The making of urban Maroons . Kinship, houses and mobilities in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (French Guyana)

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate how the houses in the villages are maintained and transmitted to urban dwellers, and how these configurations inform social ties in the city. Maroon inhabitants of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, located in the estuary of the Maroni River at the border between Suriname and French Guiana, maintain ties with Maroon upriver territories. Most people do not dwell in a single house. Their ‘configurations of houses’ can encompass both banks of the river and connect coastal cities with upriver rural places. The occupancy of and investments into upriver houses are not only the consequences but also the means to ensure the continuity of kinship in town. Beyond the diversity of the uses of those rural houses, I analyse the link between their maintaining and urban dwelling. Spatial disposal of the houses in the villages both reflects and result from matrilineal ties between kinsmen. In the urban context of Saint-Laurent, related houses are not always located nearby from one another, depending on housing policies and removals. Kinship ties in the city are activated in reference to those upriver spaces. Upriver houses have a role of remembering of those genealogies. Common building projects can also renew the ties between urbans.