is a musical and

literary movement Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing ...

Réunion Réunion (; ; ; known as before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately east of the isl ...

. The term was first used in 1970, and was adapted by Catholic bishop

Gilbert Aubry Gilbert Guillaume Marie-Jean Aubry (born 10 May 1942 in Saint-Louis, Réunion) was a Réunionnais bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint-Denis-de-La Réunion, as well as a poet and a singer. Aubry served as the bishop of the diocese, whic ...

in 1978. It is a traditional movement which seeks to place Réunionese identity within a larger, integrated French identity. In contrast to the movement, it places more focus on French folklore, and less on the history of French slavery.

History

The term was coined in 1970 by the poet Jean Albany, which was later adapted by

in his conference text ''Hymne a la Créolie'' (1978), given in Saint Denis; Aubry, a Catholic bishop, later wrote that his text was the "trigger" for the movement. Other prominent writers include

Jean-Henri Azéma Jean-Henri Azéma, called Jean Azéma (28 December 1913 – 13 October 2000) was a French poet of Réunionnais origin. Born in Saint-Denis, he died in Buenos Aires, where he had fled after collaborating with the Nazis during World War II ...

and . Works by practitioners include the poetry collection (Albany, 1951), the text (Albany, 1972), the music recording (Albany and others, 1979; English: ''Sing Albany''), and the poetry collection (Azéma, 1978; English: ''Holograph'').

Analysis

In contrast to the movement, which developed some ten years after was developed, is a traditional, conservative, and apolitical movement. It does not seek to place

Réunion Creole Réunion Creole, or Reunionese Creole (; ), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken on Réunion. It is derived mainly from French language, French and includes terms from Malagasy language, Malagasy, Hindi, Port ...

as the sole emancipatory language of the island or its people. The movement, through writing and song, seeks to recuperate a regional identity of France, where the individual identities of its possessions—including

and its historical associations with Portugal, Spain, Madagascar, and the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

—are brought to the fore and integrated with a French identity into a cohesive and unitary national one. The conformist agenda of is seen in the movement's combination of creole cultural traditions and French folklore, while activists use the history of French slavery and traditional music. The movement, however, disavows any hereditary links between France and Réunion, instead taking an integrative approach. Its perspective of history is similar to , in that seeks to challenge history and come up with pride. According to the literary scholar

Françoise Lionnet Françoise Lionnet serves as acting chair of the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University, where she is professor of Romance languages and literatures, comparative literature, and African and African A ...

, the movement ignores the value of Réunion Creole as a language, and its move toward integration is ultimately a

nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

reaction. Similarly, the French scholar Valérie Magdelaine-Andrianjafitrimo writes that the movement is a theoretical one of redemption for the Réunionese as members of a French nation-state, where creole "is no longer a ''

patois ''Patois'' (, same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or sl ...

History

Analysis

Notes and references

Notes

Citations

Bibliography