The most cosmopolitan island under the sun'? : negotiating ethnicity and nationhood in everyday Mauritius

Abstract

The Indian Ocean island of Mauritius is an intensely multicultural island space. A history of settlement arising out of colonisation, slavery, indentured labour and trade has resulted in a contemporary nation-state that is ethnically and cultural diverse. Mauritius has been characterised by a significant measure of success in the management of this diversity, in that there has been a marked lack of any kind of overt, persistent ethnic violence. By focussing on the particularly quotidian experiences and situations of Mauritius' cultural diversity where the experiences of ethnic lives lived within the contained multi-ethnic island space are arguably at their most frequent, their most banal and, simultaneously, at their most meaningful, this thesis argues that Mauritius' seeming multi-ethnic success is by no means guaranteed. I argue for two conceptualisations of Mauritius' cultural diversity. Firstly, I argue for a concept of an ethnic imaginary. Drawing on Charles Taylor's concept of the 'social imaginary' (2002, 2004) which focuses on how people understand their everyday worlds, my adaptation of the ethnic imaginary contains a particular emphasis on culture, multiculture and diversity. This includes a recognition of the shifting, nuanced expressions of ethnic identities which can be played out, suppressed or sidestepped in multiple, self-conscious and arbitrary ways throughout the course of a day. As such, there is an associated focus on the ceaseless articulations of, and negotiations between, Self and Others. This is added to by a further focus on the constant movements 'in-between' categories that can be simultaneously reified and fluid. I argue that the ethnic imaginary provides an insight into the complex dynamics of living in Mauritius' everyday cultural diversity. It not only offers a way of exploring how individuals situate themselves and others in their daily multi-ethnic worlds, but also the extent to which ethnicity is considered important. The place and importance of the nation in the face of such intense multi-ethnicity is equally part of the focus of this thesis. Rather than being subsumed in the face of the pervasive influences of the ethnic imaginary, I argue that the importance of the nation and a sense of national awareness are emphasised in a variety of ways that I have termed 'Mauritianite'. Mauritianite conceptualises the multiple instances where the national is crosswoven into the multi-ethnic (and vice versa). Mauritianite offers a balance between the demands of the national and the competing tensions and accommodations of the ethnic imaginary, with the balance remaining open to constant re-negotiation and without any kind of permanent resolution. The dynamics that Mauritianite encapsulates also incorporate a daily, informal component, as well as the more formal, top-down governance-level focus. These two notions - of the ethnic imaginary and of Mauritianite - form the two interrelated conceptualisations which serve as the basis for analysis of Mauritius as a multi-ethnic society.

Date of Award	2009
Original language	English