The gwoup-a-po in Guadeloupe: can a culture be (re)appropriated?

Résumé 0

Guadeloupe’s gwoup-a-po and mouvman kiltirel are no longer the marginalized gwoup-a-mas who, in the first half of the 20th century, tried to earn a few coins by marching through town during the carnival period, nor the farmhands who played gwoka music in secret in their homes, away from the acceptable culture. Today, they continue to reflect Guadeloupe’s cultural particularism as well as the fundamental contribution to the archipelago’s culture of populations marginalized in socio-historical relationships of domination. However, since the 1990s, these groups have entered into a process of institutionalization associated with the production of the paradoxical concepts of “culture” and “tradition”. At the same time, their political discourse has been toned down and replaced to a certain extent by an elaborate form of spirituality. In this context, forms of patrimonialization have gradually emerged, including in mainland France. This case study raises questions about the links between the notion of patrimonialization (or its critical counterpart, cultural appropriation) and the emic term “reappropriation”.