French Guiana in transition : (im)mobility patterns in the Maroni Basin

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French Guiana in Transition:

(Im)Mobility Patterns in the Maroni Basin

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French Guiana in Transition:

(Im)Mobility Patterns in the Maroni Basin

Master’s Thesis Mathis Osburg UvA ID: 12246859

Master of Sociology, Track: Migration and Ethnic Studies

1st_{Supervisor: Dr. Simona Vezzoli} 2nd_{Supervisor: Dr. Sonja Fransen} On-Site Supervisor: Dr. Marion Comptour

University of Amsterdam July 2019

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research project that led to this master's thesis was an unexpected and exciting opportunity in my academic life. I had the chance to contribute to the work of a professional research centre and learn about life in a place that most people have never even heard of. Indeed, French Guiana is an often-forgotten part of the world, despite it making a unique case for social science research. I want to give thanks to at least a handful of the many people who contributed to this experience and the progress of this work.

Above all, my teacher Simona Vezzoli who did not only open this possibility to me, but also supported me through every step of this thesis. Her availability, helpfulness and effort go far beyond her professional responsibilities as a supervisor. Furthermore, I thank Marion Comptour for her supervision on-site, and for sharing her knowledge in discussions that provoked reflections and conclusions of my findings. Moreover, I want to express my gratitude to Frédéric Piantoni, Franck Temporal, Clémentine Leservoisier, Adelaide Jeanney and Jérôme Fozzani who, through their own ways, contributed to the advance of this thesis. The time spent together in French Guiana was a great experience for me. Finally, I thank the representatives of public institutions who collaborated with us in our research efforts. Their availability for interviews and discussions was highly appreciated and diversified the perspectives on the studied subject.

Last but not least, conducting qualitative research in a setting of vulnerability and informal practices comes with difficulties, discomfort and occasionally with demotivation. Therefore, I am deeply indebted to the inhabitants of the Maroni Basin who shared their stories with me, a strange white foreigner. The value of the trust you lent me is in no way returned by this thesis. I hope that your stories are heard, both within the country of French Guiana and beyond its borders.

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1 INTRODUCTION

The village of La Forestière is representative of the fundamental changes taking place in the Maroni Basin, the transborder region between France and Suriname. These changes are often paradoxical: along a straight line drawn on the ground, a hand full of excavators cut through the narrow spaces between its houses and dug the pits for the village’s first water pipes. As an inevitable side effect, the construction machines traced streets through residential areas. Yet, in the village most do not possess a car, not to mention a licence to drive one, or the financial means to regularly pay for informal taxis which are the only existing public transport.

The cover picture illustrates some of the many contradictions that the West of French Guiana (Guyane)1 is home to. As a piece of the EU in South America, we find a space of coexisting lifestyles, “in-between” the rural and the urban, the formal and the informal, and populated by inhabitants who maintain links to neighbouring Suriname and to France. If the excavator metaphorically represented the state, the image would epitomise the recent implantation of the French state in a region which lived outside of its control and support for centuries. Moreover, construction works embody a “transition”, a shift from an “old” to a “new” status. It is precisely for this linear determinism that the term “transition” can be criticised (Skeldon 2018:6). For West Guyane, however, the notion serves to analytically understand the social, economic, and political context of a place that is neither “old” nor “new” but somewhat in-between, in transition. Then, we could read in the picture the profound economic and demographic changes that West Guyane is currently going through.

The region’s economic development is everything but linear. From an economy based on agriculture and other rural activities, it bypassed industrialisation into a tertiary economy strongly dependent on public sector employment and welfare benefits (INSEE 2017). However, the weakly developed formal sector hides a firmly established informal economy (ADIE 2009; INSEE 2017).

1_{“French Guiana” is the official English denomination while “Guyane” is the French name of the country. I use} both terms interchangeably. The latter is not to be confused with “Guyana”, the ex-British colony. Together with Suriname, the three countries are sometimes referred to as the “three Guianas”.

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Furthermore, West Guyane is subject to fast-paced demographic developments (INSEE 2016). First triggered by immigration (INSEE 2017), high fertility is nowadays the main driver of rapid demographic growth (INSEE 2016). The latter has contributed to a multiplication in size of West Guianese towns (INSEE 2017), the rise of demographic importance of Maroons2 compared to Creoles3 (Collomb and Jolivet 2008), and to the creation of a large, and possibly very mobile, young cohort (Wintrebert 2013).

This research started out on the assumption that these changes have an impact on people’s mobility patterns. According to Zelinsky (1971), mobility patterns and volumes within a society change depending on its stage in the “vital transition”, including the population variables of births and deaths. His initial demographic-based theory resulted in an association of growing economic development to increasing mobility. This idea challenges the popular political discourse that presents the development of origin countries as a means for states to reduce migration. Ever since, many researchers have proven the inverse correlation (de Haas 2005, 2007, 2010a, 2014; Hatton and Williamson 1998; Skeldon 1997).

However, any study of mobility must include variables beyond the demographic and economic dimensions (Skeldon 2012:160). This research argues that the state shapes both the economic setting and the mobility patterns in West Guyane (see Filoche et al. 2017 for a study concerning the Amerindian case). Yet, migration studies suffer from a “migration policy bias” when it comes to analysing the role of the state (Vezzoli 2015). Our case brings along two particularities which allow an analysis beyond this bias. On the one hand, overseas migration from Guyane to metropolitan France constitutes “internal migration”, with the same state at both ends; a situation which delegates overarching powers to the French state in order to control and channel migration. On the other hand, the relative recency of the state’s encroachment in West Guyane comes with a number of activities and interventions that illustrate how varied the impact of a state can be in shaping people’s mobility (for examples see Castles et al. 2014; Fitzgerald 2006; Torpey 1998; Vezzoli 2015).

2_{Maroons are the descendants of Africans who escaped from slavery throughout the 17}th_{and 18}th_century (Vezzoli 2015). They are made up of six subgroups: Saramaka, Paramaka, Ndjuka, Aluku, Kwinti and Matawai. Without disposing of statistics, the city of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is said to be predominantly Ndjuka.

3_{Creoles are “descendants of African slaves, brought to French Guiana up until 1848, early European settlers} and Caribbean immigrants” (Vezzoli 2015). For now, they make up the largest part of Guyane’s population.

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To sum up, this research aims at exploring the role of the economy and the state in shaping people’s mobility patterns, specifically among the migration-prone young population (INSEE 2012, 2017, 2019; Temporal et al. 2011). Because the state is strongly involved in creating economic opportunities in West Guyane, the relations among these factors are multifaceted. The general research question is:

What is the relation between perceived economic opportunities and mobility patterns of young people (16-30 years)?

Three sub questions specify the research objective:

(i) What are the economic opportunities young people perceive and in how far have they evolved over generations?

(ii) Which role did and does mobility play in people’s livelihood strategies? (iii) To what extent does the state shape young people’s economic opportunities

and their mobility patterns?

The opening chapters 2 and 3 explain the context, the theoretical framework, as well as the methodology of this research. Subsequently, chapter 4 answers question (i) and presents the perceived economic changes in West Guyane, the set of economic opportunities young people perceive today, and the role of the state in shaping the economic situation. Chapter 5 addresses question (ii) and explores mobility patterns and motivations across generations, the (im)mobility aspirations of young people, and the influence of the state in shaping mobility. Chapter 6 illustrates the key findings with the help of a young person’s life story and discusses the results in light of Zelinsky’s hypothesis of the mobility transition.

2 CONTEXT AND THEORY

The case of French Guiana is an interesting research topic due to its uniqueness. On the one hand, the territory presents socio-economic aspects commonly associated with developing countries and, on the other, it is located within the political boundaries of an economically advanced Western European state (Vezzoli 2018). This exceptional situation produces a peculiar economic, political, and demographic context which I briefly explore before presenting the theoretical framework that guided this research.

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2.1 The Guianese Economy

The main pillars of the Guianese economy are the public sector and a large informal sector of services and local product provision (ADIE 2009). However, agriculture remains important, especially in the western part of Guyane (INSEE 2017). Overall, the country’s economic development does not keep up with its demographic growth (ADIE 2009; INSEE 2017). The economic situation in West Guyane is particularly precarious:

Here, the unemployment rate reaches 54%, compared to 26% in the rest of French Guiana (INSEE 2017). Lacking local opportunities, the unemployment rate among youth from 15 to 24 years reaches 71% (INSEE 2017). Agricultural activities, be it for personal usage or complementary revenue, still play an important role for many inhabitants (INSEE 2017). In 2010, 78% of Guyane’s agricultural surfaces are located within the boundaries of the CCOG4

(INSEE 2017). Nevertheless, the great majority of declared employment is supported by the public sector, namely 70% compared to 42% in the Eastern region of Guyane (INSEE 2017).

However negative these numbers may seem, they hide a strong informal economy. A fortiori, resources produced in the informal sector may occupy a non-negligible share in people’s livelihood (ADIE 2009). Additionally, a position in the formal economy may not only guarantee social protection but also function as a support to further develop informal activities (Piantoni 2009). Moreover, some West Guianese inhabitants engage in the rural and urban economy simultaneously. Rural activities are perceived as an economic option depending on the season or whenever no more profitable occupation is available at the time (Piantoni 2009). This type of parallel rural and urban pluriactivity (Efstratoglou-Todoulou 1990; Marsden 1990; Reis et al. 1990; de Vries 1990), and with this I understand the accumulation of different economic activities simultaneously or consecutively, seems to mismatch contemporary economies in which one is expected to exercise and identify with only one profession5. Last but not least, the transborder configuration in-between France and Suriname allows for profiting from the price differences between the two countries (Piantoni 2009). The possibility to sell cheaper Surinamese products in West Guyane has stimulated the activities of local transborder informal traders.

4_{The Communauté de Communes de l'Ouest Guyanais (CCOG) is the Administrative Region of West Guyane.} 5_{Thanks to Simona Vezzoli and Marion Comptour for making this remark.}

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In any case, West Guyane’s economic development does not constitute a linear process through predefined stages of “modernisation”. Apart from often-illegal gold-mining, the region has not experienced industrialisation as such. On the contrary, West Guyane’s economy shifted from one based on agriculture towards one dependent on welfare benefits. 21% of its population receive the social minima (Revenue de Solidarité Active) and the allocations by the CAF (Caisse d’Allocations Familiales) represent major parts of many people’s income (INSEE 2017). Thus, the role of the state in shaping the economic structure is significant, and so may be its influence on associated mobility patterns.

2.2 The State and Mobility

Past research shows how the state has been an important influence on migration throughout history. However, migration studies have paid comparatively little attention to the state’s influence beyond the application of directly related policies. Yet, migration policies may fall short of their intended effects or even “backfire” (Massey et al. 2016), and their efficiency is generally hard to assess (Czaika and De Haas 2013). What is often forgotten is that a state may impact people’s mobility through a wide range of activities, e.g. its formation processes (Fitzgerald 2006; Skeldon 1997), the attribution of identity documents (Torpey 1998), as well as “military occupation, political repression, colonialism, imperial pursuits and independence” (Vezzoli 2015:6).

The history of French Guiana illustrates the necessity to include the state in the analysis of mobility. In fact, the French state has demonstrated keen interest in promoting immigration to Guyane in the past (Piantoni 2009). After many unsuccessful tries, the state showed intermittent interest in the control and development of West Guyane. Its recent presence in the area can be traced back to the late 1980s when the Surinamese Civil War encouraged immigration6 which contributed to the population growth so long hoped for by the French state. Today, the side effects of the state’s implantation in West Guyane illustrate how diverse its impact on mobility patterns can be. Since the state creates many of the economic opportunities young people perceive, it also plays an important role in influencing their mobility. Moreover, the government may introduce stabilising interventions in employment, education, health care (Grotti 2017), or housing and land reforms (Feuilly 2008), economic

6_{Thanks to Simona Vezzoli for this comment.}

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incentives and welfare policies which impact mobility patterns. Apart from the two foci of this research, namely the growing role of the state and the perception of economic opportunities, the next section shows that the demography of West Guyane constitutes an important contextual factor for this study.

2.3 The Demographic Particularity

Guyane is the second biggest administrative region of France in terms of surface but one of the smallest when it comes to population size. The large majority of the roughly 293,000 inhabitants live in the littoral. Its population has been shaped by immigration which created a multicultural society composed of various nationalities and ethnicities (Collomb and Jolivet 2008:7). Today, approximately one third of Guyane’s residents do not possess French nationality, with Brazilians, Haitians and Surinamese making up almost 90% of this group (INSEE 2016). Even though international immigration has decreased in the recent past, the country remains subject to rapid demographic growth due to high natality and low mortality (INSEE 2016). In fact, French Guiana is home to the youngest population of France (INSEE 2016).

These evolutions become even more evident in the West of Guyane. With more than half of its population being younger than 25, the CCOG has the lowest age average and the most rapid demographic growth in French Guiana (INSEE 2016). Surinamese immigration, especially during the Surinamese civil war from 1986 to 1992, had a lasting demographic impact on the region (INSEE 2016). Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, the CCOG’s main urban centre, has multiplied in size from approximately 5,000 inhabitants in 1968 to 44,000 in 2014 (INSEE 2017, 2018). Meanwhile, informal neighbourhoods sprouted out of the ground and developed outside of the administrators’ control and statistics. Today, these districts are predominantly populated by Maroons7. Supported by particularly high rates of natural growth, the latter are on the way to surpass the demographic majority of Creoles, thereby challenging their political dominance (Collomb and Jolivet 2008:8).

7_{Sticking with the practices of anglophone academic language, I will prefer the term Maroon over Bushinenge.} The former involves a stronger connection to the history of the group (Collomb and Jolivet 2008:78). However, both terms carry pejorative and Eurocentric connotations. Maroon derives from the Spanish cimarron. Its original meaning described a domesticated animal that became wild again (Collomb and Jolivet 2008:77). Bushinenge comes from “Bush Negroes” and is commonly used by youths on the French side of the Maroni River (Collomb and Jolivet 2008:78).

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Despite the visible population growth, the demographic trends in French Guiana are changing. The high natality has started to decrease, launching another phase in the demographic transition towards a society with both low mortality and natality, thus only little growth (INSEE 2016). Whereas the demographic transition is observable across many different societies at different points in time (Skeldon 2012:155), its relation to changes in mobility are more ambiguous. In fact, a strong young cohort alone does not yet indicate high levels of migration. Most Gulf countries, for example, have young populations but low rates of emigration (Castles et al. 2014). Vice versa, many Eastern European countries are subject to low fertility and little or even negative population growth but witness high volumes of emigration (Castles et al. 2014:29). Hence, this research purposely focused on the large cohort of possibly very mobile young people to study whether migration is relevant in their lives and if so, how and under which circumstances. In sum, I considered age as a potential migration determinant, but made a conscious effort not to assume that a large young cohort and high unemployment automatically result in more migration.

2.4 Theoretical Framework

2.4.1 Zelinsky’s Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition…

According to Zelinsky, “there are definite, patterned regularities in the growth of personal mobility through space-time during recent history, and these regularities comprise an essential component of the modernization process” (Zelinsky 1971:221). As such, his idea was simple to associate to economic changes: “rephrasing simply implies that migration shifts systematically with development” (Skeldon 2018:2). However, Zelinsky’s original hypothesis was purely demographic. He integrated migration into the model of the demographic transition. The latter assumes societies to shift from a phase of little population growth with high fertility and mortality, through a period of decreasing mortality and rapid growth, to a “final” stage of minor population growth with both low fertility and mortality (Skeldon 2018:2). This “vital transition” (Zelinsky 1971) includes only the two population variables of births and deaths (Skeldon 2018:2). Zelinsky added migration, assuming that mobility patterns shift according to a society’s stage in the vital transition. According to his theory, West Guyane corresponds to an “early transitional society”, experiencing the second phase of vital transition, characterised by a decline of mortality but high fertility and rapid population growth. In this context, all of Zelinsky’s mobility types would be augmenting at different

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rhythms (see Figure 1), namely a sharp rise in international, “frontierward” and rural to urban migration, as well as rises in intra-urban and circular mobility (Zelinsky 1971:233).

2.4.2 …Criticized…

Over time, Zelinsky’s highly generalizing theory received trenchant critiques. Starting with the term “transition” itself, which “implies a linear process from one point to another” (Skeldon 2018:6), his model assumes a designated, unilinear path which affects all members of society the same way and seems to contribute to endlessly rising mobility (Skeldon 2012:162; 2018:5). However, “in one small area, different groups or villages might be at different stages of the mobility transition, making easy generalisations about patterns problematic” (Skeldon 2012:159). Similarly, the “myth of sedentary peasant societies” that Zelinsky’s theory builds on has been proven wrong, for example by Lucassen and Lucassen (2009).

Not only does Zelinsky’s determinism reflect the experienced shift of mobilities in the United States (Skeldon 2018:3) and undermine the agency of people (Skeldon 2018:6) but it pays no attention to other dimensions which shape mobility, such as the influence of the state (Skeldon 2012:162). Arguably, Skeldon’s spatial models (1997) first integrated the impact of state formation processes into the mobility transition framework (Skeldon 1997:52). He associates high levels of development and state formation with both global and local movements, whereas low levels would produce mostly local migration (Skeldon 1997).

2.4.3 …and Modified…

As “a child of its time” (Skeldon 2018:3), Zelinsky’s model is easy to criticize. The purpose of this research, however, is neither to prove nor to contradict his hypothesis, but to use it as a flexible framework which allows for the incorporation of other social, economic, and political transformations (Skeldon 2012:162). Linking them “to different forms of mobility at subnational levels and in different points in time” (Skeldon 2018:7), we can identify “several pathways through the mobility transition” (Skeldon 2018:5). As Zelinsky already pointed out in 1971, there are many yet unexplored transitions, such as changes in the labour market, education (Zelinsky 1971:227) or in the political and occupational sphere (Skeldon 2018:7) that, if incorporated into the model of mobility transition, may prove useful to explain shifts in mobility patterns. Therefore, this study aimed at complexifying Zelinsky’s

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model. It did so by adding at least two more “transitions” to the analysis, the economic one and the one characterized by the implantation of the French state in West Guyane.

2.4.4 …in a Perspective of Social Transformations…

Exploring the impact of these macro level changes on mobility implies to use social transformation as a “key organizing concept” (van Hear 2010). Castles (2010:1576) defines it as “a fundamental shift in the way society is organised that goes beyond the continual processes of incremental social change that are always at work”. Significant transformations “in less developed countries” may be the “intensification of agriculture, destruction of rural livelihoods, the erosion of local social orders or the formation of shantytowns” (Castles 2010:1569). Rather than an anomaly, a social transformation perspective considers mobility as one part of the process of transformation itself (Castles 2010:1566). According to Castles, any study of mobility should be analysed in “a situation of rapid and complex transformation” (Castles 2010:1574) and consist of a “detailed mapping of the factors that influence migratory processes [and their connections]” (Castles 2010:1582). As changes often emanate from the local level, attention should be paid to their links to global level processes (Castles 2010:1578). In order to map out and link micro level processes to larger social transformations, this study made use of notions borrowed from the aspirations and capabilities framework.

2.4.5 …using Notions of the Aspirations and Capabilities Framework.

Since Zelinsky’s mobility transition model undermines the agency of people, explaining the observed mobility patterns would not have been possible without considering the mobility aspirations and capabilities of individuals. According to Sen (1999), migration depends on “people’s capabilities and aspirations to migrate within a given set of opportunity structures” (de Haas 2014:4). Hence, the aspirations and capabilities framework is an analytical tool to understand migration decision-making (Carling 2002; de Haas 2003, 2010a; Schewel 2015, 2019). The model proposes four possible mobility outcomes (see Figure 2): “mobility (i.e., having both the aspiration and capability to migrate), involuntary immobility (i.e., having the aspiration but not the capability to migrate), voluntary immobility (i.e. having

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the capability but not the aspiration to migrate)” (Schewel 2019:7)8, and acquiescent immobility (i.e., having neither the aspiration nor the capability to migrate) (Schewel 2019:8). The refinement of the mobility transition model with these notions allows to respond to criticisms made towards both theoretical models: the aspirations and capabilities framework for being too individualistic (Robeyns 2005; Schewel 2019), and the mobility transition hypothesis for being too generalizing (Skeldon 2012). Their combination in a more eclectic theoretical approach makes it easier to understand how micro level decisions are shaped by social transformations on the macro level.

In order to understand the (im)mobility decisions of young people in West Guyane, it is necessary to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary mobility. However, no clear line divides these two categories (Bakewell 2007; Carling 2002; Castles 2003). Rather than introducing these mobility outcomes separately, the aspirations and capabilities framework proposes to think in terms of a spectrum of possibilities in-between the ideal types of “forced” and “voluntary” mobility (Schewel 2019:9). The aspiration to migrate is simply the “conviction that migration is preferable to non-migration“ (Carling and Schewel 2018:946). Hence, there is always a minimum of aspirations involved in mobility, unless one is violently displaced by an outer force, e.g. deportations, in which case a theory to explain mobility is redundant. Attempting to better conceptualize involuntary mobility, at least for illustrating the results of this study, I found it useful to introduce the term mobility intention. The latter describes the condition of planning or considering to move without having the aspirations or the actual will to do so. Someone who lacks the aspiration to be mobile but still intends to be may eventually move involuntarily. Vice versa, a person that has mobility aspirations necessarily also has intentions to move. Then, intentions are one part of aspirations.

2.5 Defining the Key Concepts

The general research question of this study aims to explore the impact of economic opportunities people perceive or pursue9 on their mobility patterns. Vice versa, their mobility,

8_{In her article, Schewel (2019) uses the original term “ability”. De Haas replaced the term “ability” with} “capability” (de Haas 2003, 2010a; Schewel 2019).

9_{In order to answer the general research question, the interview questions tried to capture not only the economic} activities people exercise(d) now or in the past but also the economic opportunities they perceive for the future, so what they “could do” and not only what they “actually do”.

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or lack thereof, may expand or restrict the spectrum of perceived economic opportunities. It is necessary to clarify the usage of these concepts.

For the purpose of this research, I prefer to use the term “mobility” over “migration”. While “migration” commonly refers to “any permanent or semi-permanent change of residence” (Zelinsky 1971:225), the concept of mobility allows to include a wider scope of movements, ranging from daily commutes to work, short-term family or touristic visits, to changes of residence and overseas migration. However, this choice of terminology is political (Castles 2010:1567). “Mobility” generally refers to something desirable (“professional” or “student mobility”) and “migration” to the unwanted, low-skilled worker, thus to something bad. Even though “migration” may reflect better the power relations at work (Castles 2010:1567), I argue that the concept of “mobility” is no less political. According to Cresswell, mobility encompasses three dimensions: the physical movement, the representation of movement, and the practice of movement (Cresswell 2010:19); all of them “implicated in the production of power relations” (Cresswell 2010:26). Certainly, “mobility is a resource”, but one “that is differentially accessed” (Cresswell 2010:21) and experienced throughout very unequal conditions (Cresswell 2010:21).

Regarding the meaning of economic opportunities, I adopt a large definition. Rather than strictly speaking of “economic” opportunities only, this study also considers more general life opportunities, such as the continuation of education, professional training, or the construction of a domicile. Some opportunities may be seen as a tool to enhance one’s economic and social position in the future. Thereby, the findings also explore the relation between physical and social mobility (Faist 2016; Favell and Recchi 2011; Frias-Martinez et al. 2012; Kaufmann et al. 2004). In fact, migration can become a fast track to upward social mobility (Faist 2016:325). Return migration, for instance, may be a way of improving one’s socio-economic status at the place of origin, even if the initial migration led to “a move downward the occupational hierarchy” (Favell and Recchi 2011:74), like in the case of East European returnees who had migrated West (Favell and Recchi 2011). Thus, in West Guyane, both migration and return migration to and from economically better off areas, such as the capital Cayenne or Metropolitan France, may be perceived as a means to climb up the social ladder.

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Indeed, “migration is one of humankind’s oldest actions against poverty” (Galbraith 1979:9, as cited in Faist 2016:324). It is one of the adaptation strategies to secure a livelihood. However, contrary to what neo-classical theories suggest, mobility is not always a result of economically rational behaviour. A substantivist approach to the concept of livelihood (Polanyi 1977) comprises both, “material and social resources and activities required for a means of living” (Chambers and Conway 1992). Hence, the absence of locally provided opportunities may constitute a livelihood obstacle for this study’s participants. However, the social bonds and spatial proximity to family and friends may also be considered necessary to secure a livelihood.

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Procedures

I used qualitative research methods in order to expose the mechanisms and decision-making processes behind people’s mobility behaviour. As part of the OYAMAR project10, the sharing of accumulated data and discussions with a team of researchers supported the progress of this work and allowed me to access detailed statistics, satellite maps and pictures. However, the analysis and the findings presented in this thesis are based on the data acquired throughout my own interviews. The latter included as many open questions as possible, except for some survey questions; for example on concrete mobility frequencies. Additionally, the interviews were recorded and transcribed whenever technically and ethically possible. Nevertheless, in a context of vulnerability and non-official practices, recording was sometimes difficult. In such cases, I took extensive notes and wrote them out straight after the interview. Most of the time, I was accompanied by a local guide and translator.

10_{This research was partly coordinated by the LEEISA (Laboratory for Ecology, Environment, and Interactions} of Amazonian Systems) research unit of the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). Measuring the anthropogenic impact on the Guianese coast and the estuaries of the Maroni and Oyapock rivers, the OYAMAR research programme focuses on three axes: the study and monitoring of the coastal water environment, the economy derived from marine and coastal resources as well as the demographic impact on coastal environments. This research was part of the third axis. Altogether, three interns, myself included, and an on-site supervisor, Dr. Marion Comptour, carried out interviews in and around Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni during the same time. OYAMAR is co-financed by the European Union’s Regional Development Fund and runs for a period of three years from June 2017 to May 2020.

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Altogether, I conducted 31 interviews. Males are slightly over-represented, as well as the age groups from 15 to 30 and above 50 years (often children and their (grand)parents). I aimed to recruit them for two reasons: firstly because young people usually make up the most mobile cohort of a population (de Haas 2014) and, secondly because an intergenerational comparison can expose changes of mobility patterns and provoke thoughts about the future of mobility in West Guyane. Detailed tables with all the characteristics of the study’s participants is provided in the appendix (see Table 1 and Tables 2). Furthermore, I followed three of the participants throughout a period of three months, including occasional meetings, interviews or informal conversations. The close contact to them provided me with insights on pluriactivity locals may engage into; a dimension which was difficult to uncover in a single interview11. More importantly, their examples allowed for the understanding of mobility aspirations and capabilities in more detail. I used their stories to illustrate some of the findings.

Moreover, to understand changes in economic and mobility behaviour and how they might have been influenced by various state policies, I spoke with public sector professionals who work in this domain. An exhaustive list of interviewed organisations is provided in the appendix (see Table 6). The information acquired throughout these interviews provoked further reflections on the complexity of the situation and possible policy shortcomings. Finally, I analysed and coded all the conducted interviews using Nvivo. Throughout a process of thematic analysis, I created a mix of inductive and deductive codes, grouped codes with similar characteristics in larger categories, and added thick descriptions. In the latter, I noted down possible relations between the created categories and first theoretical explanations.

3.2 Operationalizing the Key Concepts

3.2.1 Economic Opportunities

The interview questions tried to trace back and map out people’s activity schemes. For this purpose, I asked about the concrete frequency, location, duration, and purpose of each present and past economic activity. To the extent possible, I acquired similar information

11_{In fact, small “jobs” are not always considered “work” by the study’s participants. Thus, in reality pluriactivity} might be a more common phenomenon than the analysis of my interviews could reveal.

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concerning the parents, children, or siblings of each participant, sometimes with the help of retrospective questions. Changes of perceived economic opportunities across generations served as an indicator to understand the economic transition in West Guyane and its potential effect on people’s behaviour. Another range of interview questions explored what young people perceive to be their potential economic opportunities in the future, which factors motivate them to pursue one of these options, and which obstacles they face. I paid particular attention to opportunities that involved a (dis)connection from or to “traditional” rural activities, (im)mobility desires, or the presence or absence of the state, which led to a first insight on how these dimensions interact.

3.2.2 Mobility Patterns

Concerning mobility patterns, the interview questions tried to capture people’s movements, their concrete frequencies and motivations, and, whenever possible, the mobility schemes of their parents or children as well as their future mobility aspirations. Finally, mobility can also be a decision taken on the household level (Castles et al. 2014:38). Based on the destinations and frequencies, I established a typology of mobility patterns (see Figure 3): Local mobility (1) concerns the littoral of the CCOG and the Surinamese riverside of the Maroni until Apatou, thus also Albina. River mobility (2) regroups movements to areas along the Maroni River south of Apatou. Mobility to Suriname (3) takes into consideration travels to the interior of Suriname, including its capital Paramaribo. Interregional mobility (4) concerns patterns to the Eastern region of Guyane and overseas mobility (5) those to metropolitan France or other French overseas departments. International mobility to countries other than France and Suriname was basically non-existent in the mobility experience of the participants.

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For each mobility type, I made distinctions according to the frequency of movements. Generally, I distinguished three temporal patterns: permanent mobility (1) usually entails a change of residence, circular mobility (2) does not entail a change of residence but occurs at a regularly repeating rhythm, and occasional mobility (3) neither involves a change of residence nor a regular frequency. Admittedly, the line in-between these categorisations is thin. Obviously, they are ideal types for analytical purposes and in no case mutually exclusive. Therefore, the same individual can engage into multiple types of mobility simultaneously or consecutively. Moreover, depending on the discourse of interviewees, the determination of mobility frequencies sometimes relied on estimations and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, they provide heuristic tools which allow for a global understanding of which destinations are visited at which rhythms (see Table 3).

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3.3 The Fields

This study focused on specific locations. I carried out fieldwork in the neighbouring villages La Forestière and Anaoela Ondo along the French riverside of the Maroni and in the informal neighbourhood Baka Pasi in the suburban area of Saint-Laurent, all almost exclusively inhabited by Maroons. By choosing an urban and a rural field, I aimed at uncovering differences and similarities in the researched contents.

3.3.1 The Villages La Forestière and Anaoela Ondo

For the purpose of immersion into the local context, I did not only visit the villages several times but also stayed overnight for a period of four days. Exact statistics of their resident population do not exist, but estimations come up with approximately 150-200 people in La Forestière and 300-400 in Anaoela Ondo12. Most inhabitants are Ndjuka except for one of the three founding families in La Forestière who is Paramaka. The villages lie three kilometres away from the road which links Saint-Laurent to Apatou, both reachable in 45 or 15 minutes by car respectively. The lack of local facilities, basic utilities and affordable public transport render the question of mobility fundamentally important in the villages, especially for young people.

12_{The municipality of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, but also the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific} Research), simply estimate population size in informal areas on the assumption that five to six people reside within one house visible from satellite images.

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18 3.3.2 The Suburban Neighbourhood Baka Pasi

Informal neighbourhoods become interesting for research due to their demographic importance in Saint-Laurent and the little knowledge on their populations. Baka Pasi has received particularly little research attention. Already in the 1980s, the first people settled in the area. Many of the current inhabitants had previously cultivated agricultural land in Baka Pasi and later moved to the neighbourhood, not rarely because they were expelled from their previous place of residence. Others decided to move to Baka Pasi to join friends, family, or live close to their church community. Thus, the district has little to do with a “spontaneous” settlement as the French term “quartier spontané” suggests. Given Saint-Laurent’s urban extension, Baka Pasi spatially integrated over time and might become a central location in the future. The neighbourhood seems to be spatially segregated into a predominantly Ndjuka inhabited part to the South of its main road, and with many Saramaka in its North. According to estimations, approximately 900 people live in Baka Pasi.

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19 Map 4: Zoom on the Neighbourhood Baka Pasi

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3.4 Limitations and Challenges

Naturally, full immersion and understanding of the local way of life was not possible within the temporal framework of this thesis. Given the cultural but also purely visible differences between a white foreign researcher and a black target population in often vulnerable living conditions, the fieldwork sometimes brought along a sort of “colonial discomfort”. In a way, the study of Maroons is comparable to the typical work of an anthropologist, at the discovery of the “Other”. This issue links to criticisms of postcolonial scholars who assume that we will never be able to understand the “Others” as they understand themselves (Spivak 1994).

In this “dilemma”, the close relationships to the two local translators I worked with were very valuable. They helped me to better understand the cultural context and behaviour of people, established a more trustworthy link between me and the interviewees, and generally provided me with a certain sense of legitimisation in the studied districts. Still, an interview is always a sensitive situation. We tried our best not to impose ourselves when recruiting potential participants, clarified the research purpose and objectives in detail, and assured people of their anonymity.

The presence of a translator also lifted the language barrier, a very practical limitation for this research. Concerning my initial target group, most young people speak French. However, conducting interviews with people aged above 30, especially with those who were never schooled in Guyane, usually necessitated translation. Evidently, an interview does not only become more complicated to conduct when translated, but a considerable amount of information might be lost. Usually, short discussions with the translator during or after an interview helped to verify the acquired information.

Finally, this research tried to relate economic and political macro level changes to mobility behaviour by studying a precise segment of the Guianese population. Therefore, the assumed link between the macro and micro level relies on non-representative data. However, the results of this research can back up quantitative knowledge with valuable evidence on the mechanisms which underlie mobility patterns. Therefore, I urge the reader to think beyond pure volumes of mobility, but in terms of mobility motivations, aspirations and capabilities.

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Surinamese products cross the border to be sold in French Guiana © Frédéric Piantoni (La Charbonnière, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni), 2019, OYAMAR Research Programme.

4 THE ECONOMIC TRANSITION

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the first word you should learn in French, since without it, you cannot understand the French and their outlook on 220 Worlds in Motion life. “Se débrouiller” and the justly famous “Système D” (“le système de la débrouillardise”) express a whole concept, essentially individualistic, which is only very feebly translated by “to manage,” “to get along,” “to muddle through,” “to make out for oneself.” If you call someone “très débrouillard(e)”, you are paying him one of the highest compliments that the list of French adjectives allows for: it means a compound of “astucieux", “énergetic”, “indépendent”, and “volontaire”, not to mention “imaginatif”, in short, resourceful.

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In French, the Guianese economy is often labelled as such a “Système D”, an “économie de la débrouille”. However, for the administrators of West Guyane this term has a negative connotation. They regard the strong informal economy (ADIE 2009) characterized by pluriactivity (Wintrebert 2015) as “abnormal” because it “deviates” from European standards. But what are the professional aspirations of young people today? In how far do they differ from their (grand)parents’? And what is the role of the state in shaping these changes and nowadays’ offer of economic opportunities? Based on the accumulated data, this chapter will explore these questions and advance the hypothesis that West Guyane is currently subject to “non-linear” economic development; a “messy” and “dynamic” process in Chambers’ terms (2003), which comes with cultural changes and a strong dependency on the state.

4.1 Perceived Socio-Economic Changes

4.1.1 Weakening Agriculture, Changing Culture

The low aspirations of youths to exercise traditional agriculture, namely the practice of clearing the forest to create cultivable land, locally called abattis (on local agricultural practices see Demaze and Manusset 2008; Gely 1984), is the main indicator of changing aspirations. Young people generally associate agricultural activities with the older generations13, “les grands personnes”14, who have grown up working the fields and might still do so today. Youths may help their families doing agricultural work, but they often do so with dislike. Discouraged by the hard physical labour, even those who plan to engage in professional agricultural activities aspire to mechanise them:

“I don’t like the way they cultivate. The Bushinenge way, I don’t like that! […] It’s too hard to cut with the machete, cut all that and then burn, to work alone, it’s too complicated for me! […] I won’t tell you, but we didn’t have enough equipment [refers to his childhood] […]. Well, I don’t want to do my thing the Bushinenge way, no. I want to do my thing how the whites do let’s say [laughs]. With machines and all that.”

(21-year-old in La Forestière who is planning to create an animal husbandry business)

13_{Throughout this paper, the “older generation(s)” will refer to the age group older than 50 years.}

14_{As a polite way of describing what they perceive to be “old people”, this is an expression that recurs a lot} when young people talk about the caretakers of agricultural surfaces.

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However, the fact that young people have less interest in agricultural activities than the older generations does not necessarily indicate a general loss of importance of agriculture in West Guyane (see 2.1; INSEE 2017). On the contrary, the abattis remains a strategy of spatial and socio-economic implantation (Demaze 2008). This is also true for the families I encountered15, two thirds of which still possess an abattis and many sell their own products at least occasionally. For others, planting may constitute a means to produce for personal needs or simply a hobby. Young people, too, may demonstrate interest in more “symbolic” forms of agriculture, such as small-scale (urban) gardening. Some insist on the Maroons’ large knowledge of plants and techniques to work the land. In a way, agriculture seems to be a connector to the territory and traditions of one’s cultural group.

In the rural areas, agricultural activities are largely more important than in the urban space, both in terms of invested time and generated profit. In the villages, every family possesses an abattis and children may be involved in agricultural work whenever they are there, though with an equally limited enthusiasm as the urban youth. Yet, all generations perceive life in the village to be more affordable than in town, mainly because of more own production of agricultural products. This study could not reveal a difference in professional aspirations between rural and urban youth. However, the security provided by formal employment has an impact on young people’s aspirations. It seems that children of parents working in the formal sector receive greater support and develop aspirations that clearly deviate from rural economic activities. These young people may take their parents as role models and envision a future in the formal economy. Additionally, the financial security provided by their parents’ work may render university education accessible to children.

In sum, the engagement of the same people in both rural and urban activities renders West Guyane’s economic structure unique. However, given the professional aspirations of young people, one cannot help but to assume that agriculture will progressively decline as a means of subsistence. Not rarely, antipathy towards other “traditional” activities, be it the construction of pirogues or the Maroon art Tembe, also hint at changing aspirations. Members

15_{In our context of informal housing, the duration of stay at one’s place of residence is important. The longer the} stay, the greater is the legitimacy to be occupying the given space. In the villages, I was told multiple times that the abattis is the first criteria for the authorities to evaluate the length of a person’s residential stay. If the field is well maintained (few weeds etc.), cleared and regularly cultivated this would give the impression of a solid and long-term spatial implantation.

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of the older generation may worry about a loss of “traditional” knowledge and lifestyle, while their children would “live like metropolitans today, like white people” (55-year-old family father in Anaoela Ondo). Furthermore, the shift away from “traditional” economic activities is perceived to engender a change in family solidarity:

Before we didn’t worry, we worked in the field, we didn’t search for another work. Today you have to look for work!

(55-year-old woman in Baka Pasi16) The same lady goes on to describe how children used to live close to their parents and took care of them, whereas especially boys would have to seek jobs today and lack the time to look after their families as before. Certainly, living and working conditions are perceived to have improved over time, but the availability of employment is unsatisfactory. In a way, these new economic settings are perceived to be detrimental to family and community life. Moreover, youths may now focus on their professional career and economic stability before engaging into the foundation of a family. Indeed, cultural and economic changes seem to go hand in hand.

4.1.2 State-Induced Change

The changes of economic and cultural circumstances cannot be separated from the implantation of the French state in West Guyane. The latter brought along disincentives to practice traditional agriculture, a Western European welfare system and the provision of services, above all education.

The turn away from traditional agriculture is reinforced by state policies. The latter do not aim at integrating traditional agricultural practices into the formal economy. While the state proposes concessions of fixed and comparatively large agricultural land, the abattis is a form of itinerant agriculture which depends on the rotation of small cultivated surfaces (Demaze and Manusset 2008). The government generally believes this type of agriculture to be maladapted to the local context of rapid demographic growth in which one would need to intensify agricultural production and limit the consumption of land (Menard and Morin 2012). Moreover, the procedures to obtain a concession of agricultural land are too complicated for

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many (Bizien et al. 2017). The process demands to write technical letters, go to Cayenne, and be in possession of a long-term residence permit. Thus, many farmers do not want or cannot legalise their abattis17. Beyond complicating the formalisation of traditional agriculture, the state also discourages informal agricultural activities. For selling on markets, for instance, the possession of a vending licence became a precondition. Possibly, this change provoked a decline of rural to urban mobility to markets. Yet, farmers also found solutions to by-pass this obstacle, for instance by distributing their goods through contacts who have a vending licence. Still, the state’s ambition to formalise the economy decreases the potential profit of informal agriculture. Then, agriculture may become a “symbolic” activity that connects a person to his or her roots or provides food to the family18.

These disincentives to engage in traditional agriculture contribute to a deprivation of people’s rural livelihoods. According to modernisation theory (Rostow 1960), employment in urban industries would replace agricultural activities at this stage. However, in West Guyane state-provided welfare benefits may fill large parts of the income gap produced by declining agriculture. Whereas the welfare system is perceived as an economic improvement by members of the older generation, some public officials hold it responsible for people’s inactivity or even for the early birth of children, as mothers thereby become eligible for the social minima, even below the age of 25. However, Heemskerk et. al. (2004) show that welfare benefits can lead to a rise in economic activities and Piantoni (Piantoni 2009) illustrates that they may act as a support for other economic activities.

Finally, the provision of education significantly impacted the socio-economic transformations in West Guyane. Rising educational levels contributed to an increase of young people’s life aspirations. Generally, the greater availability of education is perceived to be an important advantage of young people whereas the older generation received much less schooling (see Table 2h). A side effect of extending the educational infrastructure to rural areas is the alleviation of the French language barrier. Whereas young people usually learnt French at school, their parents sometimes struggle due to the language barrier, e.g. to find work or manage bureaucratic procedures. However, in West Guyane the options for education after high school are very restricted. The local offer comprises of a few BTS (Brevet de

17_{Thanks to Marion Comptour for clarifying this aspect to me.} 18_{Thanks to Simona Vezzoli for directing my attention to this point.}

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Technicien Supérieur), while the move to Cayenne for university is usually unaffordable for this study’s participants. Overall, young people’s rising aspirations meet a lack of locally provided educational and employment opportunities.

4.2 Perceived Economic Opportunities

4.2.1 A Limited Scope of Options

In terms of job opportunities, young people generally resort to the informal economic sector. “Jobs”19 do not only escape the control of the state, except for its rather ineffective-seeming ambition to regularise some activities20, but often make up the only options. Indeed, informal life is omnipresent in Saint-Laurent. The variety of “jobs” is large, ranging from grocery selling to intra- and interurban transport businesses or other service provisions such as cooking, cutting hair, fixing cars, or painting and constructing houses. Rural activities also play a role in the informal economy, mainly clearing agricultural surfaces. We may add illegal gold-mining activities to the list, as they are common and require long-term mobility to the interior of the country. Informal jobs usually come with physically harsh working conditions and the absence of worker’s protection or the security of being paid. Illegal gold-mining additionally takes place in a space of criminality and lawlessness, and is often considered a last resort. Not rarely, young people who already experienced work in illegal gold mines do not want to return.

Moreover, the geographic location of the Maroni basin allows for a set of transborder activities. Some people take advantage of the price differences between Guyane and Suriname and resell Surinamese products on the French side. Furthermore, in Suriname, bureaucratic or financial constraints are lower and potentially solvable through bribes. Thus, the creation of a business is sometimes evaluated to be more feasible in Suriname. Similarly, the access to land is perceived to be easier and the construction of houses many times cheaper than in Guyane.

19_{“Job” is the term locals use to refer to any kind of informal work. It describes mostly side or short-term} activities without legal working contracts.

20_{In the discourse of officers working at the DEAL (Direction de l'Environnement, de l'Aménagement et du} Logement), an institutional representative of the federal state in Saint-Laurent, much attention was paid to the need to regularize informal activities, such as taxis, pirogues, and housing.

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Lacking other options, drug trafficking sometimes makes up the most lucrative and easiest accessible economic opportunity for youths in despair. The term “mule”, the action of swallowing and smuggling cocaine capsules on planes from Cayenne to Paris, makes its way into many daily conversations and popular rap songs21. Most of the study’s participants know of people who smuggled, and some were approached to become “mules”. The perception of this activity is ambiguous: On the one hand, being “mule” is evaluated as a source for investment as long as the person has already identified a “useful” purpose, such as founding one’s business or constructing a house. On the other hand, the activity is also acknowledged as a last resort for youths in particularly vulnerable living conditions. Naturally, many parents fear their children’s engagement in drug trafficking, while the state is perceived to be reluctant to stop it22.

Lastly, the formal private sector is rarely perceived as an economic option. Besides limited employment opportunities or bureaucratic and linguistic hurdles, this is also due to the discrimination of Maroons compared to Creoles and the favouritism towards friends and family members when hiring:

In companies, for jobs, they take people they know more than people they don’t know. In fact, they choose a surname they know and take the person ... That's how they work and it's not good! There are people who should be retired for a long time, but they still keep them. I don’t know why. Instead of leaving others in this position they keep these old people there for work.

(29-year-old mother of six children in Baka Pasi) In Saint-Laurent, but especially in the small town of Apatou, this form of partisanship is perceived to render the chances of getting a formal job vanishingly small without the right

21_{Locally popular rappers glorify the act of doing the “mule” in their songs. According to two young} interviewees, their songs rapidly rendered the activity more desirable among youth.

22_{One cannot help but to think that the state does not do everything it could to stop drug smuggling. Apparently,} a full-body scanner at the airport would be enough to detect swallowed drug capsules. Lacking this tool, racial profiling and security presence before and during the flights from Cayenne to Paris prevail. The police are also reported to deny boarding to young people they suspect of smuggle without being sure they actually do. This can discourage “non-criminal” youths from taking the plane.

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contacts. Finally, even formal labour often takes place in physically and temporally precarious conditions23.

4.2.2 State-Channelled Economic Opportunities

In Suriname or Guyana, we can observe high volumes of emigration (Vezzoli 2015), possibly due to the absence of locally provided economic opportunities. In West Guyane, young people rely on the state to provide for options. Indeed, the French state is strongly involved in the creation of economic opportunities, e.g. by providing funded professional training. Moreover, the state possesses powerful tools to channel the access to opportunities, for example the attribution of regular residence status.

Most of the financially feasible traineeships are publicly funded, and thus reduced to those proposed by Pôle Emploi (the French employment office) and the RSMA (Régiment Service Militaire Adapté), a branch of the French army. The latter constitutes a prime example to illustrate how the state channels economic activities. Lacking other pathways, young people almost have to go through the RSMA to access other opportunities. With the goal of “socio-professional integration”, the RSMA’s training programmes bring along several practical advantages, be it free housing, meals, monthly pocket money (approximately 340€), or the buses to return home on the weekends24_{. Certain youths also join the RSMA in}

anticipation of better chances when applying at LADOM25 (L’Agence de l’Outre-mer pour la Mobilité) or to engage in the French military afterwards. Contrary to these often-mentioned advantages, RSMA officials believe their military rigour to be one of the main motivations of enrolment. In any case, the RSMA’s success rate is high26. Yet, my fieldwork reinforces the suspicion that the enlistment in the French army constitutes a last resort rather than reflecting military ambition. The RSMA applies “inverse recruitment criteria”, meaning that they

23_{In fact, of all the study’s participants, only one person is legally employed with a permanent contract (Contrat} de Durée Indeterminé).

24_{Some youths join the RSMA for the sole purpose of getting their driver’s licence sponsored in the beginning} of the traineeship. In order to avoid early dropouts, the RSMA now grants driving licences only to those who finish the entire programme.

25_{LADOM links young people to professional training institutes in metropolitan France and provides varying} financial support for the completion of their programmes. However, the organisation is perceived to be too selective by young people, but also by professionals of the Maison des Adolescents.

26_{According to statistics provided by the RSMA (see some of them in Tables 7), 60,39% of their trainees were} inserted into “durable employment” in 2018. However, a closer look reveals that more than one third of them sign a working contract at the RSMA itself.

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“prefer uneducated over those with diploma, women over men […] and illiterates over those who can read” (interview with RSMA officials), and thus is accessible to socio-economically vulnerable youths. However, as a branch of the French army it recruits only French citizens, thereby exclusively aiming at an administratively stable category of people.

This bring us to what arguably represents the most influential state impact on the access to economic opportunities: the attribute of regular residence status. Indeed, the number of irregularly residing people in Saint-Laurent is estimated to be very high (Wintrebert 2014). Partly because the presence of the state in the region is relatively recent, I observed a variety of absurd bureaucratic scenarios. Even though France traditionally applies jus soli, one can encounter residents who were born and have lived in Guyane for all their lives, sometimes more than 60 years, without ever obtaining a regular residence status, not to mention French nationality. Recurrent problems are the lack of official birth certificates, especially in isolated rural areas, or the time it takes to fix errors on those that were issued. Irregular residents cannot access higher education, professional training, formal employment, even in the French army’s Foreign Legion27_{, or public support from state agencies}28_.

Generally, young people seem to care more about acquiring a regular residence status than their (grand)parents. Residence documents heavily determine young people’s future opportunities, while the older generation often established a solid life in informality with few negative repercussions due to their irregularity until now. Sometimes, children pressure their (grand)parents to begin the required bureaucratic procedures to obtain a legal residence status. Still, members of the older generation may also seek to regularise their residence status in order to receive welfare or health care benefits. Public professionals mention that many people’s residence status can potentially be regularised. However, the bureaucratic procedures are maladapted to the local context and difficult to overcome without support. The story of Lea29 (interviewee 31 in Table 1), a Surinamese woman who has lived in French Guiana for more than ten years, illustrates these problems. When I met her, she had been trying to renew

27_{Before, the Legion Étrangère, which still has a training base in Guyane, was a possibility for non-nationals to} enlist in the military and thereby acquire French citizenship at some point. This still holds true, but they do not have a recruitment office in Guyane anymore.

28_{The Maison des Adolescents seems to be one of the only public support institutions open to young people} without regular residence status in Guyane. In fact, many seek help there to acquire a residence permit.

French Guiana in transition : (im)mobility patterns in the Maroni Basin

French Guiana in Transition:

(Im)Mobility Patterns in the Maroni Basin

French Guiana in Transition:

(Im)Mobility Patterns in the Maroni Basin

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION

2 CONTEXT AND THEORY

3 METHODOLOGY

4 THE ECONOMIC TRANSITION