Sociology of Gender in the French Caribbean: a Slow and Fragile Process

The issue of gender emerged quite recently in French Caribbean sociology. For decades, it has been tackled, and often hidden, within other disciplines – mainly Anthropology, but also Demography, Public Policy, Historical Demography, the history of slavery, and Women's history – and other fields or labels, like family structures, fertility, the status of women, sexuality. However, a specific field of sociological research on gender issues started really to develop since the end of the last century through the works of the Research Group «Gender and Society in the French Antilles » (setting in the Centre de recherche sur les pouvoirs locaux dans la Caraïbe). Through surveys on French Caribbean familial structures, domestic violence, cultural studies, the GESA questions gendered stereotypes and socialization, under the prism of a colonial legacy, strongly rooted in these French non independent territories.