Camille Martinerie | Université Sorbonne Paris Nord / Sorbonne Paris Nord University (original) (raw)

Papers by Camille Martinerie

Flamme, 2024

Tout comme les études aréales (area studies), les études anglophones, incluant la civilisation co... more Tout comme les études aréales (area studies), les études anglophones, incluant la civilisation comme un de leur domaines de spécialité, entretiennent des rapports privilégiés avec les grands courants intellectuels transnationaux comme les postcolonial studies qui s’institutionalisent dans les universités du monde anglophone à partir des années 1980. En France, les postcolonial studies suscitèrent une levée de boucliers remarquée dans le milieu universitaire au début des années 2000 témoignant d’une hostilité, étrangement semblable aux virulentes polémiques autour des études décoloniales qui égrènent les discours médiatique, politique et académique depuis la fin des années 2010. Deux questions président ici à ma réflexion : d’une part, en quoi les critiques du postcolonialisme en France – passées et présentes – permettent-elles de penser la place de l’université française dans la division internationale du travail intellectuel ? D’autre part, quel rôle les études civilisationnelles anglophones endossent-elles dans la reproduction d’un impérialisme académique envers les pays dits du Commonwealth ? L’objectif est double : (1) contribuer au projet actuel d’historicisation du positionnement épistémologique des études anglophones en étudiant leurs rapports au postcolonialisme en contexte français et (2) évaluer l’apport de la critique décoloniale aux études civilisationnelles du Commonwealth (plus particulièrement celles qui concernent le continent africain).

This thesis explores the inherent complexities and contradictions embedded in the radical turn in... more This thesis explores the inherent complexities and contradictions embedded in the radical turn in South African historiography with regards to the decolonisation of the discipline of history in South African universities under apartheid from 1960 to 1991. By choosing to deconstruct radical history in a white liberal university, the study seeks to further demonstrate the limits of intellectual decolonisation and its underlying assumptions in the academic field during apartheid. It interrogates radical history as a form of academic resistance and leads a reflection on the political role of the intellectual in the context of the anti-apartheid struggle, asking more broadly: to what extent can radical academic history be considered "de/colonised knowledge"? Building on the links between ideology and curriculum, this study aimed to measure the coloniality of history using history examination questions as tools to investigate the methodological, theoretical and ideological assumptions of historians. Theoretically, the study relied on the role of the historian as a recontextualising agent of disciplinary knowledge taught and examined within a historically white higher education institution to study its concomitant underlying historiographical silences at the time. Methodologically, it deployed quantitative and qualitative research methods, using interviews and semi-structured questionnaires with a targeted cohort of authentic interlocutors to triangulate the discursive analysis of institutionalised "de/colonised" historical knowledge. This interdisciplinary study was thus inscribed in a critical deconstructionist approach to knowledge which contributed to a finer conceptual and empirical understanding of the coloniality of history as a discipline and its reproduction in the South African higher education context. The study hopes (1) to contribute to understanding the nuanced intersections between the history of intellectual colonisation and decolonisation and how these tensions impacted on history education in the apartheid university, (2) to provide an original interdisciplinary mixed method of analysis of institutionalised "de/colonised knowledge", and (3) to contribute new critical insights into blind spots in South African radical historiography in higher education during the period 1960 to 1991, which could shed light on the various understandings of the imperative for decolonisation today in the discipline.

Postcolonial Cultures Studies and Essays, 2023

I propose here a retrospective study of radical history production under apartheid to shed light ... more I propose here a retrospective study of radical history production under apartheid to shed light on the nature of the epistemological failures of the discipline from a theoretical perspective. I also argue that despite its limitations, the case of radical history under apartheid constitutes an intriguing challenge to assess the potential pitfalls of decolonial theory when applied to the South African settler colonial context.

Journal of Civil Society, 2021

The #MustFall campaigns attacked symbols of the past – physical but also mental legacies of the c... more The #MustFall campaigns attacked symbols of the past – physical but also mental legacies of the colonial and apartheid periods – using specific disruption mechanisms along with ideological frameworks that are sometimes consciously and/or unconsciously borrowed from previous generations of South African students. In that respect, the students claim a continuity of their present day struggle with that led in the 1970s under the banner of Black Consciousness. All the while, the born-frees completely reject the main outcome of the struggle for National Liberation – that is, the negotiated settlement signed by Nelson Mandela and F.W De Klerk in the 1990s, which could appear paradoxical. The aim of this article is to shed light on both the continuities and ruptures between the #MF campaigns and traditions of national liberations in order to discuss the political practices they entail in a post/decolonial context. Theoretical shifts in #MF notably through the engagement with concepts such ...

Flamme, 2024

Tout comme les études aréales (area studies), les études anglophones, incluant la civilisation co... more Tout comme les études aréales (area studies), les études anglophones, incluant la civilisation comme un de leur domaines de spécialité, entretiennent des rapports privilégiés avec les grands courants intellectuels transnationaux comme les postcolonial studies qui s’institutionalisent dans les universités du monde anglophone à partir des années 1980. En France, les postcolonial studies suscitèrent une levée de boucliers remarquée dans le milieu universitaire au début des années 2000 témoignant d’une hostilité, étrangement semblable aux virulentes polémiques autour des études décoloniales qui égrènent les discours médiatique, politique et académique depuis la fin des années 2010. Deux questions président ici à ma réflexion : d’une part, en quoi les critiques du postcolonialisme en France – passées et présentes – permettent-elles de penser la place de l’université française dans la division internationale du travail intellectuel ? D’autre part, quel rôle les études civilisationnelles anglophones endossent-elles dans la reproduction d’un impérialisme académique envers les pays dits du Commonwealth ? L’objectif est double : (1) contribuer au projet actuel d’historicisation du positionnement épistémologique des études anglophones en étudiant leurs rapports au postcolonialisme en contexte français et (2) évaluer l’apport de la critique décoloniale aux études civilisationnelles du Commonwealth (plus particulièrement celles qui concernent le continent africain).

This thesis explores the inherent complexities and contradictions embedded in the radical turn in... more This thesis explores the inherent complexities and contradictions embedded in the radical turn in South African historiography with regards to the decolonisation of the discipline of history in South African universities under apartheid from 1960 to 1991. By choosing to deconstruct radical history in a white liberal university, the study seeks to further demonstrate the limits of intellectual decolonisation and its underlying assumptions in the academic field during apartheid. It interrogates radical history as a form of academic resistance and leads a reflection on the political role of the intellectual in the context of the anti-apartheid struggle, asking more broadly: to what extent can radical academic history be considered "de/colonised knowledge"? Building on the links between ideology and curriculum, this study aimed to measure the coloniality of history using history examination questions as tools to investigate the methodological, theoretical and ideological assumptions of historians. Theoretically, the study relied on the role of the historian as a recontextualising agent of disciplinary knowledge taught and examined within a historically white higher education institution to study its concomitant underlying historiographical silences at the time. Methodologically, it deployed quantitative and qualitative research methods, using interviews and semi-structured questionnaires with a targeted cohort of authentic interlocutors to triangulate the discursive analysis of institutionalised "de/colonised" historical knowledge. This interdisciplinary study was thus inscribed in a critical deconstructionist approach to knowledge which contributed to a finer conceptual and empirical understanding of the coloniality of history as a discipline and its reproduction in the South African higher education context. The study hopes (1) to contribute to understanding the nuanced intersections between the history of intellectual colonisation and decolonisation and how these tensions impacted on history education in the apartheid university, (2) to provide an original interdisciplinary mixed method of analysis of institutionalised "de/colonised knowledge", and (3) to contribute new critical insights into blind spots in South African radical historiography in higher education during the period 1960 to 1991, which could shed light on the various understandings of the imperative for decolonisation today in the discipline.

Postcolonial Cultures Studies and Essays, 2023

I propose here a retrospective study of radical history production under apartheid to shed light ... more I propose here a retrospective study of radical history production under apartheid to shed light on the nature of the epistemological failures of the discipline from a theoretical perspective. I also argue that despite its limitations, the case of radical history under apartheid constitutes an intriguing challenge to assess the potential pitfalls of decolonial theory when applied to the South African settler colonial context.

Journal of Civil Society, 2021

The #MustFall campaigns attacked symbols of the past – physical but also mental legacies of the c... more The #MustFall campaigns attacked symbols of the past – physical but also mental legacies of the colonial and apartheid periods – using specific disruption mechanisms along with ideological frameworks that are sometimes consciously and/or unconsciously borrowed from previous generations of South African students. In that respect, the students claim a continuity of their present day struggle with that led in the 1970s under the banner of Black Consciousness. All the while, the born-frees completely reject the main outcome of the struggle for National Liberation – that is, the negotiated settlement signed by Nelson Mandela and F.W De Klerk in the 1990s, which could appear paradoxical. The aim of this article is to shed light on both the continuities and ruptures between the #MF campaigns and traditions of national liberations in order to discuss the political practices they entail in a post/decolonial context. Theoretical shifts in #MF notably through the engagement with concepts such ...