ABSTRACT
On Marie-Galante, a single authoritative or official version of history is not easy to recount. If one can speak of an official version of history there, it is comprised of histories within histories, imaginatively recalled, revitalized, and maintained often in the eloquent imagery of musical performance. Although the Caribbean lies at the heart of the western hemisphere and was historically pivotal in the rise of Europe to world predominance, it has nevertheless been spatially and temporally eviscerated from the imaginary of geographies of "Western modernity". Marie-Galantais histories emerge in and as narrative, as coalescence, juxtaposition, imbrication, and as contrasting varied subject positions and accounts. The difficulty or impossibility of relocating in France remains its own unique obstacle for many Marie-Galantais as another sign, in the midst of the globally audible polemic over immigration issues, of their exclusion from the nation, of its inaccessibility to them.
