Day 1: In which I am reunited with French baguette while pondering French culture

Well, after nearly 7 months of planning it has finally happened: I arrived in Guadeloupe! As many of you know, I received a scholarship to conduct research here this summer through the William and Mary French Department.  I am pleased to report that all the planning paid off: my journey today felt nearly effortless!

I woke up at 3:30 am this morning (yes you read that right!) to catch a 6am flight to Miami, where I flew to Pointe a Pitre, one of Guadeloupe's biggest cities.  From there, I picked up a rental car and checked into my apartment for the next 3.5 weeks.  After unpacking, grocery shopping, and cooking, I am sitting here eating ratatouille and baguette while watching a game show in French.  It seemed fitting to start my first travel blog at this somewhat triumphant culmination of planning, traveling, and eating. (Mostly eating-- once you go baguette you never go back.)

This blog will primarily serve to document my activites during my time here: everything I've seen and done and how these experiences contribute to my research.  So what exactly am I researching? I shall now explain, because it can be a bit complicated for people who aren't French/ don't study French/ etc.

My Research: (I feel like there should be a drum roll here- please use your imagination).

Guadeloupe is what's referred to as a DOM: French for "overseas department".  Imagine it like Hawaii: still a state and thus part of the United States, just not connected to the North American continent.  Guadeloupe is the same: it is a "departement", which is the French equivalent of a state. People here travel with French passports and adhere to the same laws as those who live in "continental France", they just happen to live on a tropical island a couple hours south of Miami. 

Why are things this way? Because Guadeloupe was formerly a French colony that produced agricultural goods like sugar cane and rhum that the mainland cannot produce.  This seems like a pretty sweet set- up, until you remember the massive amount of slave labor needed to accomplish this.  The racial hierarchy established during the slave- holding era is not easy to dismantle.  Americans, the French, and many other cultures struggle with complicated class and race relations that stem from their respective slave- holding periods. 

Consequently, as Guadeloupeans became French, it seems highly unlikely that their unique culture and identity was completely absorbed by that of the French.  But in a French department, where and how is this identity expressed?  I doubt I will find it in museums, given that the French government prides itself on distinctively French culture.  For example, how do museums largely marketed towards French tourists disucss slavery and how does this compare with the way it is discussed in Guadeloupean litterature, music, art...? Exploring the tension between these two identities and how they compete, coexist, and complete each other will be the subject of a paper I write as a culminating thesis for my French degree.  

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to satiate this curiosity and anxious to get started.  But if you know anything about France, you know that most everything is closed on Sundays.  So tomorrow may just be a beach day ;)

Real picture of me working very hard! (from wikipedia. :)