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Living on an ever-changing coast: French Guiana populations facing coastal mobility

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Abstract

This article examines how the populations of French Guiana have, since the colonization period until today, inhabited the coast, in particular the cheniers close to the coast, whereas these spaces are subject to intense changes—colonization and destruction of the mangrove ecosystem, erosion, modification of the estuaries—which have significant consequences for living conditions and access to natural resources. The interdisciplinary approach brought together historians, geographers, geomorphologists, ecologists and anthropologists. Three contrasted areas were studied: Awala-Yalimapo, a Kali'na Amerindian village located at the Maroni estuary, the savannas region, between Sinnamary and Iracoubo where the Creole peasantry flourished, and finally, the particular case of the city of Kourou, built from the 1960s by the sea to house the engineers and technicians of the Guiana Space Center. This paper aims to propose a reflection on mobility and adaptability of the traditional habitat of the Amerindian and Creole populations, based on the collective appropriation of the land, and what could be described as a light approach to development. On the contrary, Kourou was built with a relationship to the sea largely imported from metropolitan France at a time when private property became the norm in French Guiana. The city is now facing serious erosion problems. As we question how to inhabit the coastline at a time when global change is likely to bring rapid transformations, knowing this history can be a valuable source of reflection for future coastal management strategies.

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Fig. 1

adapted from Walcker, 2015 and actualized for the year 2018 with a numerized coastline based on landsat satellite photographs

Fig. 2

© Fonds A. Heuret, all rights reserved; 2 Chemin de l’Anse, 2017, photo by Denis Lamaison; 3 and 4 Dwellings of the kali’na village of Awala: 3 Anonymous photograph, around 1950, © Fonds A. Heuret, all rights reserved; 4 2007, photo by Gérard Collomb

Fig. 3

Notes

  1. 237,641 inhabitants for a total population of 276,128 inhabitants in 2018. See INSEE, “recensement de la population”, https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5005684.

  2. Ethnographic field research was conducted:

    - for Awala-Yalimapo by Gérard Collomb and Marquisar Jean-Jacques in 2017 and 2018. Gérard Collomb also draws on multiple stays over the past thirty years. Marquisar Jean-Jacques conducted a research assignment from January to May 2018.

    - for the savannas region (Sinnamary and Iracoubo) by Marianne Palisse in 2017. Marianne Palisse also drew on several research studies conducted in the same region since 2012.

    - for Kourou by Bettie Laplanche and Marianne Palisse, from April to June 2017, then from April to June 2018.

  3. See articles in local media: https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/guyane/meteo-plage-yalimapo-ravagee-fortes-marees-766263.html, and https://www.franceguyane.fr/actualite/environnement/alerte-jaune-maintenue-sur-l-ouest-guyanais-460011.php, consulted on 18 Jan 2021.

  4. “en 1946, j'avais dix ans. […] Avec l'installation des bancs de vase et la poussée des palétuviers, nos plages disparurent. […] Sous la contrainte de ces éléments naturels -, vase et palétuviers -, en une dizaine d'années, l'embouchure du fleuve fut modifiée. Elle s'éloigna des plages de ma presqu'île. C'est avec beaucoup d'amertume que je vécus l'éloignement des rives de mon fleuve, des plages de ma presqu'île. Les quelques riverains d'alors, avec le retour de la mangrove, se retirèrent vers l'intérieur des terres, sur les hauteurs de la savane sèche, plus ventilées.” (Létard 2007).

  5. “Ils y vécurent quelques années, contents de leur sort, lorsque la nature vint jouer un rôle néfaste. La belle plage fut envahie par les palétuviers, refuges d'insectes et de vampires. Le village fut peu à peu abandonné. Ils s'éparpillèrent comme avant, choisissant les endroits qui leur convenaient le mieux.[…] » (Lohier, 1972).

  6. Lightness, Marshall Sahlins reminds us, is a desirable quality for nomadic populations. A light object can be easily carried (Sahlins, 1988).

  7. Many examples of this admiration for Suriname can be given. See for example the book by Daniel Lescallier (1798), pp. 20–21.

  8. One may wonder about the causes of these failures while the Surinamese polders have been maintained. One can incriminate a lack of know-how on the part of the French, who did not have the same tradition in this field as the Dutch and perhaps did not choose the best locations. Certainly, given the chronic shortage of workers in French Guiana, it was impossible to maintain a model after the abolition of slavery that formerly relied on the use of slave labor to dig canals and build dikes. It is worth noting that in Suriname, the polder system was reinvested and used by Indian contract laborers to grow rice (Ramdayal et al., 2021).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Mission for Interdisciplinarity of the CNRS and in particular the “Pépinière Interdisciplinaire de Guyane (PIG)”, which financed in 2017 and 2018 the DYALOG project: Dynamics, Adaptability and Vulnerability of the Populations of Western French Guiana to Coastal Change. This work is a contribution of the French GDR LiGA researcher network

Funding

This work was supported by the Mission for Interdisciplinarity of the CNRS and in particular the “Pépinière Interdisciplinaire de Guyane (PIG)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Guyane/LEEISA, Centre de recherche de Montabo - 275 route de Montabo,, BP 70620, 97334, Cayenne Cedex, French Guiana, France

    Marianne Palisse

  2. CNRS/IIAC, Paris, France

    Gérard Collomb

  3. Agde, France

    Dennis Lamaison

  4. Université d’Artois/Discontinuités UR 2468, Arras, France

    Valérie Morel

  5. Aix Marseille University, Université de Toulon, CNRS, IRD, MIO, Marseille, France

    Philippe Cuny

  6. Université de Guyane/LEEISA, Cayenne, French Guiana, France

    Morgane Jolivet

  7. Université de Guyane/LEEISA, Cayenne, French Guiana, France

    Marquisar Jean-Jacques

  8. Université Lyon 3, Lyon, France

    Bettie Laplanche

  9. CNRS/LEEISA, Cayenne, French Guiana, France

    Antoine Gardel

Authors
  1. Marianne Palisse
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  2. Gérard Collomb
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  3. Dennis Lamaison
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  4. Valérie Morel
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  5. Philippe Cuny
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  6. Morgane Jolivet
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  7. Marquisar Jean-Jacques
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  8. Bettie Laplanche
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  9. Antoine Gardel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marianne Palisse.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The interviewees in the semi-structured interviews were informed of the purposes of the study and gave their oral consent for the interviews to be recorded and used, respecting their anonymity and for academic research purposes only.

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Palisse, M., Collomb, G., Lamaison, D. et al. Living on an ever-changing coast: French Guiana populations facing coastal mobility. GeoJournal (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10694-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10694-5

Keywords

  • French Guiana
  • Coastal change
  • Adaptability
  • Vulnerability
  • Amerindians
  • Creoles