Social Change and Racial Inequalities in the Post-Slavery Plantation Societies 19th – 21st century

Project in the Historicising Contemporary Racial Inequalities theme within the Politics of Inequality research programme

This sociohistorical research project aims to examine the foundations of a common post-slavery system from the Caribbean to the Southern United States in the 19^thcentury and the pervasiveness of socio-racial inequalities in the 21^stcentury in the former plantation societies established on colonial slavery in the 17^thcentury.

Including Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique and the Southern United States, the project firstly focuses on the construction and the implementation of a common post-slavery pattern embedded in the historical context of the 19^thcentury as the key element aligning the racial inequalities originating from the colonial slavery with the structural economic and social inequalities assumed by economic liberalism after the abolitions (1834 in the British colonies, 1848 in the French colonies, 1865 in the Southern United States).

One of the main ideas is that, after World War II, in the 20^thcentury and a time marked by the decolonisation, the dominance of these socio-racial inequalities led to the emergence of a specific form of social aspiration in the French and the British Caribbean: the social decolonisationbeyond their different political evolutions.

Despite a so-called socio-economic "modernisation", which has actually consolidated a socio-racial divide characterised by a mass essentially composed of African-descended people and Indian-descended people in the lower classes, the failure of politics and public policies to address this particular post-slavery aspiration between the 1950’s and the 2000’s, then can explain the emergence of the Reparations claims in the Caribbean post-slavery plantation societiesfrom the 2000’s to these days.

Lead investigator and co-ordinator:

Dr Maël Lavenaire
Research Fellow

Since the 2000’s, we have been observing a progressing international mobilisation claiming for Reparatory Justice for Global Black Enslavement in the United States as well as in the Caribbean, including both former colonial possessions of Great Britain and France. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 then reinforced the Black Lives Matter movement dating back to 2013 and reactivated the question of the slavery legacies in our contemporary world, notably the question of the racial inequalities and the all-pervasive position of African-descended people at the lowest levels in the societies built on the colonial slavery.

The problem is that these racial inequalities are actually at the intersection of economic and social inequalities which are strongly embedded in an historical process that social sciences cannot deny and, above all, are now expected to investigate more than ever.

This research is framed by a sociohistorical approach to social change in the post-slavery plantation societies, and it is supported by a transdisciplinary approach in terms of concepts and methodology from different social sciences (archival investigations and history, sociology, political science, economy, anthropology and social psychology).

At this stage, the main idea is to explore the possibility of a common pattern implemented across different plantation societies after the abolitions of slavery and in which we can extract the genesis of the socio-racial inequalities still pointed out by many sociologists and economists at the beginning of the 21st century. Also, it seems to be important to understand how the establishment of the post-slavery system(s) and its/their contemporary incidences can directly explain the emergence of the claims for Reparation in some territories usually observed through divergences. As a matter of fact, the point is that the question of the post-slavery plantation societies in the Americas is still suffering from a broad-spectrum analysis capable of emphasizing the factors and mechanisms involved in the pervasiveness of socio-racial inequalities and the constant reproduction of the social system until the 21st century beyond its observation.

Therefore, as a first step and a first contribution, this research project is based on a new and crucial comparative perspective including Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique and the Southern United States after the different abolitions of slavery, between 1833 and 1838 for the British colonies, in 1848 for the French colonies, then in 1865 for the United States.

The analysis intends to re-examine the implementation of a social control process going hand in hand with an economic dependency affecting the former slaves and/or new plantation workers because White planters elites benefited from a financial compensation in the case of the Caribbean and/or a policy to assure the preservation of the former socio-economic order.

This project aims at examining the circulation and the implementation of a common post-slavery pattern as the key and masterpiece which has enabled the pervasiveness of the socio-racial inequalities since the 19th century.

All things considered, the purpose is also to point out and discuss the inefficiency of the "invisible hand" as well as the limits that ideologies of liberalism and then neoliberalism faced when they were articulated to racial theories leading to the failure of public policies in terms of social change until nowadays in some countries established on the colonial slavery in the 17th century.

Social Change and Racial Inequalities in the Post-Slavery Plantation Societies 19th – 21st century

Lead investigator and co-ordinator:

Research focus and aims