"Yes We Can! Down with Colonization!" Race, Gender, and the 2009 General Strike in Martinique

Abstract

In early 2009, general strikes were mobilized in Martinique and Guadeloupe, overseas departments of France located in the Lesser Antilles, paralyzing the two island economies for more than a month. Although the 2009 strikes in the French Antilles were not Obama-centered, demonstrations and protests included a "Yes We Can" rhetoric, familiar to many of us from President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. In this article, I use the 2009 general strike in Martinique to explore how blackness as a global discourse traverses international boundaries and figures in the everyday lives of Martinicans, particularly at moments in which social change is envisioned and demanded. I use discussions from my fieldwork, specifically those around Obama as the first black U.S. president, as well as conversations around U.S. black feminist and womanist praxis, as keys that both unlock and critically engage diasporic currents of thinking exported from the United States to Martinique.