BUMIDOM (1963-1982) and its Afterlives: Literature, Memory and Migration in Bloomington, MN

This book investigates cultural representations of the BUMIDOM (Bureau pour le développement des migrations dans les départements d’outre-mer), a state-organised migration scheme which brought workers from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion and French Guiana to mainland France between 1963 and 1982. It argues that the French government has not sufficiently commemorated the BUMIDOM through national frameworks such as museums and education systems. This would mean admitting that participants, who were French citizens, were treated as racialised migrants and second-class-citizens. Through a series of original case studies spanning life writing, novels, films,
bande dessinée
, children’s fiction and music, the study demonstrates that it is cultural practitioners who, in the absence of adequate state representation, are undertaking this important memory work themselves. In a period in which Black identity is increasingly entering public debate in France, the book raises urgent questions about what it means to be a French citizen and a racial minority.