Why Reunionese Anti-Colonial Thoughts Have Disappeared? Emergence and Decline of Anti-Colonial Ideas in Réunion in the Second Half of the 20th Century.

During the 1950s, like other Third World countries, and overseas French territories, Réunion Island experienced a wave of anticolonialism movement. In 1959, a local communist party emerged and constructed it political identity with the idea of struggling again French colonialism. It asked for a “political autonomy” from France. Consequently, a certain quantity of publications (mainly political periodicals and newspapers, but also some books) using an anti-colonialist rhetoric was published during the 1960 and 1970s. But and the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s this Reunionese anti-colonialist literature disappear. So, this paper proposes to examine the dynamics of anticolonial ideas in Reunion Island. I will begin by looking at anti-colonialist actors and discourses. I will show how they analysed society and what they requested. Then I will present different hypotheses that could explain the downward trend of anticolonialism in the island. I will stress on the strategy of communist party and its relations with intellectuals. The data on which this communication is based are extracted from an archival ethnography conducted for my ongoing doctoral thesis. In this research, I explore the visions of the future that have shaped the Reunionese agri-food system since the end of the colonial status of this Indian ocean island.