Beyond center and periphery: new currents in French and francophone Atlantic studies

Abstract

This introductory essay explores recent shifts in perspective in the study of the French and francophone Atlantic world. It takes as a touchstone changes in the place of Louisiana and the French colonial period in American history and consciousness. The essay traces the evolution of both anglophone and francophone Atlantic historiography, elucidating the shift in meanings attributed to the relationship between France and its Atlantic colonies. It then explores the recent emergence of alternative interpretations grounded in a vision of a decentered Atlantic theater where local actors, locations, vectors and networks of power, knowledge, and resources interact with each other and with the metropolitan center. It suggests that this reframing has led to a renewed appreciation for earlier primary and secondary French colonial history writing which can now be seen as central texts for understanding Europe during the emergence of modernity. A similar transformation is traced in the localized histories of former French Atlantic colonies, from Quebec and West Africa to Haiti, and then continued in the emergence of new research efforts – concentrated in centers of French colonial influence and especially France's port cities – based on a direct confrontation with the role of the slave trade and the complex forms of exchange behind it. A discussion of recent approaches to French Atlantic science highlights the networks of actors and political and economic power that were often implicated in the establishment of matters of fact in the Atlantic colonial theater. The contrasting experiences of Jesuit, Franciscan, and Huguenot colonials point to a newly complex understanding of the New World religious and missionary experience. The essay then explores some of the ways that recent Atlantic scholarship has influenced the practice of French history, casting new light on such traditional topics as the Wars of Religion, education, and the Enlightenment. After brief summaries of the issue's articles, the essay then suggests that through this new understanding of the complex interaction of natives and colonizers, local, European, and native world views and alliance structures, and of indigenous and metropolitan knowledge and power, a coherent historical image of a francophone Atlantic world finally emerges.