Guadeloupe, an enterprise island, from the 1930s to the 1960s : Entrepreneurs, territory, state

• Main Author: Touchelay, Marie-Christine
• Other Authors: Centre de recherche pluridisciplinaire en Lettres, Langues, Sciences Humaines et des Sociétés (Pléiade), Université Paris 13 (UP13), Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, Danièle Fraboulet
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: Sugar industry; Entrepreneurs; Enterprise island; Public space; Industrie sucrière; Île entreprise; Espace public; [SHS.HIST]Humanities and Social Sciences/History; Enterprise Island
• Online Access: https://theses.hal.science/tel-01772298; https://theses.hal.science/tel-01772298/document; https://theses.hal.science/tel-01772298/file/ederasme_th_2017_touchelay.pdf

The objective of this study is to demonstrate the importance of sugar companies in Guadeloupe's history. Established and then maintained by France, they delay the development of a public space as well as the apprenticeship in the concept of public service, thus inviting to qualify this territory as an enterprise island. Embodied by the group of entrepreneurs who administer them locally from the 1930s to the 1960s, the domination of the sugar industry is based on the sugar island's legacy, which constitutes its strength through its long-standing activity as much as its weakness by the stigma of slavery that weighs on entrepreneurial relations. Created in the 1930s, when the colonial state made the economy dependent on its sugar industry, the Guadeloupe employers' group transformed it into a island for sugar, dependent on the export of its sugar cane monoculture. The disruption of exports during the Second World War does not hinder the sugar industry from surviving on an island now a stockpile island, highlighting the absurdity of the economic system. Having been comforted by colonization, the same sugar entrepreneurs are still active after the island becomes a french department in 1946 and confirms its status as an enterprise island. The decline of sugar companies coincides with the cessation of the professional activity of most of the actors who made them live, leaving the field open to a public service apprenticeship by the territory from the late 1960s onwards L'objectif de cette étude est de démontrer le poids des entreprises sucrières dans l'histoire de la Guadeloupe. Installées puis maintenues par la France, elles retardent l'aménagement d'un espace public comme l'apprentissage de la notion de service public, invitant à qualifier ce territoire d'île entreprise. Incarnée par le groupe d'entrepreneurs qui les administrent localement des années 1930 aux années 1960, la domination de l'industrie sucrière repose sur l'héritage de l'île à sucre, qui constitue sa force par l'ancienneté de l'activité autant que ...