses that con-
nected the meaning of the bridge to negative elements, threats to the
existence of their professions meant 76% of respondents and only 8%
110
saw the bridge as an opportunity. In the responses that connected the
bridge to the idea of opportunity, the catraeira population clearly for-
mulated the connection of opportunity for the development of the city
of Oiapoque.
Graph 05: Meaning of the Binational Bridge for the catraeiros
In the question: “Is the Binational Bridge important for Oiapo-

que?”, about 60% of the interviewed catraieiros consider that it is not
important and 26% that it is important. A part of those who answered
negatively to this question justified their answer by saying the location
of the bridge that allows the exit and entry of the flow of cars to hap-
pen without passing through the city center. Thus, little movement in
local trade may exist. Another data from the answers to this question is
the affirmation of the unilateral nature of the advantages in favor of the
French. The perception of the bridge as a one-way benefit had the speech
concentrated on the idea of the struggle of Brazilian people and vehi-
cles transit because of the laws and necessary visas (SILVA et al., 2019).
In addition to the struggles of entry for Brazilians, another frequently
mentioned element was precisely the idea of unequal treatment, as the
111
French do not need a visa. Therefore, the representation of unilateralism
was frequently reinforced.
Graph 06: Importance of the Binational Bridge for catraieros
Regarding the impact of the Binational Bridge on local develop-

ment, we divided the responses between positive impacts, negative
impacts, no impact and do not know. 10% of the respondents did not
know how to answer and 36% answered that they did not comprehend
any impact of the bridge for the development of Oiapoque. Another
36% believed that the bridge would have a negative impact. The follow-
ing relations of the bridge are extracted in this last extract: to destroy
the catraieiros; impediment of work; impaired catraeiros; end of their
work; death of Oiapoque; relatives of catraieiros without income; end
of Oiapoque; decrease of passenger demand; unprepared city; Oiapoque
has no structure; people will go to Macapá. The positive impacts of the
Bridge for the municipality of Oiapoque, in turn, accounted for 18% of
the responses. These impacts linked the bridge to the following ideas:
improvements for some sectors (except for the catraieiro); benefits; im-
prove tourism; good for trade; development.
112
Graph 07: Impact of the bridge on local development
The interview with Mr. Luiz Antônio Lobato da Silva, former pres-
ident of the Cooperative for Tourism (COPTUR) and current president
of ACMO, was conducted following the same script of questions. Luiz,
known as “Ratinho”, was an important figure in the construction of as-
sociations and cooperatives and a protagonist in protest actions. To Rat-
inho, “we (the catraieiros) represented Brazil on the other side (Saint
George)”. The catraieiro also states that “we bring the strength of Guyana
to Oiapoque” in reference to the trade that they enable due to the trans-
port. Their perception of changes from the bridge also reveals the daily
impact. According to Ratinho, “before the construction of the bridge we
walked (in Saint George) as if we were here (Oiapoque)”. After the con-
struction, according to the catraieiro, policing became overt. The most
conflicting moment of this policing that prevented the circulation of
Brazilians without visas and, consequently, compromised the work of the
catraieiros happened in January 2012. During this period, a series of pro-
tests resulted in arrests and even the death of a catraeiro in an accident
on the movements. A direct representation of the bridge with the French
control of a peaceful relationship.
113
Final Considerations
The meaning of a bridge shows the possibility of positive represen-
tations when it comes to a project between States. However, the design
and development formats of the integrating projects can impact the rep-
resentations of other affected actors. This occurs mainly when there is an
absence of popular consultation, impact studies, and the construction of
policies to minimize them. The history of the Binational Bridge is filled
with these absences. In the relationship between Subject (Catraieiros) -
Representation - Object (Binational Bridge), the group that understood
itself as responsible for the interlocution between two cities separated by
a river shows, according to our data, a negative and threatening represen-
tation of Bridge. As we mentioned, a representation is not a reliable copy
of an existing object in objective reality, but a collective construction in
which the group’s knowledge structures re-create the object.
The bridge is recreated with negative meanings and inequality. This
last element, connected to the lack of reciprocity in visas and circulation
of cars and in the possibility of the dynamics of the bridge “skipping”
Oiapoque. The percentage of perceptions that we raised in our interviews
with catraieiros about the bridge indicates a construction of collective
representation of an object that affects them. This object is the result of a
policy between States in a region where the national and the internation-
al meet, where the “we” and the “others” are established by the principles
of international relations. The negative, threat or unilateral representa-
tion of the benefits of this object, an integrating project, can compromise
the construction of positive relationships in the dynamics between the
different actors that constitute the situation, local groups and States.
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116
POLITICAL ECOLOGY AT THE
FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE AND
POWER IN A TRADITIONALLY
OCCUPIED TERRITORY: THE
KNOW-HOW OF COCONUT
BREAKERS IN THE AMAZON
Jodival Mauricio da Costa
Joaquim Shiraishi Neto
Izabela de Nazaré Tavares de Souza
Introduction
W
hen treating nature as a historical issue, as a research
problem, we introduce the affirmation there is no uni-
versal history of nature, but stories and conceptions
of nature (LENOBLE, 1990). There is no history of rivers, plants, moun-
tains, animals or an orderly set of everything that forms an idea of a uni-
versal nature (PESSOA, 1993); what exists are human conceptions about
these dimensions of the natural and of nature itself as mother-earth. A
history of nature can only be thought in the human perspective, which,
even though men and women are also natures, they organize and mate-
rialize ideas. Systems of thought and action produce their relations with
117
nature and, from that, structure logics of modern-western uses (CAS-
TREE, 2006).
Based on this conception of a social nature, that it is appropriate-
ly and conceptually produced by systems of thought, economies, and
policies, historically, models of organization of life in societies have de-
veloped forms of relationship and use of nature that have enabled their
conservation or exploitation. The industrial urban model, which started
evolving in the XVIII century and was consolidated in the post-Industrial
Revolution, inaugurated a new environmental rationality, where nature
became the main material substrate of the modernity project, since this
was the source that started to support this model.
In its territorial dimension, the project of modernity expanded
with the process of colonization of peoples from other continents. In
conjunction with economic and political interests (MARTINS, 2007), a
conception of nature-resource is projected, as an externality to men and
women. The author also inserts an approach on this process of explora-
tion of lands overseas as an expansion of the European crowns’ own fron-
tiers, which was substantial for the political and economic constitution
of the modern, but also as a symbolic dimension. As such, thinking about
modernity as a frontier allows us to understand the frontier as a device,
because it is capable of eliciting, consolidating and sustaining processes
of domination, adequacy, submission, symbolic incorporation, etc. His-
torically, modernity shows that the frontier worked as an emulator device
over non-Western peoples, with an emphasis on the African continent
and Latin America.
Modernity as an environmental frontier consisted, on the one
hand, of incorporating the ecosystems available on the globe, with the
objective of building and maintaining the urban-industrial model. It also
meant the colonization of the project of modern knowledge and power
over the people who inhabit the lands that have undergone colonization
processes. Colonizing is an action of violence par excellence. Through the
colonization process, the other (as territory, people, person, culture, etc.)
118
is devoured by the colonizers and transformed into the anthropophagic
ritual of the frontier. The frontiers of western modernity that affected
spaces overseas were instituted as a knowledge and power expansion,
which inscribed new religions, new cultures, new uses of the body, and
new ideas of man, woman and nature.
This modern project, which placed society on one side and nature
on the other, needed to expand on world ecosystems. The goal was cen-
tered. It was about feeding the project of modernity in the constitution of
this urban-industrial society. This project, from the XVIII century to the
mid-XX century, produced an appropriation of nature based on the idea
of nature-resource, under the discourse of progress – in the sense that all
peoples would reach this stage.
In this perspective of exploring a “nature-world” that would lead
to development for all, the modernity project also did not materialize,
producing as reflexivity the idea of “environmental crisis” as a crisis of
modernity, according to Ulrich Beck’s thesis (2011). What we conceive
as “nature-world” is the constitution of a universal idea of nature, which
served both for the appropriation-exploitation of resources, and for the
construction of knowledge-power over all ecosystems on the planet1. It
constituted, and still constitutes, an “environmental anthropophagy”,
because by the strategy of invisibility, it transformed the diverse natures
in an idea of modernized universal nature, whose greatest expression is
the urban-industrial model. As such, the thesis that modernity left us the
legacy of the anthropocene does not seem absurd, since the characteris-
tic of this urban-industrial society was present.
For Leff (2006, 2016), the modernity project that produces this
nature-world starts to be more vehemently contested from the second
half of the XX century, with the emergence of activist movements and re-
searchers in the environmental field. Therefore, political ecology evolves
1 We recommend the text by Fernando Coronil (2016), which updates the reflections on this idea of
“nature – world” in the contexts of Latin American countries.
119
as a scientific field that opposes the coloniality of knowledge and power
that has advanced over non-Western territories.
Regarding this that we bring the necessity to look at the Amazoni-
an territorial collectives that have developed forms of relationship with
the use of the elements of nature in a sustainable way, such as the ba-
bassu coconut breakers that are organized around a movement in the
Amazon, study of case referring to our discussion of the role of Political
Ecology in the decoloniality of knowledge and power in babassu forests.
Thus, once we conceive the existence of an idea of nature-world
instituted in the constitution of modernity, this conception of nature was
fundamental for the legitimization of the processes of economic appro-
priation, the formulation of the idea of politics and the construction of
the symbolic on natural resources, and also on the thought systems al-
ready existing in the colonized territories, in which the Brazilian Amazon
is inserted.
As such, considering that the system of thought that gave the sci-
entific and philosophical framework to the project of modernity was en-
lightenment, its reflection in the environmental field was due to the re-
ductionism, fragmentation, and simplification of the complex (CAPRA,
1982). Nature, which is multidimensional, multi-conceived, and complex,
in the economic field undergoes the process of reducing the materiality
of the resource and its function in urban-industrial society; in the field
of knowledge, it becomes the main metaphor of the mechanistic world
that is configured in the field of the enlightenment philosophy (COSTA;
RICHETTI, 2011; CAPRA, 1982).
In this aspect, when we propose to look at nature in the Amazon
based on Political Ecology, our goal is to bring decoloniality to the debate,
the concepts of the pluriverse instead of the universal, the multi-con-
ception of nature instead of nature-world, the multidimension of the
regional, the knowledge dialogue, and not only the conception of tradi-
tional academic science as the only valid form of knowledge.
120
Political Ecology, frontiers of modernity to
the limits of nature-world in the Amazon
The modern has acquired a polysemy of meanings in the academic
environment and in the social imagination. Latour (1994, p. 15), writes
that “modernity comes in as many versions as there are thinkers or jour-
nalists. yet all its definitions point, in one way or another, to the pas-
sage of time. The idea of time marks the constitution of what is new and
modern and, therefore, accepted as an evolution in the project of human
emancipation from its natural characteristics, considered wild and back-
ward. Thus, the modern constitution inaugurates a new statute for the
social, where science and technology offer cultural extensions to leave
what is considered a state of barbarism.
Through the modern adjective, we signal a new regime,
an acceleration, a rupture, a revolution of time. When the
words “modern”, “modernization” and “modernity” appear,
we define, by contrast, an archaic and stable past. In addi-
tion, the word is always placed in the middle of a controver-
sy, in a fight where there are winners and losers, the Ancients
and the Moderns. “Modern”, is thus doubly asymmetrical: it
designates a break in the regular passage of time, and it des-
ignates a combat in which there are victors and vanquished.
(LATOUR, 1994, p. 15).
Also as a project for the emancipation of “man”, modernity consti-

tutes a double asymmetry. Firstly, it marks a rupture between the natural
and the social, expelling the human from nature, a sine qua non condi-
tion to leave the state of savagery. And, as a consequence of the first, it
also institutes ruptures between humans, whose parameter was West-
ern society itself, which is considered evolved. As such, the expansion of
knowledge developed in the West, the institutional structures of ratio-
nality formulated within the scope of the Modern European State (WE-
BER, 2004) and Western culture on colonized peoples were fundamental
in the constitution of the coloniality of knowledge and power.
121
By decoloniality we conceive the processes of knowledge and living
that have been developed and are developing in an absolutely different
way from the knowledge and power coloniality of instrumental moderni-
ty. The “local models of nature”, described by Escobar (2016), express this
sense of living and doing that we attribute to Amazonian communities.
With this we infer that the colonization project in Latin America,
in which the Amazon is inserted, was not only of a political and economic
nature. The project meant a process of institutionalized governmental-
ization over the centuries. By governmentality, we understand a system
of bureaucratization of State actions that focuses on the ways of doing
and thinking of a population, which produces a space for the exercise
of state power and systematization of a thought structure disseminated
by a power that is horizontalized and reproduced in institutions and for
institutions, but also by individuals, for the maintenance and defense of
ways of thinking and acting in societies organized for this purpose (FOU-
CAULT, 2008).
Foucalt’s conception of power is a contribution to the understand-
ing of coloniality because it removes the power of a hierarchical exclu-
sivity: that its exercise does not depend only on the power control of the
State and economic powers, but also on its ramification in the spaces
of social experiences institutionalized, which are systems of discipline,
action, and the symbolic. Thus, power is a device for the organization of
social relations fed by institutions, that moves at the heart of the popu-
lation itself, which feeds and is fed by it, power is part of everyday life.
Therefore, understanding coloniality and decoloniality, goes through
this understanding of power as multidimensional.
Hence, we understand that the modern heritage of colonized peo-
ples was coloniality itself. For Memmi (2007), colonization was not the
exclusive work of the great colonizer, conceived as the European destined
to be an entrepreneurial leader of the colonial company. Colonizing was
only possible as a systemic project, which involved since the great figure
of the major-colonizer, passing by the employees of the colonies (mostly
122
also European) and, also, by the colonized itself. The latter, even though
it dis not an oppressive element in the colonization process, was also
fundamental because it incorporated and disseminated habits, ideas,
mechanisms, continuing the project. Therefore, coloniality is the consol-
idation and continuity of the colonial system that was instituted in the
project of modernity, hence “because it is not only an immense, but ur-
gent task to decolonize the Eurocentric order of knowledge” (KILOMBA,
2019, p. 53, free translation).
The decolonization process also involves science, since the scientif-
ic discourse is one that continues to give the true status to knowledge and
power established by modernity.
Any form of knowledge that does not fall within the Euro-
centric order has been continually rejected, on the grounds
that it is not a credible science. Science is not, thus, a simple
apolitical study of the truth, but the reproduction of racial
relations of power that dictate what must be considered
true and in whom to believe. (KILOMBA, 2019, p. 55-56, free
translation).
But the modern did not develop in a linear way in history. Haber-
mas (2000) writes that modernity is an unfinished project. The author
identifies periods in which the modern appears and invades as an event,
a project that operates through discontinuity. To say that modernity is
discontinuous means that it feeds on the new and on the reinvention of
the old or the forgotten. An example is how, until today, the invention
that the peripheral remains as a territory of constant realization of the
old. But it is also characteristic of modernity to produce expectations,
because through them the logics of attachment to the world-system are
maintained. Thus, Habermas infers a fundamental question, that mo-
dernity adapts to historical contexts and events
Habermas (2000), identifies three important devices that served
for the expansion of the modern project outside the West: progress, de-
velopment, and modernization. Progress institutes the project of unlim-
ited things: unlimited knowledge, unlimited economic growth, emanci-
123
pation from human body limitations, and it also means the election of a
society model to be achieved. The history of the first two hundred years
after enlightenment can be defined by the expansion of this project in the
world. This world-system also produces the conception and operation-
alization of a world-nature, which mainly serves a process of insourcing
of the economy in the non-Western world. The last two, modernization
and development, started to operate together from the second half of the
XX century. Therefore, we affirm that these two devices, especially devel-
opment, replace progress as a discourse for the expansion of the modern
form-content. Habermas defines modernization as:
The modernization concept refers to a set of cumulative
and mutually reinforcing processes: capital formation and
resource mobilization; the development of productive forc-
es and the increase in labor productivity; the establishment
of centralized political power and the formation of national
identities (HABERMAS, 2000, p. 05, free translation).
Nevertheless, we do not intend to turn this issue into a North vs.

South conflict (or the West against the rest). We understand that this
geographic opposition is not sustained, as it is enough to look at the Chi-
nese example that currently prints the expansion of its activities in the
world, including using the modernization discourse. And, also, because
the modernization served internal projects, of the State and of the Brazil-
ian businessmen. In the Amazon, this process started in the second half
of the XX century, with the integration and modernization projects in
the territory. From there, the region undergoes a double insertion: to the
national territory and to the world-system, through the following strat-
egies: a) the process of occupation of the Amazon, from the second half
of the XX century, occurs, as it has already been widely discussed in aca-
demic literature for the implementation of big mining, agribusiness and
strategic infrastructure projects (ports, roads, hydroelectric). Thus, we
have the implantation of a technical apparatus (BECKER, 1982; MELLO,
2002). b) The creation of an institutional apparatus to support the occu-
124
pation: Superintendência de Desenvolvimento da Amazônia - SUDAM
(development agency) – Banco da Amazônia - BASA - development agen-
cy (whose emergence suppress the regional bank) – Instituto Nacional de
Colonização e Reforma Agrária - INCRA (soil regulation agency).
In that first moment, the forest and everything that lived on it,
appeared as obstacles to modernization and development. Therefore,
capital production from the Amazon would come from underground,
with mineral resources; from the soil, with agribusiness projects; and
the forest, with timber forest products. This process has three signifi-
cant inseparable consequences: the first is the environmental impact it
caused (MELLO, 2002), the second is the generation of conflicts between
this process of modernizing the territory and the local economy (POR-
TO-GONÇALVES, 2018) and the third is the insourcing of the economy
based on the implementation of big projects. There is only one economy
here about the forest - because it has no relationship with the forest sys-
tem, with the human and with the non-human that inhabits it, only the
exploitation of resources.
This modernization process was precisely what led Bertha Becker
to formulate her idea of the techno-ecological vector. To this vector pro-
posed by Bertha Becker, we speak of the importance of another vector:
the socio-environmental one. This vector considers that biodiversity is
not a biological concept, but a cultural one. The spaces where the bio-
diversity exists are cultural-environmental territories, where everything
in it, human and non-human, forms a history of that territory that is
hybrid of nature and culture. In other words, biodiversity is the result of
a conservation process that culture has developed with the environment,
where the environmental component of biodiversity is immersed in the
daily lives of the people who live there and in the economy of their rela-
tionships.
Thus, Nature and the environment are knowledge. What nature
is and how it relates to the environment finds meaning in the organi-
zation of thought systems, cultural systems, and economic systems, in-
125
separably. We consider knowledge because it is constructed historically
knowledge and it becomes the means by which people materialize their
environmental values in a territory. This is the basis used by Enrique Leff
for the idea of an eco-collective society (LEFF, 2006). As such, the socio-
ecological vector would combine the conditions to value and recognize
other possibilities for the use of nature and environmental conservation
through ecosystem services as alternatives to the current development in
Amazon, such as the environmental know-how of the coconut breakers,
which will be addressed in the latter part of that work.
Ecosystemic is understood to be that action that, when using
nature’s material substrates for human life, does not com-
promise the optimal performance of the system in which the
resources, people and other living beings are inserted. In this
concept, an ecosystemic service does not work in the oppo-
site direction of environmental dynamics, it uses environ-
mental properties as a material basis for the maintenance of
all existing life forms (COSTA, CUNHA and LIRA, 2019, p.
07, free translation).
From the perspective of the socioecological vector, an economy in

the forest has visibility and value - characterized by the relation between
ways of life and use of forest products with environmental conservation
and that is also capable of generating value beyond collective represen-
tations, because these peoples also have the possibility to exploit these
resources sustainably and establish a relationship with the respective
production chains.
That said, Political Ecology is the form of knowledge that seeks
to study and understand the strategies of knowledge and power of this
coloniality and proposes alternatives for thinking about other forms of
social organization, other ways of relating to nature, other worlds that,
although existent for a long time, their existences were denied because
they were, throughout history, being measured only by the constitution
of western modernity. This is not a denial of modernity, nor is it the scien-
tific and cultural knowledge that was consolidated in this period. It is also
126
not a question of denying the importance of studies on Nature (ACOSTA,
2016). What studies from the perspective of decoloniality propose is the
study of modernity and the construction of decolonial criticism.
The emergence of Political Ecology and the critique of the mod-
ern was only possible because the modern itself had a crisis. And nature
appears as the “Achilles heel” of modernity. The environmental crisis is
the modern crisis itself, because it questions the limits of the separa-
tion between the social and the natural, between what is considered new
and modern and what is said to be archaic and backward, between the
urban-industrial model and the capacity for its maintenance by current
productive matrices. For Leff (2016), Political Ecology appears as a new
social criticism in view of the limits of explanation of the environmen-
tal crisis by the social sciences at that time, and defines “its field within
the social conflict and the power strategies that cross the processes of
ecological and social distribution in the construction of environmental
sustainability” (LEFF, 2016, p. 219, free translation).
Political ecology thus takes place in a theoretical-episte-
mological-disciplinary field and is manifested in a political
territory: the one of struggles for the – conceptual and prac-
tical – reappropriation of nature. Environmental struggles
are territorial struggles. The field of political ecology is es-
tablished in processes of territorialization in which strate-
gies, practices, and political-social-cultural processes are
developed in the social reappropriation of nature. Political
ecology therefore explores the power relations between so-
ciety and nature that have penetrated the spaces of social in-
terest, the institutional orders instituted in modernity, the
modes of knowledge and production, the imaginary that are
interwoven in people’s worlds of life (LEFF, 2016, p. 220, free
translation).
From the perspective of political ecology, we studied the Amazon

region from the perspective of valuation disputes. At the heart of distri-
butional ecological conflicts are ways of seeing and being in communities
that when living in a given territory, have built, with nature, a systemic
127
relationship of reciprocity, founded on a know-how that does not pro-
mote the split between humans and non-humans, both are nature. The
notion of “bien viver” or “vivir bien”, which are expressed in the consti-
tutions of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009), provides for the funda-
mentals of respect for peoples’ ways of life and, in this way, builds a new
coexistence status.
In Ecuador, “buen vivir” is manifested by the harmony between
human beings individually and collectively, as well as the conservation
relationship with nature, which is seen as a subject of rights; it considers
the economy as solidarity and sovereignty of the peoples that inhabit dif-
ferent universes as forms of life (ACOSTA, 2016). These peoples, through
their ways of life, also develop ecosystem services, understood as forms
of environmental relationship that do not jeopardize the balance of eco-
systems (COSTA; CUNHA; LIRA, 2019), recovering the idea of resource2.
In this dispute, the interests of the State and of actors, such as large
companies, conflict with the ways of life of local communities: commu-
nities that manage non-timber forest products (COSTA; CUNHA; LIRA
2019). Thus, we start from the assumption that environmental issues in-
volving the Amazon and the discourses of its conservation by the State
and companies are directly related to the construction of a discourse of
institutionalized valuation as governmentality through the coloniality of
knowledge and power, which disregards and disqualifies the ways of life
built in the region as “alternatives to development” and nature conserva-
tion.
In the words of anthropologist Arturo Escobar: “The struggles of
these peoples can be interpreted as contributions to the ecological and
cultural transition to a world where many worlds fit, that is, the pluriv-
erse” (ESCOBAR, 2014, p. 19, free translation). The pluriverse is a propos-
2 It is worth recovering Vandana Shiva’s discussions about the meaning of resources. For her, the
word “[...] is the Latin verb, suggests, which evoked the image of a spring that continually rises from
the ground... The concept thus highlighted nature’s power of self – regeneration and called attention
to its prodigious creativity. Moreover, it implied na ancient idea about relationship between humans
and nature – that the Earth gifts on humans who, in turn, are well advised to show diligence in order
not to suffocate her generosity.” (SHIVA, 2005, p. 206).
128
al to overcome development as a universal project for organizing life and
the territories where people live, it brings a plurality of ways of seeing,
doing, and being in the world. These are questions that place us in face of
the necessity to reposition the being in the cultural and environmental
territories of life (LEFF, 2016).
In this aspect, the notion of an epistemic alternative means build-
ing other concepts and other world-ontologies resulting from the dia-
logue of knowledge. The struggle of the coconut breakers is, for example,
an empirical reference to these processes that denote the plurality of ways
of living in the world. These disputes were constituted as distributive
ecological conflicts (MARTINEZ-ALIER, 2007). By distributive ecological
conflicts we conceive those that involve processes of appropriation and
reappropriation of natural resources, their management, their ordering,
and their spatial distribution.
Political ecology is interested in studying territorial issues, where
we highlight the relationship that traditional peoples and communities
have built and maintain with nature, in the sense of alternative ways of
living to the projects of modern rationality that institute a pattern of
development in the urban-industrial model (LEFF, 2006; LEFF, 2016;
CASTRO-GOMEZ; GROSFOGUEL, 2007). The action of actors, such as
States and companies on natural resources and ecosystems, is also a field
of study of political ecology, when these involve conflicts in the face of
their distribution, intervention, ordering, conservation, etc. In relation
to thinking about political ecology and development, it is assumed that
distributive ecological conflicts can manifest alternatives to the develop-
ment of modern instrumental rational cut, with a Gross Domestic Prod-
uct and Income pattern (LEFF, 2006; ESCOBAR, 2014).
Therefore, political ecology is inscribed as the field that challenges
the frontiers of modernity in the constitution of nature-world, it irrupts
with new epistemologies and new ontologies of being in the constitu-
tion, organization, and preservation of the territories of life.
129
The Struggle of Coconut Breakers: know-how
and decolonial practices
In the last decades, the Movimento Interestadual das Quebradei-
ras de Coco Babaçu (MIQCB - Interstate Movement of the Coco Babaçu
Breakers)3 has been invited to sign “partnerships” and “contracts” with
organizations, companies and the State itself, to have greater protection
of the environment, more specifically of babassu forests that extend from
the northeast of the state of Piauí, crossing Maranhão and north of To-
cantins to the southeast of the state of Pará.
Recent episodes involving discussions around the “REED+ policy”4
or even the “benefit-sharing contracts” for access to traditional knowl-
edge associated with biodiversity5, for example, are situations that reveal
the MIQCB’s difficulties in dealing with these environmental protection
discussions, which involve an economical way of dealing with nature.
This way of dealing with nature denies what has traditionally been
experienced by coconut breakers over the decades, as it refers to a uni-
versal idea of nature - considered as only a good or an environmental
service, that of the “nature-world” available to society, as we mentioned
at the beginning of the article6.
In this context, the universal constitution of nature has served
both for the appropriation, exploitation, and plundering of natural re-
3 MIQCB has been organizing itself since the late 1980s in the region of babassu forests. The mo-
vement is composed only of women, who started to organize themselves in the face of conflicts in-
volving the appropriation and use of babassu forests, as well as the non-institutionalization of their
fighting agendas by rural workers’ unions, mostly men. Regarding the organization of the MIQCB,
we suggest Almeida (1995).
4 REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is a set of economic incen-
tives, especially services, with the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from
deforestation and forest degradation. The idea is to include in the accounting for greenhouse gas
emissions those that are avoided by reducing deforestation and degradation. Regarding this, we
recommend the booklet prepared by the Management and Strategic Affairs Center entitled REDD
in Brazil (2011).
5 Organizations linked to the MIQCB have signed benefit sharing agreements with access to the
babassu mesocarp with the cosmetic company Natura.
6 Recent study by Shiraishi Neto shows the right role in building a universal idea of nature. The
“legal homogenization” dictated by the globalization of American law attributes a single content to
nature, as an object, in line with its economic utility (SHIRAISHI NETO, 2017).
130
sources, as well as for the construction of a knowledge-power over all the
ecosystems of the planet, although it prevents and neutralizes any other
forms of know-how, as these are considered primitive or even backward
due to the development model established in the Amazon region due to
the expansion of capital.
Despite this discourse content of universal pretension, it is em-
phasized: characterized by the coloniality of knowledge and power, it
is worth remembering that in different spaces of the Amazon region,
whether in urban or rural areas, we observe this intrinsic relationship
between know-how involve “epistemic alternatives”, such as that of the
residents of the Maracanã community, in the municipality of São Luís,
MA, who live on the juçara economy. For juçara pickers: “Seeing, touch-
ing, and tasting, as has been observed on some occasions, are acts that go
through a long period of learning.” (SHIRAISHI NETO, et al., 2018. p.107,
free translation).
The extractive practices of babassu coconut breakers, as well as
that of other social groups in the Amazon, such as the rubber tappers,
who organized the “draws” to prevent the cutting down of rubber trees
in rubber plantations, were fighting strategies used to keep the rubber
forests existing. According to Candido Grzybowski
[...] “the draws are made through joint efforts by the rub-
ber tappers. As the rubber tappers become aware that they
have companions threatened by deforestation, that an area
is threatened by the deforestation of farmers, several com-
munities come together, especially the affected communi-
ty, assemblies are organized in the middle of the forest and
leadership is decided, resistance groups that will stand in
front of scythes and chainsaws in a peaceful but organized
way. They try to convince the blue-collars, who are at the
service of the farmers, to retreat.” (GRZYBOWSKI, 1989, p.
38, free translation)7.
7 In some regions where the MIQCB operates, leaders of the movement also describe ways to pre-
vent the felling of babassu palms, which are similar to the draws made by rubber tappers. When
women and their families became aware of the felling of palm trees, they soon went to the places to
prevent them in an organized and peaceful way (SHIRAISHI NETO, 2017a).
131
More than a simple strategy, this way of fighting of the families,
embracing the rubber trees, reveals the senses and meanings attributed
to nature by rubber tappers and breakers. For coconut breakers, palm
trees resemble their mothers and as mothers they deserve all kinds of
care and respect. Apparently, an imbricated relationship between these
women and the babassu palm trees exist.
In the case of babassu coconut breakers, the MIQCB was organized
around two traditionally lived ideals: the preservation of babassu for-
ests, of mothers, and the guarantee of free access and common use of
palm trees8, situations that pre-exist to the processes of fences and ap-
propriation of land, conducted from the 1960s, in Maranhão, when Law
No.2.979, of July 1969 (called Lei de Terras do Sarney), which made the
State’s vacant lands occupied by families of coconut breakers available to
agricultural and livestock companies (ALMEIDA; MOURÃO, 1979).
These two ideals are intrinsically linked to the ways of making,
creating and living of babassu coconut breakers and their families, be-
ing represented by the movement in the expression “free babassu”. The
modes of common use of babassu palms express ways of representing
and appropriating nature that are completely different from colonial
projects, which have always promoted the plundering of natural resourc-
es in peripheral countries to serve their economic interests.9
When a bunch of coconut comes off the babassu palm and falls to
the ground, it is a sign that the coconuts are ready, perfectly ripe, suitable
for the fruits to be extracted (the almonds and the mesocarp), which are
used for making different products (oil, soap, medicines, sweets... ). That
woman who sees the fallen bunch, gathers the coconuts, which can be
8 Over the decades, several legal instruments have been discussed, proposed, and implemented by
the movement to guarantee free access and common use of babassu forests, among which, we hi-
ghlight, the projeto de assentamento extrativista (PAEX - extractive settlement project), the reserva
extrativista (RESEX - extractive reserve), the servitude of babassu forests and the laws of “free baba-
çu”. About RESEX and “free babassu laws”, we suggest consulting (SHIRAISHI NETO, 2017a; 2006).
9 The recent strategies adopted by the empire for plundering nature reveal a hidden face of the
current processes experienced in South America, such as the coups in Brazil and Bolivia. About the
imperial interests of the USA in Bolivia’s lithium reserve, it is worth reading the text by the sociolo-
gist Atílio Boron (2020) published on Luís Nassif’s blog.
132
taken at that moment or not, depending on their availability. Each coco-
nut breaker collects enough to guarantee the reproduction needs of your
family, there is no concern here in saving to accumulate.
The coconuts gathered in the place, stay there, waiting until the
breaker returns to take them to their home or somewhere where the co-
conut break is being conducted, usually, with the help of other women,
these are called adjuncts or joint efforts. Breaking activities are always
conducted together, this serves to strengthen the bonds and relation-
ships between women and families who spend the day together, singing,
talking, and working.
There is a whole set of senses and meanings related to the fact that
palm trees are considered as “mothers”10, the mother is the most precious
thing in life, deserving all the care, affection, and respect. The mother
also provides to all children indistinctly, without any distinction between
them. There is a concern in sharing the fruits in an isonomic way so that
everyone can serve themselves and not experience deprivation.
Waiting for the bunch that comes off the palm until it falls to the
ground reveals another dimension of the relationship of women with ba-
bassu palms, a deep respect for the cycles of life, violated in contexts of
scarcity of the resource11. This is related to the notions of reciprocity and
care for nature, which is not felt and represented as outside of the life
of coconut breakers. Coconut breakers and babassu palm trees are not
separated, apart, as we hear from several women who go to the forest.
In fact, this same way of living life is very similar to those experienced in
other contexts in South America. Nature as a subject of law and the “bien
vivir” and “vivir bien” provided in the legal texts of Bolivia and Ecuador
10 The babassu palm as a mother is linked to Vandana Shiva’s discussions about the first idea of a
resource, the resource as a source (SHIVA, 2005).
11 In some periods, socio-environmental conflicts were observed. The notion of ecological war in
babassu forests was used to explain the conflicts surrounding the collection of babassu coconut. The
babassu coconut collectors, differently from the breakers, picked the ripe and green coconuts from
the palm trees indistinctly for the production of charcoal, which was used in the region’s low-iron
industries.
133
represent another attempt by the indigenous peoples of those countries
to express their ways of life in confrontation with colonial projects.
Final considerations
Political ecology is an epistemic alternative for criticizing moder-
nity and coloniality in Amazon. Its proposal is to value the epistemes and
ontologies of knowledge that produced the different territories present
in Latin America and Amazon. Thus, as a critique of the universal knowl-
edge of reductionist thought, of the binary formulas of interpreting the
world, the political ecology reclaims the pluriverse and the different ways
of seeing, being, and making other worlds.
The territory of babassu coconut-breaking women in the Amazon
of Maranhão represents this know-how and points to a fundamental ne-
cessity: the urgency of valuing the practices of the Amazon peoples and
the sustainability that enables the social reappropriation of nature and
the region.
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136
THE DILEMMA OF LOCAL
PARTICIPATION IN THE BRAZIL-
FRANCE CROSS-BORDER
COOPERATION (1990-2015)
Carmentilla das Chagas Martins
Iuri Cavlak
Introduction
F
rom the second half of the twentieth century, international
relations in northern South America presented a new con-
figuration, particularly regarding the Guyana region and
Brazil1. The three political entities of the Brazilian surroundings, the Co-
operative Republic of Guyana (former British colony), Suriname (former
Dutch colony) — after their independence processes—, and French Gui-
ana, entered a process of economic modernization that greatly affected
the relationship with Brasília. British Guyana achieved its independence
in 1966 and, in 1970, declared itself a Cooperative Republic, with a re-
organization of the domestic economy and a position in foreign policy
towards non-aligned countries, including Cuba and China. Suriname,
independent of Netherlands since 1975, suffered a coup military in 1980;
1 A region that joins the former colonial portions of France, Great Britain and, Holland. Guyana is
the current given to all coastal lands located between the deltas of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers
(ROMANI, 2013).
a situation that, equally directed the country towards the non-aligned
field in diplomacy and towards the socialist ideology in internal politics.
French Guiana2, after a wave of emancipation in the 1970s, was re-
configured with the administrative reform conducted in Paris in 1982,
reaching significant levels of autonomy. Nevertheless, it remained a
French overseas territory, the only one of its kind in South America. Being
involved by the French government in a policy of convergence with Bra-
zil, that was quite clear in the 1990s and accelerated in the 2000s; thereby
raising the largest space on the Brazilian international agenda in relation
to Guianas. In fact, the development of a cross-border cooperation proj-
ect between France and Brazil on the French Guiana-Amapá border, in
addition to historical interactions and political affinity, brought an eco-
nomic and cultural agenda together (MARTINS, 2014).
The reasons for that rest in France’s interest in its political and
commercial projection in South America. On the other hand, Brazil has
also found this new agenda interesting, with potential implements in
the vectors of security, trade, environmental protection, and infrastruc-
ture development. The French Guiana-Amapá border has acquired new
contours and possibilities. In general, as stated by Granger (2011), French
Guiana finally became South Americanized and Amapá entered the Eu-
ropean Union circuit3.
Considering the scope of this dossier — History and International
Relations in the Guyana Region — this article aims to discuss that the
lack of local society participation has become a contender in the develop-
ment of the Franco-Brazilian cross-border cooperation project. An argu-
ment is that the construction of this proposal did not result in a political
2 According to Silva and Granger (2016), French Guiana is one of the nine Outermost Regions
(ORs) of the European Union and has been part of the Republic of France since 1946, when it lost its
status as Cologne; in 2016 it became an overseas territorial collectivity. The authors report that de-
partments, French overseas regions and territorial communities enjoy complete legal equality with
Hexagonal France.
3 According to IBGE (2020) in 2019 the population of the city of Oiapoque had 27,270 inhabitants
and the commune of Saint-Georges de l’Oyapock had in 2017 a total population of 1,207 inhabitants
(INSEE, 2020).
138
project, as according to Dagnino (2004, p. 98, free translation), “[...] the
notion of political projects is that they are not reduced to strategies of po-
litical action in the strict sense, but they express and convey and produce
meanings that integrate broader cultural matrices”.
Therefore, adopting a local scale perspective would mean estab-
lishing a platform not only with local demands, but also recognizing
that domestic or external political processes imply ruptures that carry
continuities (HARTOG, 2014), admitting that these elements would en-
able to shape an identity of goals. In the construction of Franco-Brazilian
cross-border cooperation, socio-historical experiences of its populations
were not combined with the transformations proposed by the coopera-
tive design.
Studies by Martins (2008, 2014) and Brito, Brito and Batista (2018),
on the other hand, have already started to indicate this problem in a rele-
vant manner. Explicit signs of the failure mentioned can be found in the
Binational Bridge case, completed in June 2011 and opened twice, in 2017
and 20194; as well as in the project of the Binational University of Oia-
poque, a Franco-Brazilian partnership, whose proposition was abolished
after the economic crisis of 2008. Another unresolved issue refers to the
mobility of people on the Guyano-Amapá frontier, in international mi-
gration, smuggling and/or human trafficking or cross-border circulation,
identified in the transit of residents of the communities located on the
margins of the Oiapoque River, who sometimes sail on the Brazilian side
of the river, sometimes on the French side of the river5.
The concluded agreements were handled by the traditional means
of the State apparatus, inflating the deficit of popular participation, as
4 In 2017, the Binational bridge operated from Monday to Friday, from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and from
2:00 pm to 6:00 pm; as of August 2019, its traffic was also released on weekends and holidays with the
inclusion of the interval from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm.
5 Regarding the subject, see the text « Des migrants brésiliens entre le Brésil et la Guyane Française:
um espace social em construction ou en tension permanente dans um contexte (trans)frontalier »
de Martins, Pinto and Superti (2016). According to the International Center for Migration Policy
Development (ICMPD), between the years “[...] 2011 to 2013, the French are the people who most
visited Brazil entering the Oiapoque border. In 2013 alone, 11,138 French people entered the country”
(ICMPD, 2016, p. 104).
139
French Guiana and Amapá are far from the decision-making centers,
Paris and Brasília in this case. The political and economic elements
that structured the global rhetoric of a world without borders were not
enough to transform the French-Brazilian cross-border cooperation into
a successful project due to the non-internalization of demand by the ac-
tors at a local scale.
To develop the analysis, interviews with inhabitants (traders, civil
servants, and politicians) in the city of Oiapoque were used; as well as
the examination of statements by some French Guiana authorities. In the
collection of sources are also included some agreements between Bra-
zil and France and the minutes of the meetings of the Comissão Mista
Transfronteiriça-CTM (Joint Cross-Border Commission).
The concept of local participation is guided by Dagnino’s (2004)
premise that identifies, in the context of Brazilian democratization in the
second half of the 1980s, a shift in the political meaning of participation
as an effective sharing of decision-making power for the management
function, that is, fulfilled in the implementation and execution of public
policies.
Local participation in the design of the

Franco-Brazilian cooperation on the Guyano-
Amapaense border
In 1991 France appeared with a new position regarding its Guiana.
With the end of the Cold War, Paris understood the necessity for a cer-
tain economic and political opening and the most promising neighbor
was Brazil, which was also in the process of economic transformation
and democratic construction, after the dictatorial governments. That was
also interesting to the French for greater legal support, on the part of
Brasilia, for combating mining in French Guiana, as well as the immigra-
tion of undocumented Brazilians to French Guiana (MARTINS; PINTO;
SUPERTI, 2016). Consequently, in 1996, the new diplomacy began to ma-
terialize and regarding this, the signing of the Framework Agreement
140
for Cooperation Brazil and France stands out, which was an instrument
whereby States committed themselves to develop a cooperative relation-
ship, with the perspective of “[...] Brazil being a member of Mercosur,
and France, a member of the European Union, and both being aware of
the importance of the increasingly close dialogue that develops between
these two regional groups (BRASIL, 1997, p. 1, free translation) ”.
Among the strategies adopted to achieve cooperation, the Joint
France-Brazil Cross-Border Commission was created, composed of Bra-
zilians and French, being a dialogical dimension for the discussion of
topics of common interest to the Parties. Altogether, eleven meetings
happened between 1997 and 2019: the first in Brasília (1997), all the oth-
ers alternated between the cities of Cayenne (1999, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2016)
and Macapá (2002, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2019) (MARTINS, 2014).
Still, at the local level, the fieldwork revealed that the deficiencies
of the population of Oiapoque in relation to public policies on health,
education, employment and income, urban infrastructure, are main-
tained. Lourenço (2012) indicates that the peculiarities – infrastructural
weakness; low economic performance; new territorial dynamics due to
the intensification of the flows of people, capital, and goods – observed
in border areas that subsidize the proposal for cross-border cooperation
in the European Union. He defends that decision-making processes must
happen at a local scale, that is, that decisions must be processed in border
regions, so that their development takes place based on the local reality.
This corroborates the argument that no border integration policy
can be implemented without the participation of local actors and State
actions directed to the demands presented by these individuals. In this
context, and with this proposition, it is idealized that more important
than uniting States is uniting people. However, this is not seen in the
institutionalization of French-Brazilian border cooperation and signifi-
cant arguments show this direction: i) the visa requirement for Brazilians
to enter French Guiana, considering that in France this is waived for a
period of three months; ii) obstacles related to traffic on the Binational
141
bridge over the Oiapoque river; iii) the signing of an agreement to com-
bat illegal gold mining through “[...] the regulation and control of gold
mining and exploration activities conducted in protected areas or areas
of patrimonial interest belonging to the respective jurisdictions (BRA-
SIL, 2014a, p. 2, free translation).
The implementation of a people mobility regime was the priority
agenda of the French government and it was accepted by the Brazilian
government, however without other measures being adopted, such as,
the generation of jobs and income destined to Brazilian that were repatri-
ated from French Guiana’s clandestine mines. As a result, inspection and
surveillance operations on the Oiapoque River started to happen jointly,
which on the one hand reduced the number of cross-border offenses, on
the other hand ignored the transport system by imposing restrictions on
the traffic of boats for the transportation of cargo and passengers on the
Oiapoque River (REUNIÃO..., 2016, not paginated, free translation).
These issues can be identified in the interviews conducted in Oia-
poque, when some of the interviewees made references to the Brazilian
Army operations in their reports. The operations were aimed at combat-
ing cross-border and environmental illicit activities on the Brazilian bor-
der with French Guiana and Suriname (which is indicated by the Oiapo-
que River channel). The interlocutors expressed indignation at the fact
that the operations were in solidarity with the French government and
against the Brazilians:
[...] I am the president of the Vila Brasil residents’ associ-
ation and I am a counselor in the municipality of Oiapo-
que, I have lived in Vila Brasil for twenty-eight years, I have
a history and hope and trust in Brazil and in Brazilians who
have the power to decide. [...] Because of the mining on the
French side, the barrier of the Brazilian Army was created
and then the worst humiliations that Brazilians could en-
dure arose. The Brazilian Army were there to defend France
and humiliate the Brazilians (I 12, Councilor and President
of the Vila Brasil Residents’ Association, in an interview
granted in July 2013, free translation).
142
The issue is not a reference to the defense of illegal mining, which is
very harmful to the environment and the riverside populations, however,
it appears that the decision was between the governments of France and
Brazil, without the participation of representative segments of local so-
cieties, like the catraieiros or entrepreneurs in the river transport sector.
[...] I have a transport company, I make a line via Oiapoque,
Ilha Bela and Vila Brasil and we have a steakhouse here in
the city too, right? We have lived here in Oiapoque for eleven
years and we were very embarrassed by the Brazilian Army,
they made a barrier to inspect the Brazilians (I 9, Merchant
of the river transport sector, in an interview granted in July
Because there was a time, they cut it there, closed it [the
passage to Saint-Georges], it was the biggest fight for us to go
there, the Army, even Brazilian. He [councilman] struggled
to get it, he moved and we paid for a lawyer and that’s how
we managed to work again. (I 6, Catraieira, in an interview
granted in July 2013).
The Franco-Brazilian border cooperation that promoted Oiapo-

que-French Guiana integration did not create a community space, nor a
dialogical dimension. Recurring statements question the “[...] coopera-
tion between Saint-Georges and Oiapoque, as we do not even have a de-
fined policy. (I 5, Professor and Advisor to the municipal executive, in an
interview granted in July 2013)”. The immediate result of this is that the
population of Oiapoque feels left out of this process and resents not be-
ing even informed and not having an effective participation in the meet-
ings of the Joint Brazil-France Cooperation Committee:
Because, in fact, the information that comes here in Oiapo-
que for us, everything is delayed. In fact, as I was explaining
to you, our information never comes here, funny that we are
neighbors here, we could be informed, but we are never in-
formed as it should be. The information that leaves Guy-
ana, for example, goes directly to Macapá or Brasilia, it never
comes here. When we know, it’s all last minute, we are never
informed in the way we had to be informed (I 4, Returned
143
immigrant and Merchant of the hospitality sector, in an in-
terview granted in July 2013, free translation).
Another point that corroborates the assertion about the lack of

local participation in cross-border cooperation is the fact that in twen-
ty-four years of validity, its real manifestation is the Binational Bridge
over the Oiapoque river “[...] The biggest benefit that we received here
was during the construction of the Binational Bridge. So here is one of
the benefit factors: the bridge! But we know that it will really benefit the
French” (I 1, Communication Advisor to the Oiapoque Prefecture, in an
interview granted in July 2013, free translation).
Therefore, a close association between French-Brazilian cross-bor-
der cooperation and the Binational Bridge is observed; a fact that stems
from the local belief that the bridge will bring new opportunities in terms
of socio-economic development, without, however, having the knowl-
edge to whom the bridge will truly benefit.
According to Silva (2013), the physical integration provided by the
Binational Bridge is interesting to France because of the connection it will
establish with the Port of Santana6, which has an 11-meter draft against 3.7
from Port of Dégrad-des-Cannes, the most important in French Guiana.
Still according to this author, the entire French Guiana port infrastructure
is connected to this “[...] main trade port located a few kilometers from
Cayenne, through which almost all of its export-import agenda passes”
(SILVA, 2013, p. 165, free translation). In addition to this port, it is noted
that “French Guiana also has attached ports, but of little significance,
such as those of Kourou and Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni” (SILVA, 2013, p.
The struggles indicated demonstrate that the historical friend-
ship between Brazil and France is not enough to overcome differences.
For a better understanding, it is considered pertinent to resume some
points of the process that resulted in the bridge between Oiapoque and
6 Amapá municipality 17 km from the capital Macapá, Santana form a conurbation with Macapá
144
Saint-Georges. The bridge construction project happened in two bilateral
agreements, signed in 2001 and 2005 respectively.
In the 2005 agreement, which complements and/or confirms the
previous ones, in addition to deciding the cost division and who would be
responsible for the role of managing country (which in this case was the
Brazilian government), it was established that Brazil and France should
bear expenses related to the construction of the necessary infrastructure
for the operational use of the bridge; defining the bridge and all public
investments necessary for its use by operation area: 1) the bridge and its
safety and signaling equipment; 2) the two access roads between Oiapo-
que and Saint-Georges and their signaling and security equipment; 3)
border inspection posts and respective facilities (BRASIL, 2007). When
commenting in the Federal Senate on the results achieved by the gov-
ernment of Amapá at the VIII Meeting of the Mixed Committee on
Cross-Border Cooperation occurred in the city of Cayenne in 2013, the
then senator for Amapá João Alberto Capiberibe ensures that:
As a result of that last meeting, I can highlight a few points.
For example, the opening of the Binational Bridge over the
Oiapoque River. The bridge is ready, it is the result of that
meeting between President Jacques Chirac and President
Fernando Henrique. This bridge was built under President
Lula’s government and completed in 2011. However, the
customs and inspection structure is not yet complete. The
French side is completely finished. All the necessary struc-
ture to meet the flow of transport and passengers and peo-
ple on the bridge, on the French side, is ready, on our side,
there are the buildings to place the Federal Police, the Fed-
eral Revenue, ANVISA, in short, the institutions that will
deal with the inspection at that border. But we are absolutely
convinced that this issue will be settled soon because there
is great interest in opening this bridge for the flow of vehi-
cles, and people. (CAPIBERIBE, 2013, p. 1-2, free translation).
The delay in the opening of the Binational Bridge was recurrently

attributed to the lack of compliance by the Brazilian government in im-
plementing its area of operation, which on the French side was ready in
145
2011. However, in addition to the delay in the construction of the defin-
itive Customs on the Brazilian side, the absence of a legal framework to
regulate the circulation of people, vehicles and goods was also a factor.
This, in turn, was a recurring concern in the cooperative dialogue be-
tween Brazilian and French representatives: “Les parties se sont engagées
à elaborer la structure juridique nécessaire à la circulation transfronta-
lière de personnes et marchandises, pour préparer l’inauguration du pont
sur le fleuve Oyapock” (REUNION..., 2011, p. 1)7.
The Binational Bridge over the Oiapoque river cost 71 million reais.
The allocation of this resource expresses the financing of an intergov-
ernmental program with priority given to the economic infrastructure,
which has the purpose of favoring the convergence of public action in the
Oiapoque-French Guiana border territory. The view of the bridge causes
discomfort to a more observant observer because while the population
of Oiapoque suffers due to the lack of investments in education, health,
urban infrastructure, and sanitation, there is the bridge, built according
to modern standards of civil engineering and architecture, but which, for
the time being, does not serve anything or anyone, that is, as stated by
d’Hautefeuille (2009, p. 9, free translation), “this bridge does not have a
local origin”. For local actors, the connection between improvements in
their living conditions and the bridge over the Oiapoque River is not so
evident.
This reflects the complete disconnection of this project from
the local context. A simple element supports this observa-
tion: no study prior to this decision has ever been conducted
to identify socio-economic opportunities for Guyana or even
Amapá [...]. These types of studies were carried out only
once the announcement was made, just because French law
7 This situation was settled with the signing of the following agreements in 2014: I) international
road transportation of passengers and cargo – Decree No. 8.964/2017 (BRASIL, 2017a); II) special
cross-border regime for the circulation of subsistence goods between Saint-Georges de l’Oyapock
and Oiapoque – Decree No. 8,960/2017 (BRASIL, 2017b); III) regime of cross-border circulation be-
tween the state of Amapá and French Guiana, which resulted in Ordinance No. 1,512/2014 (BRASIL,
2014b) of the Ministry of Justice that normalized the dispatch of the identity card of a border resi-
dent, a document issued under the terms of national laws by the Federal Police in Brazil and Police
aux Frontières in French Guiana.
146
requires the preparation of impact studies before the imple-
mentation of infrastructure. These studies, incidentally, are
based only on the microlocal and cross-border scale. They,
therefore, ignore the presidential decision without justify-
ing the necessity or the opportunity to build a bridge over
the Oiapoque River (D’HAUTEFEUILLE, 2009, p. 10, free
translation).
In Decree No. 6,250, November 6, 2007 that promulgated the 2005

agreement, the Franco-Brazilian Bilateral Commission – established
since the 2001 agreement – changed its name to Intergovernmental Com-
mission. When examining the composition and skills of this commission,
it is possible to see the lack of representativeness of the Oiapoque pop-
ulation in the project and construction process of the Binational bridge.
In Article 25, about the Commissions, the composition of the delegations
is observed:
Brazilian delegation: Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Civil House
of the Presidency of the Republic; Justice ministry; Minis-
try of Transport; Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Planning,
Budget, and Management; Ministry of the Environment;
Defense Ministry; Ministry of Tourism; Ministry of Agricul-
ture, Livestock and Supply; Ministry of Health; and Amapá
State Government.
French delegation: Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry
of Economy, Finance and Industry; Ministry of Transport,
Equipment, Tourism and the Sea; Ministry of Health; Min-
istry of Agriculture and Fisheries; Ministry of Ecology and
Sustainable Development; Ministry of Ultra-Mar; Guyana
City Hall; Guyana region; Guyana General Council; City Hall
of Saint-Georges do Oiapoque; and Gendarmerie and Police
Service (BRASIL, 2007, not paginated).
Therefore, the representativeness of Amapá and French Guiana are

not equivalent. This is because Amapá was represented by its govern-
mental institutions, with no reference to a representation of Oiapoque,
nor the municipal government, nor the local population. French Guiana
has been represented by three institutional levels: Prefecture of Guyana,
147
Guyana Region, General Council of Guyana; and Saint-Georges was rep-
resented by its prefecture.
Although it is not specific to the border relationship, its proposal
to strengthen ties between subnational units would be punctual for the
development of partnerships between local communities, if from Oiapo-
que-Saint-Georges. Furthermore, while recognizing the importance and
the role of central governments in border cooperation, decentralization
would act as a driving force at the local level, insofar as it would expand
border understandings at a local scale (MEDEIROS, 2009).
The obstacles related to the institutionalization of border coop-
eration are precisely the lack of involvement of local actors and of re-
sources to finance actions aimed at the reality of these populations, not
considering as participation the presence of some border actors in the
meetings of the Joint Cross-border Commission. For border cooperation
to remain not only in the rhetoric of the actors and in more allegorical
than concrete actions, but it is necessary to expand the communication
channels, and this cannot happen without the “conceptual” involvement
of the whole community as an informed community, understanding that
the sharing of a common language and symbolic historicity is the most
complete way to achieve this unity (BERGER; LUCKMANN, 1985).
Below, informant I 4, a returned immigrant who currently has an
inn in the city of Oiapoque, criticizes that border cooperation unfolds
without the information on her deliberations reaching the Oiapoque,
stating that:
Information goes over our heads. So the people of Oiapo-
que, even here, are practically discriminated, you know? I
always tell that to other people, we Brazilians, here we are at
Oiapoque, we really are, having everything over our heads,
we don’t have this information as we need to have (I 4, Re-
turned immigrant and Hotel Industry Trader, in an inter-
view granted in July 2013).
From this information, it appears that the attempt to promote

border integration to encourage socio-economic development of border
148
communities should include a conceptual framework that incorporates
the experiences of the local population.
The people from Macapá came, the people from Brasília
came and trampled everyone over here [Oiapoque]. Precise-
ly, even the local authorities were not heard, so it came from
up there and we, who live in the city felt harmed by it, so the
decisions were taken from outside, Brasília and even by Ma-
capá, in this case by the government. So we are harmed here
because we live here, we know the problems, we know the
deficiencies. (I 2, Computer technician and Advisor to the
municipal executive, in an interview granted in July 2013).
The study of the minutes of the meetings of the Brazil-France Joint

Cross-Border Commission allowed to abstract from the documentation
some of the benefits that outline the horizon of Franco-Brazilian border
cooperation. However, it also favored to verify that there is a lack of: I)
synergy between actors involved in the institutionalization of cross-bor-
der cooperation; II) adjustments to reconcile constitutional differences
in favor of common interests; III) attract financing resources.
When the bridge was designed, they did not include the ca-
traieira class, they forgot the catraieira class, they did not
hold a public hearing to discuss the conditions, what could
happen with the economic impact, with the social impact,
with the environmental impact. They forgot about the mu-
nicipality, if they did something, it didn’t come to the at-
tention of the catraieira class. So after they started building
the bridge, we demonstrated, we mobilized, the whole class
and we tried to run after resources, but in a political way, for
financial compensation we were unable to (I 10, Catraieiro,
in an interview granted in July 2013, free translation).
The advances in French-Brazilian cross-border cooperation are

timid, but they were identified in exchange for information to combat
communicable diseases, as well as in exchanges in the educational, cul-
tural, sports, and security and social defense areas. The partnerships with
some more effective results are the following: the construction of the Bi-
national Bridge and the extension of the French Guiana’s optical fiber to
149
Macapá, which will significantly improve broadband internet in the state
of Amapá.
However converging the interests of Brazil and France may have
been, the non-involvement of the border societies, Oiapoque and
Saint-Georges de l’Oyapock, became the contender for the development
of cross-border cooperation on the Guyano-Amapaense border. The deci-
sions made in the traditional centers of power emptied the control of the
immediately affected population, generating not only the lack of identi-
fication with the project but also a series of counterproductive attitudes,
such as abusive inspection, state authoritarianism, among other attacks.
Gonçalves’ (2020) reflection, when problematizing the participa-
tion of non-state actors in governance in the field of international re-
lations, inspires the argument that Franco-Brazilian cross-border co-
operation must guarantee definitive and uninterrupted character to
the local participation. And considering that the social reality on the
Guyano-Amapaense frontier demands public policies for health, edu-
cation, and urban infrastructure; and, on the other hand, of legal and
institutional effectiveness in tackling pedophilia and sexual exploitation
of children and adolescents and other cross-border crimes, it is impera-
tive to recognize — in the context of decentralization — the relevance of
non-governmental organizations and/or subnational entities.
Cross-border cooperation configured in the dimension of bilater-
al France-Brazil relations, as an innovative and necessary approach, re-
mains in the imagination as an element to be realized in the future. This
is confirmed by the arguments presented here that indicate the absence
of local participation as a restraint to its construction as a political proj-
ect that aggregates the aspirations (beliefs, interests, worldviews) of what
is intended as collective life (DAGNINO, 2004).
In other words, in May 2020, when French-Brazilian cross-bor-
der cooperation will be twenty-four years old, there is much more to be
150
done by governments to discipline the historical interactions between
Oiapoque and Saint-Georges de l’Oyapock than cooperation aimed at
incorporating multiple actors, expanding local participation in the deci-
sion-making process concerning the Guyano-Amapaense border region.
Although border populations of Oiapoque and Saint-Georges de
l’Oyapock experience many needs, it is not a matter of intending that the
governments of Brazil and France decide how these needs should be ad-
dressed. It is ensured that the specificities that make the Guyano-Amapá
frontier interesting to these governments, cannot be interpreted only by
premises that homogenize, sustained in methodological nationalism; or
that exoticize, similar to others based on the geopolitical fact that this
border forms a dyad between a European country and another South
American country. They are spaces constituted by layers of time, in a
multiplicity of ways of life, which are not related to chronologies, but to
stories, of different temporal durations.
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155
THE TRAFFICKING OF BRAZILIAN
WOMEN AND THE GOLD PATH
IN THE GUYANA REGION:
CORRELATIONS AND CONECTIONS1
Brenda Farias da Silva2
Introduction
The promise of a city in the middle of the Amazon, full of diamond
palaces and surrounded by streets and rivers of gold, waiting to be dis-
covered by conquerors and offering them all their wealth, largely moti-
vated the colonization of the Guyana region – here comprising 5 coun-
tries: Venezuela, Brazil, Cooperative Republic of Guyana (Guyana) and
the Territorial Collectivity of French Guiana (Map 1) – by the European
- Iberian, English, French and Dutch peoples. The spread of the El Do-
rado myth motivated several explorers to venture across northern South
America - Spanish and English across the Amazon River, while Dutch-
men navigated the Essequibo and Orinoco rivers (CAVLAK, 2016a).
1 Article based on the reflections developed in the author’s dissertation (FARIAS DA SILVA, 2019).
2 Msc. in Border Studies by the Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP).
Map 1 – Guyana region and subregions
Although they did not find the city of gold, European settlers found
that the region had its wealth: large reserves of natural resources - such
as oil, gold, diamonds, aluminum, bauxite, manganese, iron, copper and
nickel - and this boosted further the settlement of the territory. The soil
of the Guyana region also proved to be suitable for planting, and from
then on the economic base of the colonies was established (SILVA, 2017).
Due to the large reserves of gold and diamonds - perhaps the clos-
est to El Dorado that reality could offer -, the region attracts the installa-
tion of many gold mining sites - legal or illegal - that bring with it several
social problems, such as the sale of weapons and illicit drugs and human
trafficking.
Human trafficking is a worldwide problem, which crosses borders
and is difficult to perceive. The concern with human trafficking world-
wide has become more present on international agendas since the Sep-
tember 11, 2001 attack in the United States of America (USA). Human
158
trafficking, terrorism, public health and other topics not necessarily
linked to the action of states have generated the concept of new threats3
to international security (MELLO, 2006).
In the Guyana region, this practice raises several questions, mainly
with regard to the relationship of trafficking in women for the purpose of
sexual exploitation and the establishment of illegal gold mines through-
out the region. The aim of this article is to answer one of these questions:
Is there a correlation between the flows of trafficked Brazilian women
and the illegal gold mines that have settled in the Guyana region?
In this sense, it is interesting to note that Brazilians settled in Guy-
ana region for the purpose of carrying out various types of work, but
mostly for the illegal extraction of gold. There are numerous nuclei of
Brazilians installed in French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana and, mostly,
located in gold mining regions (OLIVEIRA, 2013).
To carry out this survey, the methodology used was based on bib-
liographic research - with emphasis on the analysis of global and local
reports on human trafficking - and field research - carried out between
November and December 2017. Another methodological issue that is im-
portant to emphasize, it is the choice to divide the Guyana region into
two sub-regions (Map 1) for the analysis of the flows of Brazilian women
trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation: when deepening the re-
search, it was possible to notice that there are two distinct points in the
region that join part of the flow, later converging to one.
This article is divided into three sections: the first deals with the
conceptual definitions of human trafficking and how the problem can be
approached in terms of sexual exploitation; the second section makes a
brief overview of the countries in the Guyana region and their connec-
tion with the gold mines; in the third section, data related to human traf-
ficking are addressed, with a focus on the sexual exploitation of Brazilian
3 New threats are understood to mean the risks to the sovereignty of a given country that run away
from the classic perspective of International Relations (where only military threats were considered
to violate sovereignty (MELLO, 2006).
159
women, raised from information provided by the countries in question
and obtained during the field research.
Human trafficking: concept and perceptions

In the 15th century, the exploitation of Europeans in new territories
inaugurated a new era for servile labor. Around 1650 the Germans, Span-
iards, Portuguese, French and English had several colonies around the
world, these new territories produced tobacco, gold and other minerals.
Initially, the local populations were enslaved to work in the harvest and
gold mining, mainly in South America, however the diseases brought by
the Europeans soon decimated a large part of the indigenous popula-
tions, which boosted the slave trade in the colonies in Africa. (MASCI,
2004).
The historical evolution of international human trafficking shows
that the theme is not a new phenomenon in the 21st century, but has
existed with other outlines since the origin of civilizations. However, the
contemporary conception of human trafficking only took shape from
the 19th century, culminating, already in the 21st century, in the Proto-
col to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially
Women and Children - also known as the Palermo Protocol - an agree-
ment signed in the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
(CTOC), which came into force on December 25, 2003. The Palermo Pro-
tocol is the first global, legally binding instrument on the subject (UNO-
DC, 2012).
The two main objectives of the Palermo Protocol are to facilitate
international cooperation in the investigation and repression of human
trafficking and to protect and assist victims, respecting the rights estab-
lished in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the definition of
the Protocol, human trafficking is:
(a) [...] the recruitment, transport, transfer, accommodation
or reception of persons, using the threat or use of force or
other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse
160
of power or a position of vulnerability or the delivery or ac-
ceptance of payments or benefits to obtain the consent of a
person who has authority over another, for the purpose of
exploitation. Exploitation will include, at a minimum, ex-
ploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sex-
ual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices
similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;
(b) The consent given by the victim of trafficking in persons
to the exploitation described in paragraph (a) of this arti-
cle must be irrelevant where any of the means referred to in
paragraph (a) have been used;
(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, accommoda-
tion or reception of a child for the purpose of exploitation
will be considered “human trafficking” even if it does not
involve any of the means referred to in paragraph (a) of this
article;
(d) “Child” means any person under the age of eighteen
(UN, 2003 p. 3).
With the evolution of the perception of human trafficking in the

international scenario, the concept of coercion has become a determin-
ing factor to identify when trafficking occurs, to differentiate it from vol-
untary migration.
According to Lee (2010), it is possible to approach human traffick-
ing through six conceptual forms: 1) as a form of modern slavery; 2) as an
example of crime in the globalized era; 3) as a problem of transnational
organized crime; 4) as a synonym for prostitution; 5) as a migration prob-
lem, and; 6) as a human rights challenge.
In this article, we opted to use the constructed perception of human
trafficking from the problem of prostitution. This problem goes back to
the “white slave trade”. This matter appears for the first time in an anon-
ymous, anti-Semitic text from 1839 (BRISTOW, 1982 apud DOEZEMA,
2000), derived from the French expression Traite des Blanches – related
to Traite des Noirs, an expression used to describe the black slave trade.
From this expression, it is possible to notice that the understanding of
trafficking as a form of slavery takes into account that there is a form of
161
exploitation. The white slave trade referred to European women taken
by international networks to the United States of America and European
colonies to prostitute themselves (AUSSERER, 2007).
According to Jo Doezema (2000, p. 25), the white slave trade can be
defined as “the search, by force, deception or through the use of drugs by
a woman or girl (white) against one’s will, for prostitution”. For Annuska
Derks (2000), this form of trafficking would also be related to the migra-
tory waves of the time, in which an increasing demand for sexual services
was identified among migrants, mostly male.
In 1895, the first international conference on trafficking in women
was organized in Paris, followed by later meetings in Amsterdam, Lon-
don and Budapest (LONG, 2004). In London, at the 1899 conference, an
organization was created to combat trafficking in women called the As-
sociation pour la Répression de la Traite des Blanches, led by the Interna-
tional Bureau for the Suppression of the International White Slave Traffic
(installed in London), followed the establishment of national commit-
tees in other countries. From then on, the basis for the international legal
approach to human trafficking was formed (DE VRIES, 2005).
At the beginning of the 20th century, international law dealt with
the white slave trade. Forced sexual exploitation then came to be inter-
preted as an illegal activity, which hurt the victim’s dignity. It is possible
to note that the question was initially directed at girls and white women.
However, over time, the racial and gender issue has lost the protagonism
of the debate, bringing the concept of human trafficking to a more con-
temporary context (UÇARER, 1999).
As the trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation
ends up having a relationship with prostitution, the issues often confuse
causing some effects: one is the criminalization of prostitution, making
both prostitutes and victims of human trafficking be seen by society as
offenders – criminals; another problem is the difficulty of identifying the
victim, which often causes her to be mistaken for a woman who is will-
ingly there.
162
It is also possible to identify the problem of human trafficking in
the area of prostitution in the areas of gold mining: as they are regions
far from large centers, the points of support for the gold mines need to
meet several needs, one of which is the permanence of prostitutes – both
those of their own free will, and those who are trafficked to be sexually
exploited (OLIVEIRA, 2011; THEJE; HEEMSKERK, 2012).
In the Guyana region, the reality is no different: the gold mines
are installed close to the borders of the countries, far from the big cities
and due to the demand for services, small settlements end up appearing
nearby – which will be discussed in the next section.
The Guyana region and the path to the gold

When dealing with Guyana as a region (Map 1), it is possible to use
comparative mechanisms to analyze the extreme north of South Amer-
ica, where different historical, social, economic and geopolitical aspects
are similar in each member territory (SILVA, 2016).
An example of these similarities is the predominance of the pri-
mary and tertiary sectors between countries. In the Guyana region there
is a predominance of agriculture as an economic factor, but gold mining
is also a constituent part of the relevant economic structure in the re-
gion, which justifies the strong presence of gold mining (Table 1). Trade
in products for consumption and to support gold extraction is marked
in Oiapoque and Albina (mainly fuel, in the latter). There was a large
movement of miners in Lethem, however, the trade in machinery for gold
mining was not significant.
Table 1 - Comparative data of the Guyana region
Approximate
Borders Approximate number of
Number of Territorial in the number of Brazilian
Country Economy
inhabitants extension Guyana Brazilians in gold miners
region the country in the
country
163
Agriculture (andiroba,
angelim, rosin,
cedar, macacaúba,
maçaranduba, pau-
mulato, sucupira, açaí,
839.426 142.815 km²
heart of palm, rice,
Thousand (AP) (AP)
beans, corn, cassava,
Brazil nuts), livestock,
mining (gold, kaolin
and manganese) and
services (AP)
Services, mining
(diamonds, cassiterite,
molybdenum, bauxite,
copper, sand, clay,
591.368 224.299 km²
Brazil granite and gold),
Thousand (RR) (RR) France
(Amapá agriculture (rice,
(French beans, corn, cassava
(AP),
Guiana), and bananas),
Roraima
Suriname, ---4 ---5 livestock (RR)
(RR),
Guyana
Amazonas Agriculture, industries
and
(AM) and (electronics, two
Venezuela
Pará (PA)) wheels, naval,
mechanical,
4.120.674 1.571.000
metallurgical,
millions (AM) km² (AM)
petrochemical, plastic
and thermoplastic),
services and
ecotourism (AM)
Mineral extraction
(iron, bauxite,
manganese, limestone,
gold, tin), vegetable
8.570.972 1.248.000
(wood), agriculture
millions (PA) km² (PA)
(black pepper,
coconut and banana),
livestock, industry and
tourism (PA)
Brazil
France
269.352 (Amapá) 40.550
(French 83.584 km² 10 thousand Services
thousand and thousand
Guiana)
Suriname
France
(French Mining (gold, bauxite)
558.368
Suriname 163.821 km² Guiana), 20 thousand 15 thousand and agriculture (wood
thousand
Brazil and and rice)
Guyana
Mining (bauxite and
Suriname, gold), agriculture
777.859 15.500
Guyana 214.969 km² Brazil and 3 thousand (sugar, rice processing,
thousand thousand
Venezuela timber extraction) and
textile products
4 The number was not considered in the case of Brazil.

5 The number was not considered in the case of Brazil.
164
Agriculture (Guyanese
cheese, cotton),
2.069.064 mining (iron, gold
240.528 km²
millions and bauxite) and
(Bolívar)
(Bolívar) production of
Venezuela electricity (Represa del
(Bolívar Brazil and 28.533 Guri) (Bolívar)
---6
and Guyana thousand
Amazonas) Livestock, agriculture
(banana, pineapple,
190 thousand 177.617 km² corn, orange,
(Amazonas) (Amazonas) rice and cassava)
and ecotourism
(Amazonas)
Source: IBGE (2018), INE (2014), BOS (2012), ABS (2012), INSEE (2016), MRE
(2016), Field Research (2017). Elaboration: Brenda Farias da Silva, 2019.
Rafael Oliveira (2012) argues that along the route of the Troncal 10
highway, in Venezuela, is where the main legal and illegal mining sites in
the country are concentrated, with a strong presence of Brazilians and in
constant movement throughout the region. Brazilians registered in this
country total 28,533, equivalent to approximately 1% of the country’s to-
tal population (Table 1).
The scenario presented in Guyana demonstrates that Brazilians
represent a large part of the prospectors in the country: altogether, they
represent approximately 2% of the total population (MRE, 2016) and, ac-
cording to data obtained in the field, about 3,000 Brazilians work in the
mining areas in the country (Table 1).
The presence of gold mines in the Brazilian Amazon region caus-
es greater mobility of people across the Guyana region. Rafael Oliveira
(2013) points out that the gold mines in the region are interconnected
through radio communication networks, which allows an “exchange” of
workers between the gold mines in the Guyana region.
It is possible to identify that, unlike French Guiana and Suriname,
the mining support structures are not located on the borders of Guyana,
even though there is movement of Brazilian and Guyanese miners in the
city of Lethem. According to Rafael Oliveira (2013), the main support
6 Access to data on the estimated number of Brazilian gold miners in the country was not obtained.
165
centers for the movement of miners in Guyana are the cities of Bartica
and Charity (Map 2).
Map 2 - Movement of gold miners in the Guyana region
The survey also showed that in the states of the northern arc - Acre,
Amapá, Pará and Roraima - there is a greater emphasis on human traf-
ficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The research highlights
that, in Amapá, women who emigrated to French Guiana in search of
better living conditions - either through marriage with foreigners or to
work as sex workers - end up being trafficked for the purpose of sexual ex-
ploitation in the garimpos of the region - although in the state of Amapá
there are also gold mines. Named by ENAFRON (SNJ, 2013) as “forced
prostitution”, this is one of the most common forms of sexual exploita-
tion in French Guiana.
This dynamic between the Brazilian borders of the Guyana region
reveals the importance that the gold mining works in the economic and
166
social relations of the region, since its functioning becomes a protago-
nist and a fundamental factor to understand the flow of people between
countries.
Trafficking in Brazilian women for sexual

exploitation purposes in the Guyana region
The option to divide the Guyana region into two distinct subre-
gions is due to the need to better understand the flows of trafficking in
Brazilian women for sexual exploitation. The dynamics presented be-
tween subregion A (Brazil, French Guiana and Suriname) and subregion
B (Brazil, Venezuela, Republic of Guyana and Suriname) demonstrates
the important role that Suriname plays in the convergence of the move-
ment of trafficked women.
Subregion A presents a dynamic linked especially to the city of Ma-
capá (AP), where victims of human trafficking necessarily pass through,
destined for French Guiana, Suriname and European countries. In subre-
gion B, the city of Boa Vista (RR) plays the same role, converging flows of
women to Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and European countries.
The trafficking in Brazilian women for sexual

exploitation in subregion A
The survey carried out by ENAFRON (SNJ, 2013) showed that, in
Amapá, women recruited for trafficking for the purpose of sexual ex-
ploitation generally have their first contact with drug traffickers. These
women start to incur debts and end up being recruited to try to remedy
what they owe in Suriname or French Guiana - where there is the argu-
ment, by the recruiters, that they will win in euro, the currency of the
European Union. As a way of paying for the transfer to the final destina-
tion, these women are often forced to transport some type of illegal sub-
stance (usually cocaine, marijuana or crack). There is also the solicitation
of family members or acquaintances of the victims. These women leave
167
Brazil knowing that they will work as sex workers, but they believe that
they can improve their lives by receiving them in euros or even in gold.
According to the Civil Police of the state of Amapá, there is a net-
work of recruiting workers from clandestine mines in French Guiana,
revealing the existence of exchange “agencies” for the recruitment of
these workers. There was still concern about the opening of the bina-
tional bridge, which could intensify the flow of people crossing to work
illegally in French Guiana (SNJ, 2013). However, this concern proved to
be unfounded, in view of the bureaucracy necessary to cross the bridge.
Although the state of Pará does not have a porous border with
the Guyana region, there are many areas of vulnerability identified by
the ENAFRON survey (SNJ, 2013), which end up involving the state of
Amapá, forming a route between the two states (Figure 1). According to
the same survey, whenever victims are transported by land, recruiters
use the Amapá-French Guiana border to take victims to Saint-Georges
(French Guiana) and Paramaribo (Suriname). There are also records of
people leaving the Northeast (specifically from the state of Maranhão),
by land, to the municipality of Oiapoque, where the victims are taken to
Saint-Georges (GF) and, later, to Paramaribo.
Another route identified for trafficking for the purpose of sexual
exploitation would be Bragança (PA) - Macapá (AP) - Suriname, or even
Bragança (PA) - Macapá AP) - Oiapoque - French Guiana. In this route
the transit7 happens in the state of Amapá (Figure 1). Fluvial routes were
also identified, involving the exit along the coast of Maranhão to the port
of Santana (AP), from there by land to Oiapoque and other locations in
French Guiana and Suriname. The river route also appears in the archi-
pelago of Marajó (PA), in which people are transported in clandestine
vessels to the port of Santana (AP) and travel both by land to Oiapoque,
and by sea on larger vessels to Suriname (SNJ, 2013).
7 Period in which the victim is already exploited, but is not yet at the final destination.
168
Figure 1 - Trafficking routes of Brazilian women in subregion A
According to data provided by the Civil Police and the Public Min-
istry, both from Pará, there is a triangular route between Abaetetuba,
Barcarena and Belém, in which the victims are taken in transit or destina-
tion to Suriname and then towards Europe (Figure 1). In this route, there
is first the internal traffic and then the international traffic – having as
main destinations Hungary and, later, the Czech Republic and the Neth-
erlands.
Many women who are trafficked to work as sex workers in the
garimpos are from Maranhão, but there are also records of women from
the state of Pará. However, it was identified that the citizens of the city
of Oiapoque, who know the problems of human trafficking, are afraid
169
to talk about it, since the city is small and they would end up becoming
targets of human traffickers.
Cases have been reported of women who claimed to have been
cheated with offers of domestic work in French Guiana and Suriname,
but, upon reaching their destination, they were forced into prostitution,
the majority of them being adolescents or very young women..
Women from the state of Pará and Amapá are also trafficked to
Suriname. The traffickers use, in addition to the air and land routes, a
river route: leaving the municipality of Oiapoque, through the river of
the same name, to Cayenne (GF) and from there they take larger boats to
Paramaribo.
In the city of Cayenne, a network of trafficking in women has been
identified by local security authorities to work in a well-known bar in
the city. The bar assigned false employment contracts to young people,
who were supposed to work as waitresses. There was a city hall facilita-
tor, who worked on the formalization of these contracts that allowed the
legalization of these women. The victims worked as sex workers in the
service of senior government officials and business people in Cayenne.
The network began to be investigated by a police officer from the capital,
however, when he requested the presence of individuals for questioning,
the request was denied and he was transferred due to the request. Soon
the investigation disappeared, and after some time, some of the individ-
uals with the least financial purchase were indicted. The recruiters used
to take young people from Laranjal do Jari (AP) to Cayenne, where they
obtained permission to stay and were soon forced into prostitution.
As for the border between French Guiana and Suriname (cities of
Saint-Laurent du Maroni and Albina, respectively), no cases or knowl-
edge of cases were detected during the interviews, although the region
has several illegal gold mines and an intense flow of people. However,
in Saint-Laurent du Maroni the French police intensified their action,
considering that the majority of the flow of people going to the garimpo
170
goes through the forest or the river, leaving Albina (Suriname) - where it
is easier to transit and no visa requirement.
The trafficking in Brazilian women for sexual

exploitation in subregion B
The Federal Police in Roraima reported that since 2005 there have
been records of human trafficking in the state, and that between 2005
and 2011, 16 investigative procedures were initiated for international traf-
ficking in persons, from the state in question, for the purpose of sexual
exploitation (SNJ, 2013). The survey also noted that there is a high flow
of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation to Venezuela,
especially for gold mining areas.
The survey carried out through ENAFRON (SNJ, 2013) informs that
the Attorney of the Republic of Brazil has data on people who recruit
women in the city of Rorainópolis (RR), who would be trafficked to work
in nightclubs in Georgetown (Guyana) and Santa Elena de Uairén (Ven-
ezuela). Many of these women are aware that they will work as sex work-
ers, however, when they reach their destination, they end up suffering
threats and violence to remain forced in the workplace. One of the inter-
viewees by the ENAFRON team reports the case of a Brazilian, who went
to the Republic of Guyana aware that she would work as a sex worker, but
when she arrived, she had her passport withheld, contracted debts and
was forced to consume drugs.
Interviews also conducted by ENAFRON claim that women be-
tween 35 and 40 years old were identified as enticers in the state of Ror-
aima. Some of them already had a history of working as sex workers and
managed to earn relatively well; so they started to receive commission to
entice new women to work.
A survey carried out by Oliveira (2012) showed that in Venezuela
human trafficking follows the Troncal 10 highway, which starts in Santa
Elena de Uairén (Figure 2). There are several night clubs that are known
as places where the women trafficking network operates. In addition, the
171
region is surrounded by gold mines, which shows the pattern identified
in other countries in the Guyana region.
The scenario demonstrated by the ENAFRON report (SNJ, 2013) in
sub-region B, was also confirmed during the field research (2017). In ob-
servations made in the referred countries and in the border cities, it was
possible to identify the large flow of Brazilians, who, in their majority,
were destined for gold mining regions, with a more intense flow towards
Roraima – Guyana (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - Trafficking routes of Brazilian women in subregion B
In the state of Roraima there are cases of human trafficking, main-

ly women and girls, in different regions of the state. In Bonfim (Map 2),
172
during an action carried out by the Brazilian government at a school, a
woman reported having been convinced by a person from her church
(unspecified) to open a branch in Venezuela. She took her daughter with
her, sold her belongings in Roraima, and upon arriving in Venezuela, both
had their belongings seized (including passport and other identification
documents) and were forced into prostitution. There are also records of
solicitation of women, children and men inside schools in Pacaraima,
both to go to Venezuela and to other countries outside the region.
There was a strong flow of Brazilian women taken to the mines
in Venezuela. It had been estimated that, with the socioeconomic prob-
lem that occurs in Venezuela, this flow would decrease, since the mines
would have problems to maintain themselves. However, until December
2017, there were still cases of Brazilian women victims of human traffick-
ing for the purpose of sexual exploitation in the neighboring country.
This same movement occurs in the direction of Roraima-Repub-
lic of Guyana: women from all regions of the state and other states in
the north of Brazil are taken to gold mining areas and work there as sex
workers.
In Bonfim, the case of a female solicitor was recorded, accompa-
nied by 8 girls, who crossed the border towards the Republic of Guyana.
The investigation carried out by the Brazilian Federal Police revealed that
the recruiter had already taken, for the purposes of sexual exploitation, 7
girls between 14 and 15 years old - 2 from Macapá, 3 from Maranhão and
2 from Belém - and another one already of age, around 20 years.
During 2017, Brazilian authorities recorded the rescue of 9 Brazil-
ian women in Georgetown, victims of human trafficking. They were be-
ing held in a luxury hotel in the capital, forced to work as sex workers.
One managed to escape and sought help. The Brazilian authorities in
Guyana started the repatriation process, directing them to Boa Vista. It
was not clear whether more women were kept in the same condition at
the hotel where the victims were.
173
In Lethem, a representative of the Brazilian government report-
ed that Brazilians are usually concentrated in the gold mining region
of Guyana - this concentration starts to generate a series of illegalities.
Among the illegalities cited by the interviewee, trafficking in women for
the purpose of sexual exploitation is one of the most complicated, in ad-
dition to drug trafficking. Women are usually trapped in houses or broth-
els in the region and most of them are Brazilian or from the Dominican
Republic - the rescued Brazilians were identified as being from Boa Vista
and Manaus.
In Roraima, a case was recorded in which the mother trafficked her
daughters to Suriname, to be sexually exploited. The two oldest daugh-
ters had arrived in Suriname via the Republic of Guyana - both were
minors when they were taken. The complaint came from the youngest
daughter, aged 14 in 2017, who was notified by phone by the older sister
that her mother was already planning her transportation to that coun-
try. This particular case proves the importance of Suriname as a point
of convergence in the flow of women trafficked for purposes of sexual
exploitation in the region.
The data collected in the field research (2017) demonstrate that Ro-
raima has a fixed role in the human trafficking routes in subregion B. One
of the determining factors in the transit of people at the international
borders of the state is the connection by road, in addition to borders with
permission for free movement of people - visa is not required to enter any
of the countries bordering Brazil by the state of Roraima.
The subregions, with their specificities, have a strong link between
trafficking Brazilian women for the purpose of sexual exploitation and
mining. It is possible to relate the flows of the miners (Map 2) directly
with the flows of trafficked women - both in subregion A (figure 1) and in
subregion B (figure 2) - even though each area presents its main points of
convergence for flows (Macapá, in sub-region A, and Boa Vista, in sub-re-
gion B), culminating in Suriname.
174
In order to understand the flows of human trafficking for the pur-
pose of sexual exploitation in the Guyana region, it is necessary to first
understand how this practice is seen on the international stage, and how
it is regulated by agreements - highlighting the importance of the Pal-
ermo Protocol in this context. Another important issue is to analyze the
different points of view in which it is possible to identify human traffick-
ing - here, using mainly from the point of view of prostitution.
In this approach, it is possible to see how the trafficking in human
beings was linked to the conception of sexual exploitation of women,
with the trafficking of white slaves being the main concern at the be-
ginning of the 20th century. In a way, the white slave trade would also
be related to the migratory flows of the period: there was an increasing
demand for sexual services among the migrants, who were mostly men.
This issue is directly linked to gold mining in the Guyana region. There
is a demand for the service, given that gold miners spend months in the
region – and this reduces the role of women in cooking and prostitution,
making them part of the gold mines’ supply system.
The very understanding of what human trafficking means is also a
problematic factor. The idea that the practice is configured in exploita-
tion (sexual, labor, organ removal, etc.) and that the victim’s consent is
not a determining factor when there is abuse of power or obtaining ad-
vantages, is not common knowledge - which impairs the identification of
cases by residents and the authorities themselves.
Considering the interface that is present in the Guyana region in
relation to mining with human trafficking for the purpose of sexual ex-
ploitation, it was possible to identify that part of the problem lies in the
inefficiency of the inspection over the mining areas. The necessary struc-
ture for the maintenance of gold miners directly involves the need for the
role of women in the provision of sexual services.
175
As previously discussed, the complexity used to maintain this
structure covers communication networks: by radio, the owners of gold
mines or prostitution houses inform that there is a need for new women
and, from that, the recruiters start to search for the victims and forward
them to the gold mines.
This reality is seen both in subregion A (Brazil, French Guiana and
Suriname) and in subregion B (Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana and Surina-
me). Although Guyana, Venezuela and French Guiana have distanced the
flow of miners and victims among themselves, Suriname plays the role
of a point of convergence between other countries: that country has the
largest number of Brazilian miners and the largest population of Bra-
zilians residing in the region, in addition to having greater flexibility in
legislation, with regard to gold mining, prostitution and migration.
In addition, it was possible to identify that each subregion ana-
lyzed also has a point of convergence in the dynamics among victims of
human trafficking: in subregion A, the city of Macapá plays a fundamen-
tal role in the dynamics of trafficked women, both for be a point of origin,
how much transit; Boa Vista, in subregion B, represents the main point
of convergence of Brazilian women trafficked for the purpose of sexual
exploitation, from there, they travel to other destinations inside the sub-
region.
Due to the difficulty in distinguishing cases, another problem is
created: the scarcity of information. Consolidated numbers are not part
of the periodic surveys carried out by the Brazilian authorities in each
country, which demonstrates the need for a better structuring of public
policies towards Brazilians abroad.
Despite the challenges encountered in the field survey, it was possi-
ble to understand that the Brazilian women trafficking routes for the pur-
poses of sexual exploitation in the region are directly linked to the gold
mining activity, just as the flows occur according to the demand of the
gold mining areas. There is still a notable institutional weakness, which
generates the marginalization of the theme.
176
Thus, it is admissible to say that the myth of El Dorado, which
centuries ago stimulated the exploitation of the region’s mineral wealth,
contributed to the construction of this scenario: the needs of gold min-
ings includes the trafficking in Brazilian women for the purpose of sexual
exploitation in the Guyana region.
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180
GUYANA AT THE CROSSROADS OF
THE THIRD WORLD1
Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos
Introduction
Few Latin Americans know anything about the Guyanas and that
includes experts in the region. A recent history of South America does
not mention them and this absence was not even justified since nobody
would expect them to be there in the first place (Santos: 2018). In gener-
al, the Guyanas are identified as part of the Caribbean, but Frank Moya
Pons’ Historia del Caribe (2008), for example, does not include them ei-
ther. In this case, the Caribbean is the islands by antonomasia. The same
is true of Halperin Donghi’s classic Latin American History (1989). Faced
with this reality of abscence, a question arises: what world do the Guy-
anas belong to?
Geographically, the Guyanas are located on a large territory where
the Amazon, the Atlantic and the Caribbean meet. The Guiana Shield in-
cludes a wide region of Brazil and Venezuela, between the hydrographic
basin of the Orinoco River, in Venezuela, and the Amazon River in Bra-
1 Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos is a professor in the Department of International Relations at the
Federal University of São Paulo and a Research Associate at SWOP/University of the Witwatersrand.
He is the author of A history of South America under Progressivism (Brill: 2020). Rodrigo Pereira
Chagas is a professor in the Social Sciences course at the Federal University of Roraima.
zil, availing the interpretation of the region as the largest maritime-riv-
er island in the world, spread across Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana,
Brazil and Venezuela (Barros; Córdova: 2014). In addition to the diversity
of native languages present in these lands, the presence of five European
languages reveals a history of an intense competition of interests in the
region, since the colonial period, ofSpain, Portugal, Holland, England
and France.
Nevertheless, beyond geography, it is worth asking, which political
universe does the Guyanese trajectory belong to? This essay explores this
issue from the standpoint of Guyana, formerly British Guiana. It is the
only Anglophone country in South America, populated by a majority of
Indian origin (about 40%), an important population of African descent
(about 30%), in addition to mestizos (20%), Amerindians (10% ), Por-
tuguese, Chinese and Brazilians. This unique demography which stems
from its colonial past, became a criterion for social differentiation and
political mobilization due to the peculiarities of its independence pro-
cess in the context of the Cold War. In short, the situation of this In-
do-African carrefour in South America was overdetermined, initially, by
the colonial condition under the British, and then by the geopolitics of
the Cold War under the United States dominance.
The reluctance to understand Guyana as part of Latin America or
the Caribbean has not been shared by the American power, which has
shown an aggressive sensitivity towards this territory since the 1950s. The
almighty yankees condemned the former British colony to a neocolonial
fate, pushing Guyana to Latin America, malgré soi. In more recent years,
Guyana, as well as Suriname, have been the object of Brazilian expan-
sionist interests that reinforce, from a predatory perspective however, its
South American belonging.
The text reconstructs aspects of the historical formation and evo-
lution of Guyana, between the colonial past, the independence process,
a peculiar dictatorship, the democratic opening and the present context.
On this route, we have established dialogues and comparisons with the
182
history of India, African countries, Latin America and the Caribbean.
This exercise suggests that the evolution of Guyana reveals the existence
of parallels and connections with differing realities across the Third
World, which in turn, highlights the uniqueness of its trajectory in the
region. And yet, the dilemmas faced along a trajectory marked by the co-
lonial past and US domination are a common reality to all Latin America.
Just as the French appropriated the western third of the island of
Hispaniola through the Treaties of Ryswick in 1697, bringing a European
conflict to an end, the fate of Guyana as an English colony was a margin-
al development of the Napoleonic wars. The Demarara colony changed
possession six times during the conflict, until the British took definitive
control of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo at the Vienna Congress in
1814-5, possessions later merged into the British Guiana. At that time, the
British seized another Dutch possession of great strategic importance to
their interests: the Cape Colony in Southern Africa, a vital base for the
maritime connection with India before the opening of the Suez Canal.
As a British colony, the evolution of Guyana in the 19th century
was permeated by the metropolis’ ambiguous relations with the slave
trade. As historian Eric Williams (2012), a native of Trinidad and Tobago,
correctly diagnosed, capitalism on the making engendered slavery in the
New World under modern colonialism, while industrial capitalism in the
19th century, pushed for its end. Caught between the hammer of aboli-
tionism and the anvil of plantation, the British found in the migration of
workers bound by contracts of temporal servitude (indentured servants)
an alternative acceptable both to morals and business. This is how the
sugarcane plantations in the Natal region in South Africa were populated
by Indian migrants. This is also how the “East Indians” met the “West
Indians” in Guyana and other parts of the British Caribbean. However,
the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867 in Southern Africa, fol-
lowed by gold found in the Transvaal, changed the importance of what
was, until then, essentially a warehouse on the route to the Indies. The
need to control the native labor force and discipline the Dutch colonists
183
(the Boers), triggered violent conflicts that led to the racist arrangement
on which the South African Union, formed in 1910, was based, and which
subsequently evolved into the apartheid system as the class structure un-
derpinning South African capitalist development.
Comparable to what happened in South Africa, the influx of Por-
tuguese, Chinese, Indians and English, combined with the presence of
natives and descendants of Africans, made the little Guyana the most
plural place in the Americas at the end of the 19th century from the ra-
cial, ethnic and religious point of view. However, unlike the South Afri-
can mineral wealth, the American colony suffered from the collapse of
sugar prices and the restrictions on access to the US market imposed by
the preferential relationship of the US with Cuba. The result was a con-
centration of the Guyanese market in the hands of the Brooker Brothers
company, which exercised an economic monopoly and political power
comparable to that of the United Fruits in Honduras and Guatemala. The
American determination to treat the Caribbean as a kind of inland sea
was evident in 1898, when the country intervened in the Cuban War of
Independence against the Spaniards (1895-98), metamorphosing into a
Spanish-American War. This event was decisive for the Hispanic-Amer-
icans to realize the nature of the relationship the North Americans in-
tended to impose to the subcontinent, which is even noticeable in the
poetry of the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío.
It was precisely in this context that the United States served as ref-
eree to define the border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana.
LaFeber considers this episode crucial, as it put into practice the con-
clusion of the country’s authorities during the economic crisis of 1893-
97: “the Western Hemisphere would be under commercial and political
control by the United States, and not by Europe” (LaFeber: 1963, 242).
Latin America would be the “natural” territory for the American business
expansion, which required diplomatic and military action. At first, this
approach materialized in Central America and the Caribbean islands,
184
which witnessed numerous military interventions in the first decades of
the 20th century.
In the same period (between 1895-1904), the demarcation of the
borders of British Guiana and Suriname with Brazil took place, as part
of the Baron of Rio Branco’s initiative to restrain French interests, which
aimed at appropriating a vast area to the north of the Brazilian territo-
ry. While the negotiations with the Netherlands were relatively smooth,
England managed to take over most of the disputed territory from the
Brazilian government − causing national outrage in the South Ameri-
can country (Menck: 2012). Aware of the US role in the dispute between
England and Venezuela, Rio Branco based his strategy to limit France´s
ambition in a reinterpretation of the Monroe doctrine, while beginning
what proved to be a lasting alignment with the US (Burns: 2003).
After the Second World War, the United States assumed global re-
sponsibilities in the face of the capitalist order, which transcended mar-
ket interest. In this context, even territories that are not economically
relevant, such as Cuba or Vietnam, have faced extraordinary violence
because they aspire to sovereignty. The small Guyana also paid the price.
From the British point of view, the anti-colonial revolts that mul-
tiplied in the post-war scenario foreshadowed the decline of the empire.
Decolonization had different rhythms and paths such as the tragic parti-
tion of India (1947), the traumatic founding of the State of Israel (1948)
and the bloody Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya (1952-60). Initially, the fore-
seen path for itsSouth American colony was a guided decolonization,
involving a gradual transition to cre,dible, albeit nationalist, leadership.
The trajectory of Ghana under the leadership of Pan-Africanism leader
Kwame Nkrumah, who co-governed what was then the Gold Coast be-
tween 1951 and the independence achieved in 1957, can be considered a
reference of this path.
However, the Guyanese process faced two singularities in the broad
framework of British decolonization. First, Cheddi Jagan, the undisputed
leader of Guyanese nationalism, was initially viewed with suspicion for
185
his socialist affiliation. Secondly, American interests overlapped British
leadership, decisively affecting the way in which independence and the
future of the new country unfolded.
Like many anti-colonial leaders of his time, Jagan became polit-
icized during an academic training abroad − in his case, in the United
States, where he met Janet Jagan, a Jewess from Chicago who became
his wife and political partner for many years. Another important leader
of the period, the future dictator Forbes Burnham, studied in England.
Both had working class backgrounds, but Jagan was of Indian descent
while Burnham was black. Initially, racial difference was not an obsta-
cle to their working together since the Guyanese anti-colonial movement
did not follow an ethnic divide. On the contrary, the common experi-
ence of plantation and the goal to abolish the privileges of the whites
brought together both population groups, who were distanced from the
land of their ancestors for good, and therefore, sincerely committed to
the project of building a common Guyanese identity (Smith: 1980). The
multi-ethnic leadership of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) founded
in 1950, reflected the diversity of the society he intended to liberate, guid-
ed by a program of socialist inspiration. In form and content, the Guy-
anese party resembled the Indian National Congress under Jawaharlal
Nehru and Gandhi leadership, who strove to build anti-colonial unity
amid religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in the “East India” of the
interwar periods.
In 1953, the British held elections to initiate shared colony man-
agement, and the PPP won 18 of the 24 seats in the assembly. This over-
whelming victory surprised the party and alarmed the colonizers. Actual-
ly, the PPP program was not far from that of the Indian National Congress
at the time, proposing to improve the living conditions of the poorest
population through low-cost housing, labor rights, land reform, tax on
the wealthy, public education, and so forth. However, colonial authorities
feared that the party under Jagan’s leadership would lead Guyana to com-
munism. At that time, the British decided to revoke the constitution they
186
had sponsored and forcibly removed the PPP from power after 133 days.
According to Rabe’s detailed analysis (2005), the Churchill government
reoccupied Guyana to demonstrate to nationalist movements around the
empire that the metropolis was determined to control the pace and direc-
tion of decolonization. Anti-communist nationalists in the Caribbean,
such as Norman Manley of Jamaica or Grantley Adams of Barbados, did
not face such hostility (Rabe: 2005, 43).
At the same time, the involvement of the United States in glob-
al politics intensified, replacing the declining European metropolises in
different parts of the planet. In that same year of 1953, as the British faced
difficulties in Iran, the United States stepped in decisively to overthrow
the nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, in the first coup
d’état attributed to the CIA in the Cold War. The following year, the agen-
cy engineered the invasion that toppled Jacobo Arbenz’s government in
Guatemala, while taking control of the war in Vietnam which the French
were unable to sustain after the defeat at Dien Bien Phu.
The US ambiguity regarding anti-colonial movements in Africa
and Asia was replicated in British Guiana. The country supported in-
dependence processes to subtract European influence but feared the
convergence between anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism in the Third
World, quite common for those who saw these tensions under the lens of
imperialism. When this scenario seemed imminent, the American power
sustained the perpetuation of the colonial bond, while promoting the
conditions for a slow, gradual and secure transition.
United States supported in many ways the British campaign to un-
dermine the undisputed legitimacy of the PPP. This effort carried out in
the shadow of British domination involved the use of tactics common in
Latin America and other parts of the world, including financial support
for allied organizations, newspapers and parties, the enticement of lead-
ers, anti-communist training of union members, etc. However, the most
perverse and lasting effect of these practices was the poisoning of Guya-
nese political culture by encouraging the racial divide, that is still evident
187
today. Comparable to what happened in India, where colonial authorities
manipulated religious divisions to break the unity of Indian nationalism,
leading to the tragic origin of Pakistan, the British encouraged in many
ways the racialization of politics in the Southern American colony, pit-
ting blacks against Indians.
Forbes Burnham was a decisive actor in this process, for which he
received generous support from the CIA. At first, the black leader disput-
ed the PPP leadership with Jagan, increasingly mobilizing racial issues
in the process. However, in the elections held in 1957 in which Jagan and
Burnham supported different lists of candidates within the PPP, the first
won 9 of the 14 available terms (reduced by the British after 1953) and the
second only 3. Jagan still tried to convince Burnham to reunite the party
when both were in Ghana invited by Nkrumah during the Independence
celebrations, but remained unsuccessful. The following year Burnham
founded his own party, the People’s National Congress (PNC), and while
some blacks remained loyal to Jagan and some Indians followed Burn-
ham, the foundations for a political system based on racial division were
laid. From the point of view of the PNC leader, who allied with the small
party of Peter D’Aguiar, a businessman who mobilized an affluent and
Catholic electorate, it was clear that the path to defeat the PPP did not go
through the booths, but through the streets and through Washington.
At this moment, according to Rabe, an inflection in the British po-
sition against Jagan and the PPP was underway. The setback in the 1956
Suez crisis, where the British, French and Israelis were forced to leave
the canal in the face of joint pressure from the United States and the
Soviet Union, convinced them to accelerate the empire’s dismantling. In
this context, the option of limited self-government was resumed having
decolonization as an arrival point. This is the backdrop of Jagan and the
PPP leadership after the 1957 election, as they attempted to put into prac-
tice the promise of improving the conditions of the working population
. Houses were built for rural workers, the irrigation infrastructure was
188
expanded, and labor rights (such as paid vacations) were implemented,
among other measures.
In 1961 new elections were held. The winning party was expected to
form a ministerial cabinet and appoint the Prime Minister, taking charge
of domestic politics. There was a tacit understanding that the new gov-
ernment would lead the colony to independence. For the third time the
PPP led by Jagan won at the booths, taking 20 of 35 seats. At this point,
the once feared communists were perceived as responsible nationalists
by the British.
But not by the United States. With the triumph of the Cuban Rev-
olution in 1959 and the failure of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs ordered
by President Kennedy in 1961, the fear that the revolutionary flame would
spread across the continent radicalized the White House. Paradoxically,
in the Caribbean countries west of British Guiana, relatively brief mili-
tary regimes were succeeded by modalities of autocratic liberalism at that
time − the Punto Fijo Pact in Venezuela and the National Front in Colom-
bia. In those countries, since the late 1950s and until the election of Hugo
Chávez (1998) and Álvaro Uribe (2002), two parties have shared power in
a concerted manner, while all dissent has been repressed − which in the
Colombian case has resulted in the longest armed insurgency of contem-
porary times. Meanwhile, in British Guiana, the fear that Jagan would
become a second Fidel Castro led the United States to interfere directly
in local politics, inciting all kinds of violence. In the words of Rabe: “the
year 1961 would be the last tranquil year that Guyanese would enjoy for
more than three decades. The year would be characterized by peace, rel-
ative prosperity, free elections, and hope that British Guiana would soon
win its independence” (Rabe: 2005, 76).
There is no evidence that Jagan and the PPP aspired to lead the
country to communism. But the Guyanese leader was a nationalist and
the movement of non-aligned countries that emanated from the Band-
ung Conference in 1955 inspired him. An important reference was Neh-
ru´s India, Bandung’s main promoter, who had implemented economic
189
planning through an intervening state, while cultivating close relations
with the Soviet Union − and yet it was tolerated by the United States.
Jagan believed that his country could be, at the international level, “an
India, Ghana or Yugoslavia”. Yet, there was a difference: Guyana was not
in Asia, Africa or Eastern Europe, but in the Caribbean. In this region,
American geopolitics in the Cold War blocked any neutralism, a reality
exposed by the Cuban revolution. The growing violence with which the
United States responded to the sovereign aspirations of the revolution,
between the boycott, the blockade and the invasion, precipitated the
country in an anti-capitalist direction. It is very revealing that the social-
ist orientation was voiced for the first time on the eve of the Bay of Pigs
invasion, in a clear nod to the Soviet leadership, a country that until then
was little more than a spectator of events on the island.
Against the backdrop of the specter of the Cuban revolution, the
CIA devised and financed multiple demonstrations and strikes that de-
generated into violent actions in British Guiana between 1962-64, includ-
ing several murders and attacks, with the express purpose of destabiliz-
ing the government and postponing independence. As would happen
in Chile ten years later, US agents invested heavily in anti-communist
propaganda and disinformation - what we would now call “fake news”. In
particular, racial confrontations were incited while Burnham evoked the
danger that the Indian majority would seize black businesses and jobs.
At the same time, the American power pressured the British to halt the
process of independence, until Jagan and his party were removed from
power. Thus, decolonization was delayed and to get rid of Jagan´s lead-
ership in the path to independence, the British decided to modify the
rules of the game, instituting an electoral system based on proportional
representation2.
In 1964, elections were held amid a wobbly economy and a tense
atmosphere between Indians and blacks, both incited consistently by the
2 It is interesting to note that a few years earlier Gandhi blocked the demand for a separate electorate
voiced by the dalit (untouchable) leader Ambedkar, thus favoring the substistance of caste tensions
in India. I thank Devika Misra for this remark.
190
enemies of Jagan and the PPP. Even so, the party received 45.8% of the
votes, surpassing the 42.6% mark obtained in 1961. However, under the
new system of proportional representation in a single electoral district,
implemented precisely to remove them from power, the PPP won only
24 out of 53 parliamentary seats. The PNC allied with DÁguiar’s United
Front to form a government led by Forbes Burnham, in the last clean
elections in decades to come.
In parallel to the events in British Guiana, the United States invad-
ed the Dominican Republic in 1965 and installed a mission from the Or-
ganization of American States (OAS) led by Brazil, then under military
dictatorship. Essentially, the intervention blocked the return to the pres-
idency of a nationalist in the same lineage of Jagan, the Dominican Juan
Bosch, who had been overthrown by a military coup a few months after
his heading in 1963. In his place, Joaquín Balaguer took office, and this
political heir of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961), remained
in charge of the country until 1978 (and again from 1986 to 1996).
In 1966, when the OAS mission came to an end leaving Balaguer
in power, British Guiana achieved independence under the leadership
of Fordes Burnham, who ran the country until his death in 1985. The
Guyanese trajectory, which had as a background the impact of the Cuban
revolution, shows that in Latin America the right to self-determination is
either a conquest or fiction.
Just as the racialization of politics had a nefarious precedent in In-
dia under British rule, Burnham’s conversion from president-elect to dic-
tator was not unprecedented in the Cold War Caribbean. In 1957 François
Duvalier, a doctor who flirted with anthropology, evoking blackness as
part of his populist discourse, was elected as the president of Haiti. Faced
with the revolution in neighboring Cuba two years later, Duvalier’s an-
ti-communist credentials earned him the blessing of the United States
and France to establish a totalitarian dynastic regime, which controlled
the country until 1986. As with Guyana under Burnham, the dictatorship
of the Duvalier father and son (Papa Doc and Baby Doc), had devastating
191
effects on the social fabric, the economy and the cultural and intellectual
vitality of the first black republic in the world, and its consequences are
palpable even today.
There is a second aspect that brings both regimes together. While
Burnham relied on the racialization of politics, Pope Doc mobilized noir-
iste (blackness) issues against the mulatto minority, a privileged asso-
ciate of American power during the Haiti occupation between 1915 and
1934. Paradoxically, the racism practiced by the Yankee invaders at the
time fostered a political and intellectual reaction that fueled black pride
in the Caribbean and beyond. Martinique Aimé Cesaire recognizes that
the essay by Haitian Jean Price-Mars, Ainsi parle lóncle, published in
the context of the occupation in 1928, was a precursor to the négritude
(blackness) movement that he led, alongside the French Guyanese Léon
Damas and Senegalese Leopold Senghor. Duvalier perverted this Afri-
can pride, drawing themes from Haitian indigenism and voodoo to con-
trive the ideology of a repressive regime that worshiped his personality,
in a way comparable to what dictator Mobutu (1965-1997) did in Congo,
then renamed Zaire. Burnham did not reach the extreme of the Idi Amin
dictatorship in Uganda, which expelled thousands of Asians in the early
1970s, mainly Indians and Pakistanis. Nevertheless, his policy made the
life of the Indian majority miserable, which led Cheddi Jagan to describe
the regime as an “inverted Rhodesia”, alluding to the pariah state of white
minority, which preceded Zimbabwe (Rabe: 2005, 163).
The perversion that singularized the Burnham dictatorship in
Latin America was different. By adopting progressive postures in the in-
ternational sphere adorned by a socialist rhetoric, while implementing
measures formally identified with state socialism, the regime tilted to
the communist camp and joined the non-aligned movement. In 1970,
Guyana was the only nation in the “Western Hemisphere”, as the United
States put it, to fully participate in the conference of non-aligned coun-
tries in Lusaka. Two years later, after the initiative of the then Prime Min-
ister of Trinidad, Eric Williams, the country established diplomatic rela-
192
tions with Cuba, as did Barbados and Jamaica (Latin American Bureau:
1984, 52). At the domestic level, Guyana declared itself as a “cooperative
republic” in 1970. Canadian and American mining companies that ex-
ploited bauxite were nationalized, as were Brooker Brothers’ sugar cane
plantations, banks, pharmacies and schools. It is estimated that, at the
end of that year, the government controlled 80% of the country’s econo-
my (Bissessar: 2017, 62).
Nevertheless, instead of responding to a national development
project, state control of the economy served to cultivate a base of faithful
support for the regime. In this perspective, “Co-operative socialism can
be judged as little more than a political device to maintain itself in power
by a party that was neither co-operative nor socialist” (Latin American
Bureau: 1984, 72). The party gained absolute control of the state appara-
tus, through a combination of communal politics (racial mobilization),
clientelism and repression. Elections were rigged and radical opposition
suppressed, while PNC membership was a requirement for public em-
ployment (Hintzen: 1989). As in Uganda or Zaire, the state was the party
and the party was its leader. And as in other cases of State party, in Ethi-
opia or Somalia, a socialist varnish concealed the autocratic nature of the
regime. Burnham liked to be called the “comrade leader”, an epithet in
which the cult of the leader and the communist rhetoric merged.
The regime’s socialist props placed the PPP in an ambiguous place
as an opposition. An example of this ambivalence, the party denounced
as fraudulent elections in which it participated. At the same time, it was
inclined to offer “critical support” the regime, either because its lead-
ers believed that it was moving in a socialist direction, or because they
expected sharing power, which never occurred (Latin American Bureau:
1984, 58). Of course, there were those who were not deluded by the
regime´s nature. Among them, the historian Walter Rodney stood out as
one of the founders of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), a dynamic
multiracial organization that mobilized the rebellious youth in the 1970s
when the PPP and Jagan looked old and bureaucratic. Portraying the dic-
193
tator as king Midas in reverse, Rodney said that all the beautiful ideas
that Burnham touched − such as socialism, cooperatives, free education,
nationalization, solidarity with African-Americans, support for guerrillas
− turned into shit. Rodney emphasized civil disobedience and non-coop-
eration as tactics to face the regime, which killed him in 1980 (Rodney:
2020).
The United States were not mistaken with Burnham either. As
Rabe wrote:
Burnham committed every sin that U.S. officials had warned
that Jagan was capable of carrying out. He denounced U.S.
economic aid and evicted Peace Corps volunteers from the
country. By the mid-1970s, he had opened diplomatic and
economic relations with the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe-
an nations, the People’s Republic of China, and Fidel Cas-
tro’s Cuba. U.S. diplomats reported that Guyana became
“inundated” with foreign Communists, including operatives
from the militant Communist nations of Bulgaria, East Ger-
many, and North Korea. Burnham also accepted economic
aid from the Communist nations. He traveled to Beijing and
Havana and hosted Fidel Castro in Georgetown. He even
flew to a conference in Algeria with Castro on Castro’s air-
plane. In 1976, he began to permit Cuban airplanes to refuel
in Guyana on their way to transporting Cuban troops to An-
gola. He also denounced the 1983 U.S. invasion of the Ca-
ribbean island of Grenada. He spoke of the virtues of Marx-
ism-Leninism. The U.S. man in Georgetown had seemingly
created the only Marxist state in South America (...) (Rabe:
2005, 167).
Despite his sins, Burnham had the lifelong blessing of the Yankees,
who, on the other hand, never hesitated to attack dissenting voices in the
region, from Sandinistas to Father Aristide, from Grenada to Noriega.
The Guyanese dictator died in 1985 under the care of Cuban doctors, and
despite the colossal crisis that the country went through at the beginning
of the decade, his party firmly held power until the end of the Cold War.
As in other parts of Latin America and the Third World, Guyana
faced serious financial problems in the 1980s and resorted to multilat-
194
eral organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank, which in turn pushed for the country’s economic liberaliza-
tion (Bissessar: 2017, 63). In 1988, Burnham’s successor, Desmond Hoyte
(1985-1992) adopted an austerity program, reversing the statist policies
that had been implemented in the previous decades. With the end of the
Cold War and Latin American dictatorships, these organizations also fa-
voured a political opening, which resulted in reforms overseen by former
President Jimmy Carter and his Electoral Observer Team in 1990. Sure of
the impending defeat, the government still postponed the elections for
two years, until in 1992, Jagan and the PPP won at the booths for the fifth
time. In an irony of history, the United States, which had obstructed the
coming to power of Jagan thirty years earlier, now led him to the presi-
dency.
Again, what happened in Guyana was not exceptional. In Haiti, the
Baby Doc dictatorship came to an end in 1986 in the context of a remark-
able rise of a movement by the masses: if Rolph-Trouillot described the
dynamics that culminated in the Duvalier dictatorship as a “state against
the nation” relationship (Rolph-Trouillot: 1990), it is possible to say that,
in the 1980s, the nation rebelled against this state. In this context, the vic-
tory of Father Jean-Bernard Aristide at the head of the Lavalas movement
in 1990, set the stage for an unprecedented government, where the army
was not the source of power and traditional politicians had no place. As
in Guyana in 1953, hope was short-lived, and Aristide was overthrown by
a brutal coup d’état a few months after assuming the presidency. Around
5,000 people were murdered in the following months, while more than
300,000 escaped and hid at home or abroad. Formally, the United States
condemned this attempt to establish Duvalierism without Duvalier: the
Cold War days were gone and the army did not enjoy the same support as
before. An international embargo was then implemented, with terrible
effects on an economy still devastated by the legacy of the dictatorship.
At the same time, Aristide spent four years in exile and during this time
195
he adhered to the Washington consensus and sealed cordial relations
with the former metropolises, the United States and France.
In 1994, Aristide returned to Haiti escorted by more than 20,000
American soldiers who enforced a military occupation that doomed
any attempt to reconstruct state institutions. Aristide, as Jagan, had be-
friended Bill Clinton. And like Burnham, he degenerated into a tyrant
when he returned to the presidency in 2001, until removed from office
by another American invasion in 2004, a month after the bicentenary of
the country’s independence. In his own way, Manuel Noriega had also
been placed by the US and then removed from the presidency of Panama
through another American invasion in 1989, while the world´s attention
wascaptured by the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In turn, the succession of Burnham by Jagan at the head of the PPP
recalls a South American pattern, in which dictatorships were succeeded
by parties that embodied consented opposition to repressive regimes. As
elsewhere, the radical opposition had been arrested, exiled or murdered,
as had been the case with Rodney and the WPA. By way of comparison,
the military in Bolivia were succeeded in the 1980´s by presidents for-
merly identified with the revolutionary nationalism that had triumphed
in the country in 1952, Siles Suazo and Paz Estensoro. Both had presided
over the country before the military, and in 1964, Paz Estensoro had been
overthrown by a coup backed by the United States. Back in power in 1985,
Paz Estensoro led the country in the opposite direction to revolutionary
nationalism, adhering to the structural adjustment agenda.
However, unlike Bolivia and other South American countries,
where the neoliberal conversion eroded the legitimacy of conventional
parties, favoring a political shift to the left at the turn of the century,
the PPP established a lasting domination in Guyanese politics, which ex-
tended beyond the death of Jagan in 1997. In this sense, the country’s
trajectory resembles a case like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where
Mobutu was succeeded by his former rival Laurent Kabila, who in turn
was succeeded by his son, who led the country until 2019. The PPP only
196
lost elections in 2015, when the PNC returned to command the country
under the leadership of a reserve military man, David Granger, who in
turn defrauded the elections in March 2020, in an ultimately unsuccess-
ful attempt to stay in office. In August 2020, the PPP was back govern-
ment with a fragile majority assured by one vote (33 out of 65 parliamen-
tarians), as had happened with the PNC government that preceded it.
Unlike in other parts of the subcontinent, the traditional parties founded
along the independence process still monopolize Guyana’s politics.
Beyond the particularities of its political evolution, common trends
in Latin America affect Guyana in the 21st century. The pressure on nat-
ural resources, mainly minerals and wood, has intensified in a country
that still has 3/4 of the territory covered by the Amazon rainforest. The
discovery of oil reserves sparked a controversial deal with ExxonMobil in
2016, which rekindled tensions with Venezuela.
In a context in which the export of commodities drives Latin Amer-
ica’s economic policy, Brazil has shown growing interest in trade and lo-
gistics relations with Guyana and Suriname, for example, through agree-
ments linked to the Northern Arc of the Initiative for the Integration of
the Regional Infrastructure of South American (IIRSA) during Rousseff’s
administrations (Granger: 2013). More recently, in 2019, a speech made
by retired colonel Raimundo César Calderaro went public, in which he
unveiled an Amazon Development Plan focusing on the Northern Arc.
In addition to many infrastructural works in Brazilian territory – that
merge in the so-called “Barão do Rio Branco Project” − there is an inten-
tion to develop infrastructure in Suriname (Dias: 2019). As a consequence
of the Bolsonaro government’s initiatives, Guyana is no longer perceived
by the population of the state of Roraima, which borders Guyana, as a
destination for golden miners and trinket buyers, but rather, is seen as a
promised land. A Guyanese boom, based on oil, is expected, further dy-
namizing the burgeoning soybeans and mining production in Roraima,
which would flow through roads and ports across the neighboring coun-
try (CNC: 2019; Carvalho: 2016).
197
It should be recalled that the Amazon “development” promoted
during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964-1985), expanded Brazil-
ian business in countries like Paraguay and Bolivia, often with disastrous
consequences for the local populations. The attempt to resume major
projects in the so-called “northern bank” (“Calha Norte”), revives the
economic expansion where the military halted: in the far areas north of
the Amazon River. Once again, the expansion of Brazilian business and
political interests seems to imply devastation of the Amazon beyond its
borders. This resumption of the dictatorship dream of consolidating the
Guyana nations as Southern American countries under the Brazilian /
USA aegis, may intensify, for example, Venezuela’s dispute with Guyana.
Thus, in September 2020, Guyana sealed a maritime patrol agreement
with the United States represented by Mike Pompeo, amid an intense ha-
rassment campaign against the government of Nicolás Maduro. On this
same trip, the US Secretary of State visited Roraima, as well as Suriname
and Colombia.
Extractivism is also expanding alongside the illegal economy:
smuggling and drug trafficking challenge the country´s stability. It is es-
timated that 60% of the wood exported to China is illegal logging, while
the penetration of drug trafficking in politics and its influence in the ju-
diciary has led analysts to speak of a “criminalization of the state” (Clegg:
2014), against the backdrop of the potentially explosive identity divide
between blacks and Indians.
In a global context in which the contradictions between capitalism
and democracy are sharpening, resulting in different versions of author-
itarian neoliberalism in the subcontinent and beyond, the political form
that the crisis will take in Guyana is unclear. Yet, taking into account the
trajectory of this Caribbean, South American and Indo-African country,
which faced colonization, independence, dictatorship and neoliberal-
ism, Guyana is unlikely to traverse this critical international juncture un-
scathed.
198
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200
SUBJECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND
ASSOCIATIVE FIELDS OF HAITIAN
MIGRANTS IN FRENCH GUIANA
AND BRAZIL
Handerson Joseph
I
n January 2012, I arrived in the city of Tabatinga on the triple
frontier of Brazil, Colombia and Peru to carry out fieldwork for
my doctoral thesis in Social Anthropology. While I was there, a
large proportion of my Haitian interlocutors told me they were going to
French Guiana. Some of my acquaintances in Manaus who had stayed in
the city or had been to other Brazilian states and cities also told me that,
initially, it had been their plan to go to the French overseas department
but changed their mind on arrival in Brazil and decided to remain in the
country. Testimony from members of the Pastoral Care of Human Mo-
bility in Tabatinga and the Pastoral Care of Migration in Manaus also
revealed that French Guiana was one of the circuits of this mobility.1
1 This text is a modified version of the article published in Portuguese “Criando Associações: Mi-
grantes haitianos na Guiana Francesa e no Brasil,” Cadernos de Debates Refúgio, Migrações e Cida-
dania, v.11, n.11, 2016, p. 43-64. The content forms part of the arguments developed in the first and
third chapters of my doctoral thesis, “Diaspora: As dinâmicas da mobilidade haitiana no Brasil, no
Suriname e na Guiana Francesa,” completed at the Museu Nacional of the Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro (2015). The first stage of fieldwork was concentrated on the triple frontier of Brazil, Colom-
bia and Peru and in Manaus between January and March 2012. The second phase was conducted in
French Guiana (Cayenne) and Suriname (Paramaribo) from March to May 2013; and the third phase
in Haiti (Fonds-des-Nègres and Pemerle) in July of the same year.
In response, I redirected my subsequent research towards Cayenne,
the capital of French Guiana. Since the 2000s, the migrant population in
French Guiana has represented approximately 37% of the total popula-
tion. Among these migrants, Haitians were estimated at 30.4%; Surinam-
ese, 25.4%; Brazilians, 23.2%; and another 106 people of other national-
ities. In the country, I observed that prior to 2010, the Haitians passed
through Suriname to reach Cayenne. According to my interlocutors, in
2009 the French government, under President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-
2012), asked Suriname to reduce the number of visas granted to Haitians
to control their entry into French Guiana. From the moment when ‘Suri-
name closed’– Sirinam fèmen, in the expression used by Haitians – they
began to create other networks, routes and circuits that ‘opened’ to reach
the French department. It is in this context that we should situate the
arrival, in January 2010, of hundreds of Haitians on the triple border of
Brazil, Colombia and Peru (Joseph, 2020a). By this I do not mean to im-
ply that all the Haitians who arrived in Brazil at that time, particularly via
the border in question or via Manaus, wanted to travel to Guiana. Indeed,
it has already been shown, through some of the trajectories demonstrat-
ed in my doctoral thesis, that some people came with the intention of
staying in Brazil (Joseph, 2015a).2
In this chapter, I analyse the dynamics of the associative field
through the trajectories of some of the representatives of Haitian associ-
ations, emphasizing radio and television programs (Web TV) created by
these migrants in Guiana and in Brazil as a way of organising their social
world, placing emphasis on the subjective technologies involved in the
field of Haitian international mobility. Temporally, I show two different
horizons within this field: 1) the horizon of the Haitians who arrived in
French Guiana since the 1960s; 2) the horizon of the Haitians who arrived
in Brazil from 2010. I also describe, in more temporal depth, Haitian as-
2 As of December 2020, data from Brazil’s Ministry of Justice show that an estimated 160,000 Hai-
tians received the Brazilian humanitarian visa. This does not mean that all these migrants are living
in the country since many have already travelled to the United States, Canada and Chile, among
other countries, while others have returned to Haiti.
202
sociative life in French Guiana and the creation of some Haitian commu-
nity radio stations, given the historicity of their activities in the region. I
show when they arrived in Brazil, via the Amazonian border, what they
did and where they were, and some years later the emergence of some
initiatives for radio and Web TV programs.
From the beginning of the 1980s, situations involving the agencies
and protagonism of migrants as subjects of their own trajectory and route
of mobility became a topic of analysis in the literature on migration.3
These experiences enable a radical critique of the analytic categories used
in classic migratory studies “through a series of processes and transfor-
mations referring both to the policies for the control (or management)
of migrations and to the dynamics of the latter” (Mezzadra, 2015, p. 12)
The experiences of Haitians in French Guiana since the 1960s and
the recent configurations of their mobilities to Brazil from 2010 are useful
for thinking about subjective technologies as a set of responses capable
of extending across various generations and the constitutive practices of
the different strategies and mechanisms mobilized by migrants in favour
of their rights and the associations created by them to organize their so-
cio-political life far from their homeland.
My approach follows the theoretical line of Sandro Mezzadra (2015)
who focuses on the “interpenetration between subjection and subjectiva-
tion” to analyse the different levels of their combinations in the field of
migration, which is the “whole of the space traversed and practiced by
migrants. The notion of field refers to a specific space, structured by im-
portant, significant flows, applied at international level. It comprehends
the countries of origin and arrival simultaneously” (Simon, 1981, p. 85).
These theoretical paradigms bring to light the subjective practices
of negotiation and contestation of specific relations of power and mo-
bility, while, at the same time, they break with the classic models, whose
emphasis was on emigration or immigration and the notions of push and
3 See, for example, the works of Simon (1981), Tarrius (1989 and 2000); Basch, Glick-Schiller &
Szanton-Blanc (1994); Glick-Schiller & Fouron (2001); Faret (2003); Laëthier (2011); Mezzadra (2015),
Joseph (2015a, 2017b, 2019a and 2019b).
203
pull (Lundhal, 1982; Perusek, 1984), which fragmented any global analy-
sis of a migratory field produced by migrants themselves. The migratory
experiences analysed in this chapter contribute to a renewed theoretical
critique at multiple levels, taking seriously the need for new epistemic
approaches to migrations, the centrality of migrants as agents, and the
taxonomies underlying the regimes of control of mobilities that merit
severe criticism.
Haitian associations and Rádio Mosaïques

Conducting a survey across the French Guianese territory, Maud
Laëthier observed that thirty-two Haitian associations were created from
1982 to 2006, most of them located in Cayenne, only eleven of which were
still functioning. According to the author, the first Haitian associative
movements in French Guiana emerged at the start of the 1980s. The first
was created in April 1982, the Association de Solidarité avec la Commu-
nauté Haïtienne (ASCOMHA), whose objective was to mediate between
the Haitian migrants and the local administrative authorities. In 1983,
some members of ASCOMHA, in collaboration with other compatriots,
founded the Association pour la Libre Promotion des Haïtiens (ALPHA)
to act in the social and cultural promotion of Haitians, as well as the in-
tegration of the latter into French Guianese society, focusing on teaching
literacy and professional training (Laëthier, 2011).
Twenty-three years after the arrival of the first Haitians in French
Guiana in 1986, ten recent arrivals founded the Association pour le Dével-
oppement Communautaire de la Jeunesse Colinoise (ADCJCA).4 At the
time, these migrants had the idea of creating an association with the
name of the La Coline commune located in the south of Haiti, since most
4 “The first Haitian families to arrive in French Guiana in 1963 and 1965, respectively, travelled by
boat with the Frenchman Lucien Ganot, nicknamed blan Lili. Under the dictatorship of François Du-
valier (born in April 1907 – died in April 1971), nicknamed Papa Doc, blan Lili received a document
authorizing the journey with the group. One year before the first voyage, in 1962, blan Lili went to
Paris, asking for authorization to take the Haitians to French Guiana. On the journey to Paris, he was
accompanied by Augustin, a Haitian, his right-hand man, the latter having become the boat’s sailor
along with the captain of the vessel, a man called Goullier, from Martinique” (Joseph, 2015a, p. 228).
204
of its members came from this location. The association can be consid-
ered an extension of the family networks and friendships that formed the
basis of this Haitian mobility during the period. Among the first gener-
ation to arrive in French Guiana were few young people. It was only after
1986 that they began to come. Those from La Coline wanted to work to
develop the locality, helping in its socioeconomic evolution. According
to Pierre, a member of the association at the time, its objective was to
provide opportunities for the youth of La Coline so that its young peo-
ple would not choose emigration as the only solution for professional
success, as his own experience had been. He decided to leave to study
abroad, but after returning he built a family in French Guiana and decid-
ed to stay living there.
In 1992, with the integration of other associates from different
parts of Haiti, they decided to change the name of the association and
ADCJCA became called the Association pour l’Insertion, le Développe-
ment et l’Éducation (AIDE), the name of the entity today. They removed
the reference to the commune of La Coline to include terms like develop-
ment and education. Its networks were expanded, and it began to offer
diverse courses. The objectives were no longer to contribute to La Coline’s
development but to offer guidance on questions relating to French Gui-
ana. The approximately 60 active members of AIDE contributed 50 euros
annually. They met regularly to discuss issues relating to the association
and to the life of Haitians living there. Today it is the most active and
well-known of the associations in Cayenne.
Another collectively organized mobilization of Haitians was the
creation of a professional training centre in 1990. This project was consid-
ered one of the most significant in terms of work since it offered courses
for men, like painting, bricklaying, and running hardware stores, and for
women, like sewing, manicures and gastronomy. In terms of education,
a literacy centre was created for Haitian, Brazilian, Surinamese and Gui-
anese adults. In 1992, they began to prepare infant and teenage children
of migrants for entry into French Guiana’s school system.
205
Due to the increase in local cases of HIV infection, in 2006 AIDE
began a project in partnership with another association run by Haitians
called the Association de Soutien aux Familles des Malades et de Forma-
tions (ASFMF), created in 1998, by a Haitian pastor from a Baptist church
in French Guiana. All these projects continue to be financed by resources
distributed by the French government agencies.
The progressive construction of a degree of belonging of migrants
to Haiti is linked to the fact that they are members of an association that
prioritized effective actions to the benefit of the locality from which they
came, despite being a long distance away. In 1991, ADCJCA’s member-
ship merged with another two organizations: 1) the Association pour le
Développement de la Culture Haïtienne et de la Formation (ADCHF), cre-
ated in 1987 by a French priest, a liberation theologist who had worked
with former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; and 2) the Asso-
ciation pour la Libre Promotion des Haïtiens, formed in the 1980s. The
members financed (with funds donated by individuals in French Gui-
ana) the return of President Aristide to power after he was deposed by
a coup d’état in 1991. A year later, the first Haitian consulate in French
Guiana was created. Supported by the ADCHF, the consulate conducted
a census of the Haitians who lived in Cayenne and organized educational
and professional programs in partnership with the ADCHF, developing
awareness-raising campaigns to fight the HIV epidemic among Haitian
migrants, as well as other actions against the xenophobia and stigma as-
sociated with these migrants because of the virus.
While the founders of Haitian associations in Guiana encountered
few problems from the French government in creating them, their emer-
gence in Cuba was not so simple. As Olívia Gomes da Cunha shows, the
first Haitian associations to emerge in the 1990s in Cuba faced major
problems in being officially recognized.
The Cuban government at the time required them to obtain a per-
mit to operate, including a rigorous review of the statute, regulations,
and objectives of these organizations. These facts should be understood
206
within the socio-political context of the country during this period. Gen-
erally speaking, the associations, including Haitian associations like
Dessaline, initially had authorization rejected (Cunha, 2010 and 2014).
Among the associations working in support of Haitians living in Cuba,
Dessaline is one of the most active and well-known. It emerged through
meetings of so-called descendientes (descendants) of Haitians at the
start of the 1990s. According to the author:
The descendientes turned them into a centre, place and
event that permitted them to define themselves as Hai-
tians, leaving deep marks on the formation of a historical
consciousness – signalled through references to the Haitian
origin, the experiences of immigration, and bilingualism –
privately ritualized in meetings and religious and family fi-
estas. (Cunha, 2010, p. 345)
While the other Haitian associations at the time aimed to establish

ties with Haiti, Dessaline focused on actions in support of the descendi-
entes in Cuba, particularly learning and teaching the Creole language. As
Cunha explains:
Their focus was not on the national and cultural symbols
of Haiti in Cuba per se, but on kreyòl. Through the empha-
sis on kreyòl – stimulating classes for children and adults
in Cultural Centres and Casas de Cultura – the members of
Dessaline sought to extend their local networks in an re-
verse direction to the flow of agencies that were imagined
to animate the proliferation of asociaciones. (ibid, p. 346)
The creation of associations is a common phenomenon in coun-

tries with strong traditions of mobility. Laurent Faret (2003) shows that
Mexicans in the United States maintain extremely strong ties with the
localities from which they came (the first ocampense community created
in the United States in 1970). Various associations were created in Dal-
las by Mexicans originating from the same locality. They supported their
hometowns through development projects and reaffirmed the social ties
between them in the United States.
207
In the case of the Haitians in French Guiana, as well as associations
they also created community radio stations for the purposes of commu-
nication, education, and political action, as well as transmit elements of
Haitian culture. One of the first stations was Rádio Mosaïques, originally
launched as Rádio Cayenne 1998 and renamed Rádio Mosaïques in 2000.
Its aim was to teach literacy to people long-distance, providing educa-
tional access to those unable to travel to study. The name of the radio
station reflects the collective idea of the members of the association,
namely, not to direct its broadcasts to Haitians only but also to the other
residents in the country. Mosaïques signifies mosaic, a whole made up of
differently coloured parts. It is a non profit making station rather than
commercial, but the revenue from advertising contributes to its running
costs, combined with funds received from projects submitted annually as
funding applications to the French government.
This radio station is managed by the association since it is one of its
projects. It has a large audience, making it one of the most popular sta-
tions in French Guiana, listened to especially by Haitians. According to
Pierre, a member of the AIDE directorate, the radio station was also the
place for ‘doing politics’ (fè politik) or ‘doing social’ (fè sosyal), whether
through social projects and programs, or by supporting political parties
in Haiti, as in 1991 when the association supported the Haitian political
party Lavalas, founded by Aristide, as well as his return to the presidency
after his overthrow in 1991. In 2006 too, they supported the presidential
candidacy of Leslie Manigat (born 16 August 1930 – died 27 June 2014), a
founding member of the party Rassemblement des Démocrates Progres-
sistes (RNDP), created in 1979, while in exile in Venezuela. In 1983, after
several conferences given by Manigat in French Guiana, the Haitians mo-
bilized and implemented the RNDP locally with the aim of encourag-
ing their compatriots to oppose the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. After
Manigat returned from exile, supported by the Haitian diaspora, he be-
208
came President of the Republic in February 1988 and was deposed four
months later by a coup d’état.5
During periods of presidential rallies, some members of the AIDE
and the radio station raised funds to finance the campaigns of their can-
didates in Haiti. Some of the Haitians also participated in the political
life of French Guiana, like a Haitian pastor from the Evangelical Church,
naturalized as a French citizen, who campaigned to become a deputy in
2013 in the French national elections. These experiences make apparent
how Haitians maintain and constitute multiple social relations beyond
national borders. In this logic, they live far from their nation state in geo-
graphic terms, but continue to be part of it socially, culturally, political-
ly and, above all, economically (Basch, Glick-Schiller & Szanton-Blanc,
1994; Glick-Schiller & Fouron, 2001).
There is a triple dimension: the first shows that the creation of the
associations of Haitians reveals their organizational awareness in re-
sponse to the problems confronted in French Guiana; the second shows
their constitutive relation with religious and political institutions; the
third suggests the engagement of themselves and the associations in the
social and political life of Haiti despite living abroad. In this sense, there
is a regime of belonging that is constituted through the social relations of
Haitian migrants with other migrant populations in French Guiana, with
the country’s native population and with Haitians themselves in French
Guiana and Haiti. In this way, the migrants are taken as subjects, claim-
ing their rights to exist in the host society and to act and plan autono-
mously at local, national and transnational levels.
Today, the Haitian associative field is constituted by various radio
stations and associations in Guiana: 1) Rádio Pezèl in Cabassou, founded
in 2011; 2) the Association de Soutien aux Malades (ASMF) in Cayenne,
dedicated to health issues, especially AIDS; 3) the Association Universelle
des Communautés in Kourou; and 4) the Association Collectif pour Haiti.
5 For a more in-depth discussion of the role of the Haitian diaspora in Haitian political and econo-
mic life, see Joseph (2015b).
209
The last two were created in 2004 after the flood caused by Hurricane
Jeanne in the city of Gonaîves. The Association Collectif pour Haiti is a
humanitarian organisation composed of eight associations. In 2010, after
the earthquake in Haiti, various of its members received food, clothing,
and other objects to be donated to the victims. As could be observed,
there was a proliferation of associations in Guiana. Additionally, some
people belonged to more than one association. Pierre, for example, was a
member of the Association pour l’Insertion, le Développement et l’Éduca-
tion and the Association Collectif pour Haiti.
This was not exclusive to Haitians in French Guiana. In Lideranças
em Bel Air (2012), based on research conducted with Haitians in Port-au-
Prince, the authors Neiburg, Nicaise and Braum show that:
The proliferation of associations is explained in part by the
trajectories of their members and by the rhythms of the con-
nections between them and their national and international
partners. […] But as well as proliferating, the associations are
organized according to diverse logics that introduce differ-
ent territorial reference points, such that their members can
belong to more than one association at a time or to larger
bodies like the associations of associations. (2012, p. 11)
From a comparative perspective, Haitians in Brazil are living

through some similar experiences. As well as the proliferation of Hai-
tian associations, some Haitians also coordinate programs broadcast on
Brazilian radio stations focused on the ‘Haitian community,’ given that
they do not have their stations at present. One example is the Programa
Haiti Universal: invited by the managers of Rádio Norte FM in the city
of Cascavel, Paraná, a Haitian called Fanfan, speaker of five languages,
directed the program one hour per week on Sundays. The project was
begun in May 2014 and is already heard by a large proportion of the Hai-
tians living in Cascavel and also via internet by residents in other parts of
Brazil and in other countries, including listeners in Haiti. The project has
had repercussions at national level in the Brazilian press. Another similar
initiative was the program Gringo no Rio broadcast by the Viva Rio radio
210
station, created at the end of 2014. This program was coordinated by a
Haitian called Bob, resident in Brazil for nine years.
Among the repertoire of actions, associative and community life is
also at the base of the structures of the networks of mobility. The asso-
ciative structures of the travellers contribute to the consolidation of the
networks, the exchange of information, the circulation of ideas (through
associative radio stations) and goods, and also to the constitution of the
architecture of the diaspora. It is these structures that articulate the ar-
rival of Haitian migrants in Brazil via the triple border of Brazil, Colom-
bia and Peru, particularly via the city of Tabatinga.
‘House of the Priest’ and the Comitê dos

Haitianos
When Haitians arrived in Tabatinga they would head to the Igreja
Divino Espírito Santo (the Divine Church of the Holy Spirit), known by
them as kay pè a, the House of the Priest. On Monday mornings from
seven o’clock, new migrants who had arrived between Tuesday and Sun-
day would be received at this location. They would hand over their pass-
port to members of the Pastoral Care for Human Mobility in Tabatinga,
who recorded their full name and the stamped date of their departure
from the town of Santa Rosa in Peru. The date stamped by Peruvian Im-
migration was used to identify the date of arrival in Tabatinga since the
passports were not stamped on arrival across the border in Brazil because
they did not possess the visa required by the Brazilian government. The
list of names with the date of arrival was handed by the coordinators of
the Pastoral Care to the federal police to begin the process of requesting
refugee status and official permission to stay in the country.
From February 2010 to November 2011, agents of the federal po-
lice (PF) interviewed6 applicants, checking that they met the require-
6 The questions in the interviews focused on the following points: had the person been in Haiti
when the earthquake struck? Did they have children? Was their home destroyed? Did a member of
their family die? Why did they leave Haiti? Why did they choose to reside in Brazil? If they worked
in Haiti, what was their job? When the PF was conducting these interviews up to December 2011, it
211
ments for refugee stratus. The PF agents forwarded the documentation
to Brasilia and awaited the assessment of the General Coordination of
the National Committee for Refugees (CONARE), a process lasting about
three months. During this period, the applicants remained on the Triple
Frontier for a long time, worsening their financial situation: the money
saved for the journey became used up and they found no employment
locally.
As the stay in Tabatinga lengthened while awaiting the necessary
protocol, some Haitians would become anxious and upset with the fact
that they were living jobless, far from Haiti, in overcrowded and uncom-
fortable rooms. In February 2012, during the process of obtaining legal
permits in Tabatinga, six hundred Haitians had their names published
in the interview list to receive the protocol (the document legalizing the
foreigner’s situation in Brazil) but did not appear at the PF. The police
officers assumed that they had travelled illegally to Manaus, but my in-
terlocutors argued that their compatriots had gone to French Guiana
without waiting to receive the protocol.
These two suggestions should be problematized since we need to
consider that one group decided to return to Haiti, while others returned
to the places from where they had arrived, like the Dominican Republic,
Chile and Ecuador, among various circuits of mobility. This return move-
ment was related to the delay in the process of legalizing their status in
Tabatinga and the lack of local employment. But there was also a process
of retromigration since some of those who arrived in Tabatinga and re-
turned to where they had been would later return again to Brazil.
John possesses one of the most curious histories concerning the
return home. One day I was approached by him on Avenida de Amizade.
A young man of 25, he was in his third year of Law at the Université d’État
d’Haiti, based in the city of Aux Cayes in the south of the country. He
dealt with around 40 people a week. Following the new procedures at the start of 2012, it began to
process approximately 600 people a week. This change in procedures to a simplified interview model
had a big influence on the time spent in Tabatinga and on the flow of journeys to Manaus and other
places.
212
stopped me in the street to say he had something serious to tell me that
he could not tell anyone else. He asked me to keep the secret, afraid of
being deported.7 He told me that he had arrived in Tabatinga in October
2011 and had stayed there for twenty-two days. His money ran out and,
jobless and without hope of receiving his protocol, he packed his bags
and, along with another ten Haitians, returned to Haiti with the same
ticket used to come to Brazil, used on the return too. Later, however, he
was encouraged by his brother, living in France, to move to the Domin-
ican Republic to conclude his law course. But John did not adapt to the
country and his brother agreed to pay for his trip back to Brazil with the
idea of him going to São Paulo to study.
The data shows, therefore, that the process of regularizing Haitians
in Brazil was not by itself necessarily the determinant condition for them
to stay living in the country. Their residence was also dependent on jobs
and money. The objective of analysing John’s trajectory was not to learn
about his initial migration project but to comprehend the way in which
people in mobility construct, through their narratives, the dynamic of
their project through the different spaces lived as they circulate interna-
tionally.
The Haitians organized themselves by setting up a committee in
December 2011 called the Comitê dos Haitianos (Committee of the Hai-
tians), supported by the Pastoral Care for Human Mobility in Tabatinga,
as well as other activists working on the human rights of migrants. Mobi-
lizing at local and national levels, its activities included holding debates,
principally at the Igreja Matriz de Tabatinga and Amazonas State Uni-
versity (UEA). These debates included the presence of the Brazilian and
Colombian media who helped publicize the precarious social conditions
7 Following the Resolution of January 12, 2012, issued while I was in Tabatinga, rumours circulated
that those who arrived after publication of the resolution would be deported. From February 10, 2012,
federal police officers began a process of notifying Haitians to leave the country within ten days, but
were advised by the officers themselves not to leave country but to wait for a new position from the
government. I attended a meeting at the federal police offices with the institution’s superintendent
for the Amazon region at the time. His advice was that we should tell the Haitians who arrived after
the resolution to stay calm because they would be notified to leave the country but this would not be
acted on by the PF until Itamaraty (Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) took a new decision.
213
in which the Haitians were living. At the time, reports on the event were
published almost weekly in newspapers like O Globo, Folha de São Paulo,
Em Tempo, Acrítica, Diário da Amazônia, Diário do Norte and Diário do
Sudeste, as well as reports on the main Brazilian TV channels (like Globo,
SBT and Record). The movements made by migrants to present their de-
mands are important socio-political lenses through which we can anal-
yse both the subjective techniques mobilized by the migrants themselves
and their practices of subjectivation.
These public manifestations were important for the Brazilian fed-
eral government, through the National Immigration Council (CNIg), to
promulgate Normative Resolution n. 97/2012on January 12, 2012, allow-
ing the Haitians who had arrived in Brazil up to this date to receive a
permanent visa for humanitarian reasons, valid for a period of five years,
a solution unprecedented in the history of Brazilian migration policies.8
Furthermore, the Resolution mentions that, from the date of its publica-
tion, visa applications should be sent to the Brazilian Embassy in Port-
au-Prince so that Haitians could migrate to the country with the proper
authorization. In Tabatinga, the process of applying for permanent visas
8 Regulating the issue of permanent visas provided for in article 16 of Law No. 6,815, of August 19,
1980, to Haitian nationals. THE NATIONAL IMMIGRATION COUNCIL, instituted by Law No. 6,815,
of August 19, 1980 and organized by Law No. 10,683, of May 28, 2003, in the use of its powers confer-
red by Decree No. 840, of June 22, 1993, resolves:
Article 1. A permanent visa set out in article 16 of Law No. 16 of Law No. 6,815 of 19 August 1980 may
be granted to a Haitian national for humanitarian reasons, for a duration of five (5) years under arti-
cle 18 of that same law, a circumstance that must be noted on the incumbent’s ID card.
Sole paragraph. For the purpose of this resolution, humanitarian reasons are considered to be those
that result from the deterioration of the living conditions of the Haitian population following the
earthquake in Haiti on 12 January 2010.
Article 2. Under this Normative Resolution, the visa is granted on an ad hoc basis by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs through the Embassy of Brazil in Port-au-Prince.
Sole paragraph. A maximum of 1,200 (one thousand two hundred) visas may be granted per year,
which corresponds to an average of 100 (one hundred) visas per month, without prejudice to the
other forms of visas set out in the legal provisions of the country.
Article 3. In compliance with the legislation in effect, prior to the end of the period set out in para-
graph 1 of this normative resolution, Haitian nationals are required to provide justification of their
employment to validate their permanence in Brazil and be issued a new foreign ID card.
Article 4. This normative resolution is in effect for a period of two (2) years. The length of validity
may be extended.
Article 5. This normative resolution enters into effect on the date of its publication. (Normative
Resolution No. 97 of 12/01/2012).
214
was then sped up. The applicants submitted their passports and received
the protocol on the same day.
A list with the names of applicants who had received the protocol
was usually posted on the wall of the federal police office and also in the
Igreja Divino Espírito Santo, since they visited these locations daily. Ad-
ditionally, other strategies were developed by the Haitians themselves: a
copy of the list was made to circulate from hand to hand, in the baz (‘bas-
es,’ their places of sociability, especially the square in front of the main
church, the Igreja Matriz de Tabatinga) and people also told each other
by word of mouth when their name was on the list.9 This was a motive for
commemoration and, at the same time, another stage was begun: prepa-
ration for the boat trip to Manaus or elsewhere.
At the time, two Haitian volunteers worked as interpreters.10 Usu-
ally they spoke Spanish and a little bit of Portuguese, learnt during their
stay in Tabatinga, helping the communication between the federal police
officers and the applicants. One of the translators would stay inside the
federal police building with the list of names and the other outside, orga-
nizing the queue of applicants. Even before the arrival of Haitians in the
region in 2010, the representative of the federal police communication
sector reported that they had already received requests for refugee status
from people from Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Colombia and other countries,
meaning that this circuit was not exclusive to the Haitians but instead
already formed part of the space of international mobility. According to
the federal police officers, however, at the end of 2011 and the beginning
of 2012, their work routine changed: the officers emphasize that while the
volume of people arriving increased, the number of them processed also
increased along with the work of the federal police’s migration sector.
9 For more details on the baz of the Haitians in Tabatinga and Manaus, see my doctoral thesis
(Joseph, 2015a, pp. 256-263). On those constituted in Haiti, see the doctoral thesis of Pedro Braum
(2014).
10 These Haitians were unpaid voluntary interpreters. Usually when they received their protocols,
they would travel and other recently-arrived compatriots would replace them.
215
While they migrants waited for their documents, most frequented
the Casa do Padre (House of the Priest). Between 2010 and 2012, they
were offered breakfast and lunch there from Monday to Friday. In 2010,
the meals were cooked by Brazilians, but later the Haitians decided that
they preferred to prepare the food themselves to reflect their traditional
cuisine, forming groups of three or four cooks.11 After receiving their pro-
tocols, they would travel to Manaus and the teams would appoint other
compatriots to replace them. Around 150 Haitians ate daily at the loca-
tion. Some, though, did not want to lunch there: they disliked the food
and also wanted to avoid the fights between fellow Haitians in the meal
queue.
Thus, many of them, generally those with better financial con-
ditions and a higher level of education, criticized their compatriots for
their behaviour, especially when they served themselves more than once
or ignored the queues. They considered eating lunch in the ‘House of the
Father’ a humiliating and disagreeable experience, sometimes having to
fight and be pushed to receive the plate of food.
At the end of 2011, with the creation of the Comitê dos Haitianos,
its members began to organize the lunch distribution system catering on
average for 150 to 200 people per day. They made numerical ID cards and
distributed them to those who arrived. At midday, a queue was formed,
and two members of the committee would stand at the gate to receive
the cards. People ate in the hall of the Igreja Divino Espírito Santo, an
improvised refectory where meetings and other events supporting the
Haitians were also held.
In February 2010, the parish hall provisionally sheltered the first
12 Haitians to arrive on the Triple Frontier, but eventually more than one
hundred people ended up staying there until September of the same year.
The mattresses, bunk beds, ovens, pots, dishes and cutlery used on the
11 When the members of these teams received the protocol from the federal police, they would be gi-
ven the boat ticket from Tabatinga to Manaus by the Pastoral Care for Human Mobility in Tabatinga
as a form of paying for their dedicated to cooking the meals. The tickets were purchased with money
from the donations received by the Pastoral Care.
216
site were donated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM)
in Bogotá. Some time later, in 2011, the coordination team of the Pastoral
Care for Human Mobility in Tabatinga started to rent a house (previously
a hotel) for R$ 200 a month in which 40 people were accommodated, us-
ing funds from donations. The shelter was called Dèyè kay pè a (Behind
the House of the Priest) by the Haitians themselves because of its loca-
tion near to the Igreja do Divino Espírito Santo. In the shelter, priority
was given to those who showed they lacked the financial conditions to
pay for lodging in the city. There was a large turnover of occupants since
when they received the protocol they would travel to Manaus and the
house would take in new residents.
The Pastoral Care coordination team also organized soccer tour-
naments between people from Brazil, Colombia and Haiti. The Haitians
also played against the Colombian and Brazilian teams to mobilize phys-
ical resources, obtaining food for the migrants. The players from Bra-
zil and Colombia and the people who came to watch contributed kilos
of non-perishable food. Additionally, diverse resources were mobilized
through raffles and bingo games for the Haitians to be fed for a few days
or weeks. In 2012, the coordinators of the Pastoral Care held auctions of
team shirts autographed by soccer players – some from Vasco in Rio de
Janeiro, Santos in São Paulo and Ronaldinho Gaúcho contributed. With
the funds obtained from these activities, it was possible to pay for the
shelter and food for some time. For example, the two shirts sent by Ron-
aldinho Gaúcho were auctioned for U$ 2000, the others for around U$
400.
It is worth remembering that among the Haitians some were artists
and produced paintings typical of the Haitian art called naif (naive), sell-
ing for R$ 200 each, the funds raised being used to maintain the group.
While the Brazilian government pondered its position, the Pastoral Care
agents, the local population and the Haitians themselves sought for al-
ternatives to accommodate and feed the migrants until they received
their documents and were able to continue their journey. In August 2011,
217
the Pastoral Care for Human Mobility in Tabatinga launched a partner-
ship with Caritas Nacional through an emergency project in Amazonia.
Caritas assisted by providing financial and material resources to both the
Pastoral Care for Migration in Manaus and the Pastoral Care for Human
Mobility in Tabatinga. They also received aid from the Latin American
Congregation of Jesuits and other congregations in Italy and Germany. It
was only at the beginning of 2012 that the Amazonas state government
took action, announcing that it would make R$ 300,000 available to meet
the demands of the migrants.12 Until then, it should be recorded, the pol-
icy of the municipal, state and federal governments had been one of si-
lence.
The associative field

The Haitian associative field emerges in the nineteenth century
from a traditional perspective of a mode of collective organisation of
peasants called konbit (Moral, 1961). Based on the mutual relations of
solidarity between people, the konbit contributed to peasants being able
to work the land collectively and produce the agricultural system in the
rural zones of Haiti (Bastien, 1985). Symbolically, the konbit was consid-
ered like a quilombo (a community originally formed by runaway slaves)
against the colonial French system and, politically, one of the means of
resistance to US imperialism during the country’s period of occupation
in the first half of the twentieth century. Today, the konbit are no longer
present in the Haitian social structure as they were in the past. None-
theless, their main organizational principles have persisted in the Hai-
tian social world, principally through the committees and associations
as forms of collective resistance and struggle to achieve cultural social,
religious and political identity rights.
12 At the time, the Tabatinga municipal government declared that its priority was the local po-
pulation, not the migrants, due to the lack of funds. See http://www12.senado.gov.br/noticias/ma-
terias/2012/02/13/senadores-pedem-ao-governo-pressa-para-tirar-imigrantes-haitianos-do-limbo/
imprimir_materia Accessed April 15, 2012.
218
In the current international setting, the lack of protection and
guarantee of social rights for groups of immigrants and refugees has led
to a growth of migrant organizations as an alternative way to meet their
needs and common objectives. The associative field as a model of social
organisation of Haitians in the diaspora became a space for strengthen-
ing ties between them and marks the way in which they access and am-
plify the relational resources of pre-existing social networks.
As observed previously, the Comitê dos Haitianos emerged to or-
ganise the distribution of foods in the ‘House of the Priest’ because, its
members explained, at lunch time people failed to obey the queuing sys-
tem and some at more than one meal, which meant some had nothing
to eat. So, a group of nine Haitians decided to create a committee that
issued tickets and organizes the queue, among other demands. This is
the context for the emergence of the Comitê dos Haitianos in Tabatin-
ga, created in November 2011. It was initially established to provide a
response to a specific demand, but following its creation, the Haitians
started to mobilize state agents (the federal police, the Ministry of Jus-
tice, Itamaraty, and notably the Brazilian federal government) to speed
up the regularization of their situation in the country.
The committee spokesperson, Casseus, trained in Economic Sci-
ences at the Université d’État d’Haiti and a polyglot (speaking six lan-
guages: Creole, French, English, Spanish, German and Portuguese), was
living in the Dominican Republic when he decided to make the journey.
He has lived and worked in the tourism sector in Rio de Janeiro for eight
years. Another member had already lived in the United States for five
years and the rest were considered the most capable of effective action.
While prior to the mobilization of this group their compatriots waited
three months in Tabatinga to receive the protocol, the committee’s work
was indispensable for them to begin to receive the document in three to
four days. They had three main demands, among others: accommoda-
tion, food and healthcare for Haitians.
219
At the conference organized in Tabatinga on December 15, 2011, by
members of the committee with the support of the Pastoral Care for Hu-
man Mobility in Tabatinga and local activists, they exposed the situation
in which the Haitians were living on the Triple Frontier. Members of the
Colombian and Brazilian media (radio and television) at local and na-
tional level were invited to the event for them to publicize the presence
of Haitians in the region, as well as the precarious social conditions in
which they lived.
As well as this conference, the committee received support from
the Catholic Church and organised various events to commemorate sig-
nificant dates like the New Year’s Day soup.13 One of the most prominent
of these events we as held on January 12, 2012, a march along Avenida da
Amizade (Friendship Avenue) in memory of compatriots who had died
and those who lost family members in the Haitian earthquake. It was also
on this day that the Brazilian government issued Resolution No. 97/2012,
granting them the humanitarian visa.14
Haitians thus constituted a strong leadership potential among
themselves. On January 20, 2012, the day before the members of the com-
mittee went to Manaus after receiving their protocol, a meeting was held
13 The Comitê dos Haitianos, assisted by fellow Haitians, organized a traditional pumpkin (joumou)
soup, eaten in Haiti to commemorate the country’s Independence Day on January 1. With contribu-
tions from large and small businesses from the triple frontier of Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the Hai-
tians combined ingredients and cooked the Independence Soup. Until the country’s independence,
the enslaved black population did not have the right to eat this soup, so cooking and eating this soup
is a symbol of their liberation. Members of the committee, carrying a letter drafted by them with
the collaboration and signature of the parish priest from the Igreja Matriz in Tabatinga, went to the
supermarkets asking for help to make the soup.
14 Resolution 97 of 2012 allows two readings: the production of a possibility to legalize the status
of Haitians in the country and, at the same time, the restriction on the arrival of new migrants.
In Brasileia, the presence of military personnel across the Peruvian border, in the town of Iñapari,
constituted a physical barrier to the spatial mobility of the Haitians. In publishing the resolution, the
Brazilian State demonstrated its hospitality but also showed its ambiguity through its policing and
its security mechanisms and systems (Foucault, 2008 [1977-8]). To use the expression of Carolina
Moulin, the State constitutes a “global regime of control on mobility” (2012, p. 276). Resolution 97
reduced the flow of Haitian mobilities on the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru, and new entry
points began on another border, the frontier between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru in the state of Acre.
CNIg published Normative Resolution No. 102/2013, which amended NR No. 97/2012, eliminating
the limit on the number of visas (100 per month and 1,200 per year) that can be issued by the Bra-
zilian Embassy in Haiti, as well as removing the restriction that the visa can be granted in Port-au-
-Prince only. Consequently, Resolution 102 opens the possibility of Haitian citizens requesting the
Brazilian visa in other national territories.
220
with seven members of the group with the idea of creating an association
of Haitians to continue the work in Tabatinga and also increase its scope
of action, working at national scale through networked actions, using so-
cial networks as well as other digital and virtual resources. Following this
first meeting, the Associação dos Imigrantes Haitianos no Brasil (AIHB)
was founded on February 1, 2012, at the Igreja Matriz in Tabatinga, in the
presence of more than 500 Haitians, members of the Pastoral Care of Hu-
man Mobility in Tabatinga and Brazilian activists. With my agreement
and with the maturation of this project, I became its president.
The process of founding the AIHB involved various meetings held
in Tabatinga and Manaus, organized by the migrants themselves with my
participation, with specific agenda items and with a record of minutes in
the presence of all the participations. Initially, six workgroups were creat-
ed in the areas of health, education, documents, communication, culture
and work. A non profit making entity, the AIHB represented a strategy
for the social, economic and cultural insertion of Haitians in Brazil.
The AIHB, one of the first Haitian associations in Brazil, was of-
ficially registered in a notary office on April 19, 2012 (currently it is not
functioning since its members became scattered across diverse Brazilian
states to work and others migrated to the United States and Canada),15 as
a mobilization to assist Haitians in Brazil, set up to emphasize the citi-
zenship rights of those who chose to live in the country.
The aim of the association was to perform an important role both as
a transmitter of information to Haitians living in Brazil, including those
newly arrived and already settled migrants, and as a collective claimant
of the rights of migrants and other potential advances. The AIHB medi-
ated the hiring of Haitians by many companies in diverse Brazilian states,
like Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Paraná and Rio Grande do
Sul. Its constitution was part of a set of strategies and practical actions
to promote the social rights of Haitians in Brazil. An interesting aspect
15 For more information in relation to Haitian mobility from Brazil to the United States, passing
through Central American countries, see the works of Mélanie Montinard (2019 and 2020).
221
to be observed is the AIHB logo, which seeks to maintain the colours of
the Haitian flag and the palm on its coat of arms, visually establishing a
relation of identity with the country of origin of the migrants, but (re)
signifying it in a process of hybridization.
As well as centralizing its actions to assist Haitians in Brazil, the
AIHB also developed an important role in the context of migration poli-
cies at national level. In March 2014, the association played a lead role in
one stage of the First National Conference on Migration and Refugees in
Brazil (COMIGRAR), contributing more than 20 proposals for discussion
in the national stage in May of the same year. This provided in put for
the drafting of the new bill for a Brazilian Migrations Law, adopting an
approach that emphasized the human rights of migrants. In this way, the
project has proposed changes to the framework of Brazilian migration
policies and regulations so that they become less bureaucratic and re-
strictive, especially since Law No. 6.815/1980 had been created during the
military dictatorship forty years ago. On May 24, a new Migration Law,
No. 13.445/2017, was approved by the President of the Republic.
From the viewpoint of some Brazilian agents and agencies, the ca-
pacity of Haitians for socio-political mobilization is clearly perceptible.
This instrumentalization of politics in the context of Haitian migration
is revealed in the fact that in the space of ten years, Haitians have already
created approximately thirty associations scattered through different Bra-
zilian states from the north to the south. Today, Haitians constitute one
of the migrant populations on Brazil with the most associations, surpass-
ing the Bolivians, Colombians and Angolans, among others, who have a
tradition of migrating to the country. Some of these Haitian associations
continue to function, others not, like the Associação dos Trabalhadores
Haitianos no Amazonas (ATHAM) in Amazonas state; the Associação
dos Haitianos in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso; the Associação dos Haitianos de
Balneário Camburiú, the Associação Kay Pa Nou em Florianópolis and
the Associação dos Haitianos e Amigos de Itapema, all three in Santa
Catarina; the Associação para a Solidariedade aos Haitianos no Brasil,
222
in Curitiba, Paraná; the Associação dos Haitianos in Rio de Janeiro; the
Associação dos Haitianos in Porto Velho, Rondônia; the Associação dos
Haitianos in Brasilia, Federal District; the Associação dos Haitianos de
Navegantes; the Associação dos Haitianos na Grande Belo Horizonte, in
Minas Gerais; the Associação dos Imigrantes Haitianos in Salto, São Pau-
lo; and four associations in Rio Grande do Sul in the cities of Caxias do
Sul, Bento Gonçalves, Lajeado and Encantado, among others.16
Haitians already have various programs on Brazilian radio stations,
which are usually broadcast in Creole and Portuguese. In March 2020,
at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of ten Haitian students –
eight men and two women – from the Federal University of Latin Amer-
ican Integration (UNILA), residents of the city of Foz do Iguaçu on the
Brazilian border with Argentina and Paraguay, created Korve Web TV,
a television channel designed to promote Haitian culture and issues in
Brazil. This channel is a form of enabling communication between differ-
ent migrant communities and between them and local communities. The
main programs of Korve TV are Anbasadè, Plezi show, Ti koze, Rick Anal-
ise and Germe Ayiti. Each is approximately an hour long and transmitted
live on Facebook, the WebTV Korve platform, and YouTube.
Anbasadè is an interview program directed by Joseph Jean Baptiste,
resident in Brazil for ten years, studying for a doctorate in Civil Engi-
neering at the Federal University of Pernambuco. On Thursday evenings,
interviews are conducted with Haitians active in diverse areas of Brazil
and in other countries of the diaspora with the objective of valorising
their intellectual and professional skills as resources that can contribute
to Haitian society. In May 2020, at the invitation of the program’s coordi-
nator, I was the first interviewee on the inaugural episode of Anbasadè,
16 There is also the União Social dos Imigrantes Haitianos, the Associação dos Imigrantes Haitianos
de Joinville (AIHJ), the Comunidade dos Haitianos do Campo Grande (CHCG), the Associação Muni-
cipal dos Haitianos em Dourados (AMHD), the Associação dos Haitianos De Vacaria, the Associação
dos Haitianos em Chapecó, the Associação Desgarrados Haitianos no Brasil, the Organização dos
Haitianos em Sinop (OHS) and the Associação Brahaitianos Unidos (ABHU).
223
speaking about my trajectory and work as a university professor living in
Brazil for 16 years.
Rick Analise is the concept of Julien Roldy, resident for eight years
in the country, trained in journalism in Haiti and a student of Interna-
tional Relations at UNILA. The program is shown on Sunday evenings, a
space for debates and analyses relating to social, economic, cultural and
political issues in Haiti and Brazil. Sometimes interviews are conducted
with Haitians and people of other nationalities, principally Brazilians,
who work in the musical, political and intellectual spheres. In Septem-
ber, Roberto Martinho was interviewed, one of the most famous Haitian
musicians from the band T-Vice, based in Miami. Municipal elections
were held in Brazil in 2020 and most of the interviewees are candidates
for the positions of councillor and mayor, Brazilian, but also Haitian, like
Alix Georges, a computer engineer and naturalized Brazilian, candidate
for councillor in Porto Alegre where he has lived for fourteen years.
Germe Ayiti is directed by three young Haitians, broadcast on Fri-
day evenings through an hour and a half interview in Creole – one of
Haiti’s official languages along with French – with university students,
researchers and specialists invited, most of them Haitian, from diverse
areas of knowledge to discuss topics relevant to Haitian society with the
objective of producing knowledge through diverse reflections, critically
analysing the political and socioeconomic structure of Haiti, and keep-
ing the Haitians informed about the current situation of the country, es-
pecially the residents in the diaspora. I was also invited to be interviewed
and discuss the Haitian diaspora in South America.
Conclusion
It is interesting to analyse the subjective capacity for action and
the associative field of Haitians in French Guiana and in Brazil to com-
prehend the way in which these migrants organise their social life. Even
though the universe of Haitians in Brazil is quite different from that of
their compatriots in French Guiana, for reasons associated with time and
224
space, they can be observed to share some similarities such as the capaci-
ty for organisation, political mobilization and communication. This may
appear ambiguous since, on one hand, Haitians, particularly those resid-
ing in Haiti, tend to be criticized as much by people of other nationalities
as by themselves and held responsible for the socio-political instability of
their country, seen to result from the lack of union and solidarity among
the population. On the other hand, they are also praised for their com-
munity spirit, influenced by the konbit, notable especially among those
who leave the country and those who stay.
From the viewpoint of Haitian migrants interviewed in Guiana and
Brazil who had already resided in other countries, the associativism be-
tween Haitians has performed an important role in reaffirming the social
ties between them. For example, they generally organize commemorative
activities on January 1, the day of the country’s independence in 1804, and
on May 18, Flag Day. These two dates and events, among others, config-
ure the feeling of being together in the diaspora, a form of maintaining
affective ties with Haiti and the family members who remained behind.
These events also allow Haitians to meet and talk about their lives, anxi-
eties and achievements. They are spaces for them to expose the symbolic
dimension of the success or otherwise of the journey. Sometimes these
spaces are also used to swap ideas about work activities and changing
company when they feel unsatisfied where they are.
The way in which these migrants create and mobilize the commit-
tees and associations shows that sometimes they can be considered as
administrative bodies that intermediate their relations with the Haitian
community itself in the local area and in Haiti, with the States (Haitian
and those of the countries of residence), and with the public authorities
to produce documents, regularize the situation in the country of resi-
dence, promote their cultural identities, obtain access to literacy class-
es and education, fight for human rights, and engage in international
mobility. Among migrants, however, controversies exist concerning their
views of the associations. Some consider them to be a form of maintain-
225
ing a space of power in benefit of an oligarchy, others think that they
are strategies for their directors to make money (fè lajan), do politics (fè
politik), be able to access the networks of business and political relations
(rezo), and acquire upward social mobility (pran elan) in the place of resi-
dence. Generally, these relations of distrust are founded on their previous
experiences in Haiti, which were based on hierarchical relations between
the association members and other actors.
It is important to stress that the Haitian associations and radio sta-
tions in French Guiana received funding from the French government
following applications to public policy programs. In Brazil, by contrast,
they have so far not yet received public funding for their activities: it is
the migrants themselves and civil society who have contributed to their
running costs.
The associative dynamics and the networks of communication of
the migrants are constituted as strategic spaces for producing subjec-
tivity and agencies. The proliferation of Haitian associations in French
Guiana and Brazil is based on the logic of ensuring the protection and
promotion of these migrants’ rights. Authors discussing transnational-
ism have emphasized the contribution of the associative life of migrants
to their social and sometimes political recognition both abroad and in
Haiti itself. This is clearly shown in the works of Basch, Glick-Schiller and
Szanton-Blanc (1994). Through the experience of Haitians in the United
States and French Guiana, we observe how they influence political and
social life in Haiti through the Haitian associations of these two coun-
tries, in particular during the dictatorship of Jean Claude Duvalier and
when Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by a coup d’état in 1991. It
is also important to show how the Haitian organizational mode was fun-
damental to the articulation of Resolution No. 97/2012 in support of the
rights of migrants in Brazil. Beyond the political dimension, the associa-
tive field of the migrants performs an important role in relation to educa-
tional, identity, cultural and health dimensions as shown in the context
of French Guiana and Brazil.
226
In this chapter, the analysed migratory trajectories and experiences
should be understood as a contribution to thinking about a new concep-
tual nomenclature for the migratory field, focusing on the practices of
subjectivation of migrants in the associative field as a collective endeav-
our. It has also brought to light an underlying question that still deserves
more attention in the social sciences, namely the production of engaged
knowledge that takes seriously migrants’’ multiple engagements, notably
their subjectivation as a radical critique of the paradox of alterity (Sayad,
1998).
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229
A FORGOTTEN FRONTIER AND
ONE NEIGHBORHOOD TO BE
DISCOVERED: THE GUYANENSE
EMANCIPATION ON THE EXTREME
NORTH OF BRAZIL
Américo Alves de Lyra Junior
Rayanne Santos Silva
Introduction
T
he present article is a result of post-doctoral investigations
in bi- and multilateral relations at the International Rela-
tions Institute at the University of Brasilia, IREL/UnB, with
developments in a research project that branched out into other sub proj-
ects in the Institutional Program for Scientific Initiation of the Federal
University of Roraima, PIBIC/UFRR. A process that was not confined to
the point of investigation of that institution.
It advanced in terms of university education, influencing a course completion
paper in the subarea of History of International Relations of Brazil, HRIB.
With attention to the decolonizations that took place at the begin-

ning of the Cold War, the sources researched were informative about the
diplomatic view on the independence of Guyana1 and the start of its life
as a nation. In this sense, this essay, based on the reflections presented at
the end of the undergraduate course, presents the following arguments.
It discuses Guyanese emancipation based on concepts of political realism
of Hans Morgenthau, considering the internal public life within the new
Caribbean country.
Decolonization and balancing of power

Guyana’s independence can be thought of based on the concept of
the balance of power. The main historical premises are based on the end
of the great world conflict and the beginning of the Cold War. There is
the Guyanese emancipation process for external interests, in particular
the United States of America, USA, Great Britain, and Union of the Sovi-
et Socialist Republics, USSR. It is understood that the former European
power loses prestige and, with it, its American possession. Decoloniza-
tion is articulated with the American leader, along with desire of those
colonized, to break free from political dependence. However, the Eur-
asian contender is also pleased to be able to dispute yet another zone of
influence.
The emancipation of Guyana started in 1946, but the process was
only consolidated in in the year 1966 during tensions of the Cold War.
It was a time when the European nations were at a disadvantage in the
balance of power according to the concept used by Hans Morgenthau
(2003, p. 368). According to the author, this conceptualization marks the
materialization of a political order capable of organizing the broadest
interests, also international, based on the desire of the most hegemonic
countries.
Regarding that mention of leadership, it is noteworthy that the
United States of America and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics became
the two most important supremacies after World War II. As well as, from
the end of the 1940s, they began to dispute their ambitions on a global
1 The official script of that nation was chosen, as used since independence.
232
level, such as the search for zones of influence. In the Old World, the
Americans developed the Truman doctrine on March 12th and the Mar-
shall plan on July 5th. The Soviets refused support, believing that it would
undermine their ambitions. The international relations of that period
indicated a mosaic of possibilities. According to Lyra Junior (2013, p. 158):
In this mosaic, the United States of America was showing
concerns over the financially depleted Western Europe,
which followed the advancement of leftist forces inside their
country. It is possible to observe not only the advance of the
forces, but also the nationalism that moving from the East to
the Western region. It is important to highlight that finan-
cial exhaustion highly favored and made independence and
nationalists’ movements successful. LYRA JUNIOR, 2013, p.
158).
Regarding decolonization, the Guyanese case presents the follow-

ing characteristics: fragmented political organizations that represent so-
ciety, then divided by sectorial interests and ethnic extracts (LIMA, 2011,
p.47). This reality represented the concert in which interests were disput-
ed. On one hand, the greed of the two main nations, on the other Great
Britain and its colony in South America.
In this case, there is the PAC Bulletin (Political Affairs Committee),
founded in 1946 by Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Jocelyn Hubbard and Ash-
ton Chase. The periodical adopted the model from the United States of
America committee, to later spread the Marxist theory, with the intention
of opposing the British colonialism and becoming the largest multi-ra-
cial party: the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), which was responsible
for the anti-colonial nationalist movement in the midst of the Cold War.
(ISHMAEL, 2013, n. 122).
The conditions at that time were delicate. On the one hand was the
Unites States of America, and on the other Great Britain and the Union
of the Soviet Socialist Republics directly influencing the country´s in-
dependence and in its internal affairs. It is believed therefore, that this
statement is based on the fact Cheddi Jagan, the first party leader, invited
233
Forbes Burnham to be an executive member of the association. Burn-
ham was charismatic and attracted the young Afro-Guyanese. He, at that
time, had returned from London, where he headed the Western Union
of Indian students, which was by then associated with the British Com-
munists.
The PPP established a mass education program that took place
through public meetings across the country and demanded self-govern-
ment and a progressive constitution even before the colony’s emancipa-
tion. For Ismhael (2013, 122-123), one of the consequences of this action
was to attract Guyanese from different origins to its cause. The country
had the presence of nationals of African, Chinese, and Indian origin. Ac-
cording to Lima (2011, p.48), Jagan and Burnham obtained notorious vic-
tory in the first election with universal suffrage, as they won 18 of the 24
seats in parliament and constituted the first Marxist government.
However, the British decolonization Project was conservative in
order to prevent any approximation of one of its former colonies to the
USSR, a power representative of Marxist ideals. Until then, Guyana was
the only Marxist government in that decolonization process, when the
metropolis offered an extremely high degree of self-governance associ-
ated with a broad-ranging voting process. Therefore, there was a British
stance to intervene in that government, through the British Colonial Of-
fice, suspending the constitution.
According to Morgenthau (2003, p. 51): “political power consists in
a relationship between those who exercise it and those over whom it is
exercised.” That is, the struggle for power can occur both internally and
externally. In the first case, with the forces existing in a given country.
Externally, with forces from one country against another, making it im-
possible for a country to participate actively in its own territory. For a long
time, Guyana was the scene of the power struggle before it even gained
the emancipation of the British government.
Brazilian diplomacy was attentive to this characteristic. It con-
sidered that the dispute included the United States of America, Great
234
Britain, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, all with their tactics
of influence. Brazilian diplomatic authorities sought to understand the
young Caribbean nation. The telegrams produced in the 1960s show the
importance of political parties with special attention to the elections that
would take place in December of 1968. During this period, there was a
great exchange of information between Brasília and Georgetown to es-
tablish knowledge and convey impressions about the internal politics of
Guyana after decolonization.
The reports were presented by the Chargé dÁffaires, Raymundo
Nonato Loyola de Castro, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, José
de Magalhães Pinto. Power disputes revealed structural weaknesses in
the state, which was taken advantage of by the two main powers at that
time. As stated by Morgenthau (2003), the government has sources of
strengths or weaknesses related to factors of national power. Therefore,
there is an analysis on the formation of the country. The representative
of Brazil starts these reports by creating a retrospective of the trends and
indicating perspectives that started in 1950.
Political parties and internal politics in

Guyana
From the point of view of the Brazilian ambassador in Georgetown,
until 1955, Guyana was dominated by the PPP, the only party with the ide-
ology of scientific socialism, at least in the understanding of its founder
and leader Cheddi Jagan. It was an association that brought together ele-
ments representative of the races, the Indians and the Blacks and sought
to fight until 1968 for the conquest of political powers in Guyana. During
the formation of the socialist party, two leaders become evident, Cheddi
Jagan and Forbes Burnham. This is reflected in the concept defended by
Morgenthau (2003) who argues about the political representatives that
appear within a state as being responsible for wielding power and exer-
cising policies within their nation.
235
During the political construction of the country, Jagan and Burn-
ham were influenced by motivations and circumstantial influences, at a
time when there was a lack of interest from the English and the emer-
gence of emancipationist movements in Africa and Asia. For this reason,
the country’s liberation process suffered at the beginning of a true na-
tionalist ideal resulting from the union between all the live forces in the
region. The two main leaders fought, for a long period, in the same party
hosts (Telegram received from the Embassy in Georgetown (Telegram re-
ceived from the embassy in Georgetown, 15/10/1968; n.9).
However, the entire political life of a country is also marked by con-
tinuous struggles for power. (MORGENTHAU, 2003, P.64). In Guyana,
the differences between the main political leaders that would initiate this
struggle were evident. While Jagan led the group of revolutionary social-
ists, Burnham commanded the moderate faction. This is evident in the
statement by Raymundo Loyola de Castro:
Soon, however, serious divergences arose between the cur-
rent prime minister and the founder of the now oppositional
party. In February of 1955, these divergences resulted in the
split between “Jaganites” and “Burnhamites”, as the follow-
ers of Jagan and Burnham were known. In an interview with
the Jamaican press, Burnham then declared that his dis-
agreements with Jagan were ideological and tactical. In ad-
dition, he added verbatim:“I was convinced that the PPP was
not communist. The national movement, however, must not
be sectarian and cannot be conducted in such a way as to
give the impression that our party is communist; because it
would be suicide, in view of our peculiar geographical con-
ditions, to shout to everyone that we are communists” (Tele-
grams sent from the Embassy in Georgetown, 1968. n. 9).
After the separation of the leaders, the dispute for power became
more intense. This dispute was reflected in the formation of the largest
parties capable of conquering political power in the country, each with
its own ideology.
236
For Morgenthau (2003), although politics consists of a struggle for
power, ideologies make the involvement in this dispute acceptable to the
actors and their audiences, both morally and psychologically. Thus, poli-
ticians cannot avoid “playing a role” when they use their political ideolo-
gies to hide the true nature of their actions.
When Burnham left the PPP, he was accompanied by almost all of
the party´s intellectuals, thus leaving the party entirely in the hands of
Jagan and his wife, Janet. She became a true mentor of the steps of the
association. In fact, Mrs. Jagan, since the creation of the PPP, had taken
over the key position in the party and had become general secretary on a
practically permanent basis. At first, the PPP proved to be very efficient
and well organized as a political party. However, over time, the opposite
was proven.
The party, as an entity, left much to be desired and the work of
proselytism and political propaganda, developed from 1953 to 1968, and
depended much more on the personality of its leaders than on the PPP´s
efficiency as a party machine. Regarding this, Morgenthau states that
“the leader of a party has political power as long as he is able to shape the
actions of party members according to his will” (MORGENTHAU, 2003,
p.56).
For this reason, the correspondence includes the speech of Jagan,
leader of the PPP, the national anti-imperialist party formed by several
common layers, working classes, middle class, capitalists, native busi-
nessmen, including the communists, the democrats, national capitalists,
public servants, and people in the liberal professions.
The PPP, in 1968, at the time the telegram was written, was a purely
left-wing party supported massively by the Indians, the so-called East
Indians. Some of them refused to vote for Jagan, fearing that he would
implement a communist regime country. The East Indians were numer-
ous and had a high rate of population growth. This peculiarity of Jagan´s
party seems to be offensive to any electoral dispute, considering that the
237
rules that guided the political party game in Guyana were defined by the
racial vote.
In view of these facts, it is evident that the representative of Bra-
zil sent to Georgetown, in the face of everything he lived and witnessed
in the country, in his conceptualization based on what the country was
experiencing, ended up being adverse to Jagan´s party, for representing
the communism that Guyana was experiencing at that time. The diplo-
matic letters also state that Burnham came to make statements in 1968
through the Jamaican press interview that his disagreements with Jagan
were ideological and tactical and added that he was convinced that the
PPP was not communist (15/10/1968; n.9).
In August of 1957, Burnham, already removed from the PPP, found-
ed a new party, the People´s National Congress (PNC). With the support
of the vast majority of Africans, mainly from the East Coast of Demerara,
which in a way helped to polarize party politics along racial lines. It is
important to note that in this specific period Guyana continued to be di-
rected and manipulated by Jagan and his wife, both confessed Marxists.
Thus, the PPP continued to command the support of a significant
part of the African population, which for Burnham, was worrying. For
this reason, Burnham decided to ally himself with the African middle
class that started to support the leader of the PNC. It is worth mentioning
that the electoral process was free of racial motivations and influences.
After the separation of the leaders, the dispute for power became more
intense.
Regarding this dilemma, Castro (1968) states that the time and the
sharp rivalry between Jagan and Burnham, turned the PNC into a racist
party and against Jagan. Burnham assumed absolute leadership of the
African community, which occupied a large part of the country´s urban
areas, such as the capital, Georgetown, with a primary dedication to the
bureaucratic and public services, including administrative, teaching,
others in the armed forces and police, work in factories and also in some
urban companies. On the other hand, the Indians, an opponent in the
238
political battles, settled in a large mass of sugar mill workers, as owners
of small rice plantations, which were located on the coast. The nouveaux
riches, a group of Guyanese socialists, preferred to live in the outskirt
regions of the urban centers.
Burnham planned to organize African politicians who could form
an anti-PPP front capable of attracting other Africans from the country to
his party. In turn, the United Democratic Party (UNDP), a united demo-
cratic party that started negotiations with Burnham in 1958, represented
the African middle class. The following year, the two parties held a con-
gress in Georgetown and from then on, the UDP split up and part of its
members were included in the PNC.
This new party belonged to different ideologies. While some were
socialists, others were strongly conservative and pro-capitalists, which
caused diverging opinions at party meetings and created confusion
among supporters. Amid its formation, the party had great difficulties
being at first unable to form an official policy statement. (ISMHAEL,
2013, 148).
In relation to this, the perception of the Chargé dÁffaires who pro-
vided information was that Burnham, in his youth, became a Marxist,
even registering himself as a member of the British communist Party.
With that, he converted to moderate center-left socialism and, according
to the political observers, it was the influence of the English labor par-
ty´s intellectuals on Burnham that fostered the split of the PPP with the
PNC, when they presented the Prime Minister with the possibility of be-
coming leader of the government as long as he fought communism and
renounced the links he had with Jagan. Leading his new party, Burnham,
in 1957, started the campaign that harshly attacked Jagan and his sup-
porters with accusations of adopting a racist policy and harassing voters
in black communities, (Telegramas received from the Brazilian Embassy
in Georgetown Georgetown, 15/10/1968. N.9).
From Burnham´s leadership in the party, conflicts between PPP
and PNC increased and ethnic differences were decisive in this process.
239
The disparities between the parties resulted in a series of violent protests
in the country, which was controlled by the British authorities with in-
tervention by military troops, which would later lead to the declaration
of a state of emergency in the country, but would also result in a change
in the electoral system. Even during this period, both leaders used the
media to expose their ideologies and make statements to obtain the max-
imum number of followers. Among Burnham´s various statements, Cas-
tro (1968,n.9) highlights:
Recently, in an interview with journalists who accompanied
Mrs. Indira Gandhi, India´s Prime Minister, who had just
visited Georgetown, Prime Minister Burnham stated verba-
tim that: “he was a man of the left but he was not a commu-
nist or an anti-communist”. Asked whether he would be will-
ing to approach Cheddi Jagan again, he replied that he could
no longer work with a man who justified Soviet intervention
in Czechoslovakia and who aimed only at his international
projection as a Marxist leader.
Despite the statements made by political leaders, the electoral pro-

cesses before the independence showed balance, even though the two
existing parties that were so different would have caused an unrest in
the process. However, the PPP maintained, for a long period, its share of
power through the seats it won.
However, in 1964, the PNC made an alliance with the United Force
(UF) party, led by Peter D’Aguiar, achieving its first victory in the elec-
tions. This victory represented the establishment of a more moderate
policy, bringing stability to the colony by distancing the government
from the communist hosts. With support from the British, Burnham
was able to plead for the emancipation of the colony. As stated earlier,
the Independence of British Guiana was granted on May 26th, 1966. From
then on, the country began to prepare for its first election, which was
scheduled for December 16th, 1968.
Since 1959, the PNC has sought to organize a group that fights
as a united front to combat PPP policies and management. This group
240
includes Portuguese, Chinese, Amerindians, together with the African
ethnic group to go against the Indians and their supporters. This plan
was thwarted when the financially prosperous Portuguese class refused
to support Burnham and his party. However, at the end of 1959, a group
of Portuguese businessmen opposed the PPP, forming an alliance that
sought a strategy to prevent the victory of the opposing party in 1961.
This resulted in a new party, the UF, which was fundamental during
the course of Guyana’s political process emerging as a “third force” in
politics, under the leadership of businessman Peter D’Aguiar. At first,
there were attempts by the UF to join with the PNC; attempts which did
not bring good results. That is why Peter D’Aguiar announced his new
pro-capitalist party, posing to be a problem to the PNC, which lost fund-
ing and all plans to organize a front against the PPP.
The founding of the UF party increased the visits by the American
anti-communists who were responsible for financing opponents of the
PPP. As stated by Castro (1968, n 9), Peter D’Aguiar founded in November
1960, Guyana’s third most influential party, the U.F The party leader
was Catholic and of Portuguese descent, as well as representative of the
upper bourgeoisie, owner of rum and soft drink companies and a fervent
anti-communist.
In turn, the three groups that supported the UF were: a small group
formed by Portuguese, Amerindians influenced by the Catholic Church
and the black constituents of the middle class. (Telegrams received from
the Brazilian embassy in Georgetown, 1968. N. 9).
The UF established itself as a minority party, but with economic
influence, mainly in Guyana’s political electoral process. According to the
reporter of the telegrams described, none of the parties, the PPP and the
PNC, operating in the country would be able to govern without the sup-
port and coalition of the UF, which represented the true balance of power
in Guyana’s internal politics.
At a certain point in time, the leaders of the PNC and the UF op-
posed the independence of the colony, as it was not favorable to them at
241
that time. However, years later, both joined in the struggle for the eman-
cipation of the colony. In turn, Jagan, despite declaring his support for
independence, needed the intervention of the British government for
some measures that were taken against his party, such as the detention
of some of his supporters. Both the PNC-UF government and the Brit-
ish government refused to accept any demand from Jagan. Consequently,
there were attempts by the PPP to boycott the country’s independence.
(ISHMAEL, 2013, n.179).
At the beginning of the year 1966, the first preparations for inde-
pendence were taking place, with the creation of the coat of arms that
would be used, as well as the colors of the new flag and the new name
that would be adapted for the former colony. Guyana became an emanci-
pated nation on May 26th of that year, with the withdrawal of the British
symbol and the hoisting of the new flag and the new name that would be
adapted for the former colony. During the ceremony of this solemn act,
Burnham and Jagan made their pronouncements, both expressing dis-
courses opposite to each other’s in order to instill their ideologies, start-
ing what would become a struggle for the internal power of the newest
independent country.
During the whole process of the political construction in Guyana,
there is an episode that stands out that had transcendental importance
in the country’s political life and an intense repercussion in the political
party circles. It is the signing of a historical document signed by the three
leaders of the PPP, PNC and the UF parties declaring that, in the absence
of an agreement on the new constitution, it entrusted powers to the Brit-
ish authorities to resolve several issues raised by the new constitutional
law. This occurred in 1963 and was delivered in London to the British
secretary of the colonies, Mr. Duncan Sandys (CASTRO, 1968).
Thus, this measure taken completely neutralized the great poten-
tial of the PPP electorate, allowing parties like the UF to have a chance of
victory and to directly influence the 1964 elections, when coalition gov-
ernment between the PNC and the UF came to power.
242
The rapporteur in one of the letters delivered to the Secretariat of
the Foreign Affairs of Brazil sends the percentages of the general elec-
tions that took place in 1957, the year in which the PPP and the PNC par-
ties ran separately for the first time until the last elections in the country
before independence. In the reports, the following percentage obtained
by the major parties, PPP, PNC and the UF, in the electoral disputes held
in Guyana demonstrates that Jagan’s PPP party obtained a higher per-
centage of votes.
Table 1 – Elections of 1957, 1961 and 1964
Source: Official telegrams, 1968.
This scenario is a representation of the remarkable events and facts

in the construction of the internal politics of the country before the in-
dependence that would reflect on the first general elections of the then
emancipated country. Considering all the outstanding facts of Guyana’s
political-electoral process through the first impressions of Raymundo
Loyola de Castro on the political situation in the country, the period
before decolonization was analyzed in this text, when the Cold war be-
comes fundamental to Guyana. Then, a retrospective of the trends and
striking characteristics of the process followed by the country’s internal
policy that explained the elections of the 1968 period, the time frame of
this research.
Bearing in mind that the formation of the parties occurred when
the country was still controlled by the British, it became a determining
factor for the emancipation of the colony. As noted throughout this text,
243
both nation-building and Guyana’s political life were marked by racial
and ethnic elements that were part of the country’s history.
This racial proselytism present in Guyana’s internal politics will in-
fluence political and party decisions and were decisive in the 1968 general
elections.
As noted throughout the argument, Guyana’s independence was
a cause of concern to the Brazilian diplomacy at that time, as the world
was experiencing the process of decolonization amidst the Cold War and
the fear of Communism was an unavoidable fact for the political agents
of the capitalist West.
The former British colony, located on Brazils northernmost border,
stirred up fears in the Brazilian government. The desire was to under-
stand the outcome of Guyana’s internal politics and the rise of Marxist
groups to compose a future government in the most recent Caribbean
country.
With the British articulation in the process of emancipation of the
Guyanese, in the interest of isolating Soviet influences, an electoral and
political game based on ethno-racial issues is consolidated, only consid-
ering ideological issues superficially, shaping discourses and starting a
struggle for power.
Reference
CASTRO, Raymundo Nonato Loyola de. Telegramas recebidos da Embaixa-
da em Georgetown. 1968. Guyana. DAm/600 (6li); Secretaria de Estado das
Relações Exteriores; Assunto: Eleições gerais na Guyana; manifesto do P.P.P.:
10/12/1968. N. 57.
EMBAIXADA BRASIELIRA EM WASHINGTON. 1968 (Governo). Telegramas
recebidos da Embaixada em Washington. DAm/600 (6li); Secretaria de Esta-
do das Relações Exteriores; Assunto: Situação da Guiana Inglesa. 24.672. Data:
16/05/1968.
244
GUYANA: 1968 (Governo). Telegramas recebidos da Embaixada em Geor-
getown. DAm/600 (6li); Secretaria de Estado das Relações Exteriores; Assunto:
Política Interna da Guyana Inglêsa: Perspectivas eleitorais. Data: 15/10/1968 N. 9.
ISHMAEL, Odeen. The General Election of 1953. The Guyana Story (From Ear-
liest Time to Independence). Guyana: Guyana News and Informantion, 2013c.
Disponível em: < http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter128.
html> Acesso em: 30 de janeiro de 2016.
LIMA, Erick Cavalcanti Linhares. Política Externa do vizinho distante: estu-
do de caso da República Cooperativa da Guiana. 2011. 171p. Tese (Doutorado em
Relações Internacionais e Desenvolvimento Regional) – DINTER, Universidade
de Brasília, Brasília, 2011.
LYRA JUNIOR, Américo Alves de. Cinema e relações internacionais: Dr. Stran-
gelove e as relações internacionais da Guerra Fria. In: CHAGAS, Rodrigo (Org.).
Cinema, educação & arte. Boa Vista: editora da UFRR, 2013, p. 149-165.
MORGENTHAU, Hans J. A política entre as nações: A luta pelo poder e pela
paz. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília/ Instituto de Pesquisa de Relações
Internacionais; São Paulo: Imprensa Oficial do Estado de São Paulo, 2003, 1151 p.
Disponível em:<http://funag.gov.br/loja/download/0179_politica_entre_as_na-
coes.pdf>. Acesso em : 07, mar. 2016.
245
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Iuri Cavlak holds a PhD in History from State University of São

Paulo (UNESP). He is professor of History Theory at Federal Universi-
ty of São Paulo (UNIFESP). Full Professor at the Postgraduate Program
in Borders Studies (PPGEF) and Postgraduate Program in History at the
Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP). Researches the historical forma-
tion of the guianas region. E-Mail: iuricavlak@yahoo.com.br
Arnaud-Dominique Houte is contemporary history professor
in Sorbonne-Université, member of the Center for 19th century history.
He recently publhished Au voleur! Images et représentations du vol dans
la France contemporaine (2021) and co-directed Histoire des polices en
France (2020). E-Mail: Arnaudhoute@aol.com.
Rayanne Santos Silva holds a Bachelor in International Relations
at the Federal University of Roraima, studying the last year of Pedagog-
ical Complementation at the Faculty of Science, Education and Theolo-
gy of Northern Brazil - FACETEN. She has experience as an elementary
school teacher in indigenous schools in Roraima. Currently, he is a night
shelter agent at the Reception Center for Venezuelan migrants and refu-
gees. E-Mail: rayannesansilva@gmail.com
Jodival Mauricio da Costa has a PhD in Environmental Science,
and is currently a Professor at the Federal University of Amapá (UNI-
FAP) at the. Postgraduate Program in Geography (PPGEO) and the Post-
graduate Program in Borders Studies (PPGEF). E-Mail:
Joaquim Shiraishi Neto, lawyer, Professor at the Federal Uni-
versity of Maranhão, linked to the Graduate program in Social Sciences.
Researcher at Foundation of Support to Research, Innovation and Tech-
nological Development of Maranhão (FAPEMA) and CNPq. CNPq pro-
ductivity researcher. E-Mail:
Izabela De Nazaré Tavares de Souza graduated in Environmental
Engineering and Renewable Energies. Master’s student in Regional
Development. E-Mail:
Américo Alves de Lyra Junior is Professor the History of Interna-
tional Relations at the Federal University of Roraima (UFRR). Mr. Lyra
researches on the Amazon, History of International Relations in Brazil,
HRIB, and Foreign Policy of the Brazilian Military Regime. E-Mail: amer-
ico.lyra@ufrr.br.
Paulo Gustavo Pellegrino Correa holds a PhD in Political Sci-
ence. He was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Waikato, New
Zealand (2012) and Guest Lecturer at the University of West Indies, Trin-
idad and Tobago (2017). Full Professor at the Postgraduate Program in
Borders Studies (PPGEF) at the Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP).
He was part of the Board of the Brazilian Association for Defense Stud-
ies (ABED) and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Cooperation and In-
ternational Relations at UNIFAP. E-Mail: paulogustavo1978@gmail.com.
Handerson Joseph is PhD in Social Anthropology from the Mu-
seu Nacional, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Full Professor
of the Anthropology Department and Postgraduate Program in Social
Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).
He was one of the Founder (2016), Coordinator (2019-2020) and a current
Professor at the Postgraduate Program in Borders Studies (PPGEF) at the
Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP). Founder of the Support Program
for Migrants and Refugees (PAMER) at UNIFAP. Researcher for the GT
Clacso “Fronteras: movilidades, identidades e comércios”, and researcher
the Centre for Research on the Anthropology and Citizenship (NACI)/
UFRGS. I have carried out field research in Haiti, Brazil, Guyana french,
248
Suriname, Amazonia, Border Mexico and United States. E-Mail: hander-
sonj_82@yahoo.es.
Miguel Patrice Philippe Dhenin is a Postdoctoral researcher
at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Geoscience Institute
(IGeo), He joined the Retis research group in 2019. He holds a Ph.D in
Political Science, from the Fluminense Federal University and a MA in
Strategic Studies in Defense and Security from the same university. His
currently research areas are: borderlands, environmental governance,
Amazonia and security studies. E-Mail: miguel.dhenin@gmail.com.
Natali Fabiana da Costa e Silva holds a PhD in Literary Stud-
ies. Professor at the Postgraduate Program in Linguistics and Literary
Studies and Professor of Literary Theory at the Federal University of
Amapá (UNIFAP), she researches literature authored by women, mem-
ory, identity and diasporic literature from the post-colonial and decolo-
nial perspective, with an emphasis on the literary productions of French
Guiana, Suriname, Republic of Guyana and the Caribbean. E-Mail: nata-
li_costa@hotmail.com.
Brenda Farias da Silva - Holds a master in Border Studies by the
Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP). She researches trafficking in
Brazilian women in the Guyana Region. Brenda is currently part of the
research group on Territorial Policies and Development (POTEDES) and
worked as a lecturer in UNIFAP between 2017 and 2018. E-Mail: brenda.
fariasds@gmail.com.
Rosuel Lima-Pereira is a Brazilianist. He holds a PhD in Iberian
and Ibero-American Studies.and He is a Senior Lecturer at the University
of French Guiana. He is parto f the MINEA Research Center. His studies
focus on messianism, Afro-Brazilian religious syncretism and represen-
tations and the formation of Brazilian identity. E-Mail: rosuel.lima-perei-
ra@univ-guyane.fr.
Samuel Tracol is a PhD candidate at Sorbonne University (Centre
d’Histoire du XIXème siècle, CRHXIX) and and he is a lecturer at the
University of Guyana. His thesis deals with the servants of the French
249
Guyana penal colony in their double colonial and penal dimension. His
approach is resolutely transdisciplinary - at the crossroads of history, so-
cial sciences and literary studies. As a founding member of the CoPALC
group, he recently published in Brasil, Europe and Africa. E-Mail: samu-
el.tracol@laposte.net.
Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos is a Professor of Latin American
Studies at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp) and a Re-
search Associate at the Society, Work & Politics Institute (SWOP) at the
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is the author of A history
of South America under progressivism (1998-2016) (Haymarket: 2021),
among other books. E-Mail: fabio.luis@unifesp.br.
Rodrigo Pereira Chagas is a Professor of Social Sciences at the
Universidade Federal Roraima (UFRR). His work focuses on the Sociol-
ogy of Development, with an emphasis on Brazilian Sociology and the
Formation of Contemporary Brazil. He is a member of Realidade Lati-
no-americana extension group. E-Mail:
Carmentilla das Chagas Martins is a Professor and researcher at
Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP). She develops her work in both
undergraduate and graduate courses. Her research lies on topics that
concern Amapá and French Guiana border; Brazil-France cross-border
cooperation; cross-border mobility and migration; borders and gender.
E-Mail: carmentilla.c@gmail.com.
250
Título: History and International Relations in the Guyana Regions
Organização: Iuri Cavlak, Paulo Gustavo Pellegrino Correa
Prefácio: Clodoaldo Bueno
Projeto gráfico, capa e arte final: Raquel Ishii
Imagem da capa: José Marcelo Martins Medeiros
Revisão: Brenda Farias da Silva
Produção editorial e diagramação: Marcelo Alves Ishii
Formato: 16 x 23 cm
Tipologia: Constantia 11 / 17
Miolo: Avena 90g
Capa: Couchê Brilho 170g/Offset Chambril 180g
Número de páginas: 250
Impressão e acabamento: PrintStore

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History and International Relations in The Guiana Region

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History and International Relations in the Guyana Regions

Diretor administrativo: Marcelo Alves Ishii

Conselho Editorial: Agenor Sarraf Pacheco (UFPA), Ana Pizarro (Universidade

History and International Relations in the Guyana Regions /

1. Amazônia – História. 2. Amazônia – Relações internacionais. 3.

CDD 22. ed. 320.12

GUYANAS FROM BRAZIL: AMAZON AND CARIBBEAN............11

WHO SAID A BLACK WOMAN CANNOT BE

“AQUI COMEÇA O BRASIL” : PENAL

FRENCH GUIANA, AN OUTERMOST

POLITICAL ECOLOGY AT THE FRONTIERS

THE DILEMMA OF LOCAL PARTICIPATION

THE TRAFFICKING OF BRAZILIAN WOMEN

GUYANA AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE THIRD WORLD..... 181

SUBJECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND

A FORGOTTEN FRONTIER AND ONE

ABOUT THE AUTHORS.............................................................. 247

1 OLIVEIRA, Reginaldo G. O Rio Branco no Contexto da Amazônia Caribenha: aspectos da coloni-

Source: elaborated by Brenda Farias da Silva

In this territory, we find the history of the Amazonian ethnic groups

1 OLIVEIRA, Reginaldo G.. Amazônia Caribenha: a regionalização, os caminhos históricos e cul-

Sexism as a system of domination is institutionalized,

(hooks, 2015, p.197)1

In order to prevent the black population from acquiring land or

In addition to social discredit, they were banned from social cir-

As it was said earlier, racism and gender discrimination have led

It is through the porosity existing between the literary and histori-

5 Information extracted from McLEOD, 2004, p.431.

6 My translation from the Brazilian edition.

This task of revealing and/or denouncing historical events is at the

8 My translation from the Brazilian edition.

10 You can find Truth’s speech in hooks, 1987.

So for hooks, Betty Friedan’s famous phrase from The feminine

12 My translation to the Brazilian edition.

In the excerpt above, the third-person narrator assumes the char-

17 Translation from the Brazilian edition.

1 Brazil’s southern borders with Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.

4 Definition given by the Géoconfluences site (ENS de Lyon): [http://geoconfluences.ens-lyon.fr/

Colonial modernity, penal modernity:

“These men who are being wiped off the

Life and death of the prison communities of

“The map is not the territory”27

31 FOUCAULT, Michel. « Des espaces autres. » Conférence au Cercle d’études architecturales, 14

34 LOPEZ, Amadeo.Présentation. La notion de frontière. In : América. Cahiers du CRIC-

Prison colonization, an Amazonian story:

37 Baudelaire, Charles. Op. cit.

6 Available on: https://op.europa.eu/pt/publication-detail/-/publication/ea300365-230f-41be-b8ce-

Guiana, between cooperation and economic

Guianese challenges in the face of its internal

16 Available on: https://www.geosoc.fr/liens-docman/reunions-scientifiques-et-techniques/6eme-

tiques-publiques/EMOPI/Bilan-LCOI-2018 Consulted on: June 13, 2020.

24 Available on: file: /// C: /Users/lsh/Downloads/hommesmigrations-259.pdf. Consulted on: May

Brief theoretical debate on Regional

4 According to a statement in the interviews with representatives of the catraieiros’ cooperatives,

The theoretical analysis of regionalism is inserted within the de-

The importance of the Brazil-French Guiana

French Guiana shows a peculiar situation in multiple aspects. As a

Source: CORREA (2014, p.96)

Another characteristic of French Guiana is its condition as an out-

In this proto-cooperation, we want to draw attention to the project

5 France and French Guiana are members as an observer or guest member.

Social representation and its use as a research

This means that social groups conform a set of information about