Scholarship stay in Martinique 2002/03

Final report on the scholarship period from 01.10.2002 to 28.02.2003 at the Université des Antilles et de la Guyane in Martinique

1 Practical tips
2 Political and economic situation
3 Université des Antilles et de la Guyane (U.A.G.) 4 Creole language
5 Final words

1 Practical tips

Martinique has been a French overseas department since 1946, so an identity card is sufficient for EU citizens to enter the country. However, it is advisable to bring your passport to visit the surrounding islands, including St. Lucie and Dominca. If you are staying in Martinique for longer than 3 months, you must apply for a residence permit ("carte de séjour") at the prefecture in Fort-de-France. Accommodation is available for students on the university campus in Schoelcher in the C.R.O.U.S. student residences. However, these are very quickly overcrowded and primarily reserved for local students, which I was kindly informed of on the phone in advance. It is therefore advisable to look for private accommodation. Like the majority of my fellow students, I sublet a small apartment ("studio") of around 18 ^square meters and paid 410 euros (including hot water and electricity) per month. This example clearly shows how high the costs are on this island. I would therefore like to expressly point out once again that it is financially unfavorable for DAAD scholarship holders if Martinique continues to be counted as part of the Latin America department. In this context, it should be noted that people in the public sector in the three French overseas departments of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyana earn 40% more "de vie chère" (for expensive living) than in the "metropolis" (French mainland); in Réunion it is even 60%.
Martinique is a real car island. Public transportation (buses or shared cabs, called "taxicos") do not adhere to any timetable and only offer their services during the week until around 6 pm. This means that there is a disproportionately high number of cars (resulting in regular traffic jams at peak times), which are realistically the only way to get around the island.

2 Political and economic situation

Although Martinique benefits economically from France to a large extent (for local students this means relatively generous student grants and housing allowances, for example), there is also an independence movement that cannot be ignored, to which the President of the Regional Congress, M. Alfred Marie-Jeanne, belongs. Culturally, the Martiniquans feel that they belong to the Antilles, even if it seemed to me that the "broad masses" of the population still want to belong to France economically. As Martinique has not only been an independent department since 1982, but also an independent region, there are currently discussions about restructuring the "Conseil régional" (regional congress or supreme executive body of a region) and the "Conseil général" (supreme executive body of a department) into an "Assemblée unique" (unified assembly). This would certainly mean a more efficient self-responsible policy for this region and would undoubtedly also save unnecessary administrative costs.

The relatively high unemployment rate (approx. 33%) on the island is alarming, with youth unemployment even exceeding 50%. It is therefore not surprising that the majority of Antilleans seek work on the French mainland.
Even though agriculture is an important part of the Martiniquan economy, the income of farmers and fishermen only covers 10-13% of the needs of the local population. As a result, the lion's share has to be imported, which often leads to exorbitant food prices. This may be one of the reasons why the island is experiencing a so-called tourism crisis: It is simply too expensive or the price-performance ratio is not right. In this context, it should be noted that only a very specific class of the population is in control of agriculture, as they own around 80% of the land. These are the so-called "békés" (the old colonial masters), who make up only about 1% of the population. They keep to themselves and under no circumstances "mix" with the actual population of Martinique.
Even though the economic situation is desolate in many respects, Martinique does not have the feeling of being threatened by increasing crime in everyday life. It is just not advisable for women to be out alone very late after dark. However, this is more of a cultural issue.

3 Université des Antilles et de la Guyane (U.A.G.)

The university's various Faculties are spread across the following three overseas departments of France: Martinique (humanities), Guadeloupe (natural sciences) and Guyana (technical degree programs). For some time now, however, there have been efforts to establish independent universities in all three regions.
The university staff in Martinique welcome foreign students with open arms and are a great help, especially at the beginning, with their friendly and courteous helpfulness. This is perhaps due to the fact that there are not yet very many foreign students in Schoelcher. Most of them are students from the surrounding Caribbean islands, with the exception of a relatively large proportion of English students. During my semester abroad, there was another German law student at the university with me. German is not offered at the U.A.G., by the way.
As expected, the French university cliché - a much more scholastic system than the German one - was also confirmed in the overseas department: a predetermined timetable, strongly monitored compulsory attendance and continuous performance checks and homework. In general, the relationship between lecturer and student is relatively impersonal, even distant.
The library is well equipped for my areas of study (language, literature and culture of the francophone world), and there is probably no better place for my specialization (Creole language). Unfortunately, the Internet access options at the U.A.G. leave something to be desired. I was amazed at how unfamiliar many of my fellow students were with this medium anyway.

4 Creole language

As already mentioned in point 3, at the U.A.G. you are right at the source, so to speak, and you have fantastic opportunities to further your linguistic education in the field of Creole. Incidentally, for some time now, the U.A.G. has been offering the possibility of obtaining a teaching qualification in the Creole language - the
C.A.P.E.S. Creole (Certificat d'Aptitude Pédagogique à l'Enseignement Secondaire).
I also had the pleasure of being taught by the founding fathers of Creole as a standardized written language. I attended courses with Jean Bernabé (who wrote the first Creole grammar) and Raphaël Confiant (one of the first and most important authors to write in Creole).
To be honest, I have to admit that my theoretical knowledge of Creole is far better than my practical knowledge. "Creole as a foreign language" is not offered at university in this way, but the courses (language practice: learning Creole grammar and written language; linguistics: theories of origins, etc.) are aimed exclusively at native speakers. In everyday life, it is particularly difficult for a foreign woman to speak Creole, as it is still considered impolite by many Antilleans to address a "mademoiselle" in Creole, due to the decades-long devaluation of the language. Female students also speak much less Creole among themselves than their male counterparts. If you ask my generation today what they consider to be their mother tongue, the majority will answer "French". If you ask our parents' generation, it looks a lot different. Even though this generation in particular was forbidden by their parents to speak Creole at home for social reasons, they are still more likely to see this language as their mother tongue than my generation. So you can observe a very interesting phenomenon in the French Antilles: On the one hand, there are the strong efforts of intellectuals (Confiant, Bernabé, Glissant, Chamoiseau etc...) to upgrade and institutionalize Creole, on the other hand, one must in fact speak of a quantitative and even qualitative decreolization, since the younger generations speak less and less Creole among themselves and thus their vocabulary in this language is impoverished or they "Frenchify" Creole. The latter may be due to the decades of suppression of this language and the ever-increasing media influence of France today.

5 Concluding words

I would like to see the Antillean-German exchange become even more important in the future. Even if the people of Martinique or Guadeloupe have a European passport or pay with the euro, for the majority of these people Germany is a country somewhere in Europe. Many are not aware that we are perhaps the most important neighbor of their mother country. However, the people are exceptionally open to foreign cultures and welcomed me as a "newcomer" into their circle relatively quickly.

Marianne Bedbur
Dresden, April 22, 2003