Reunion

The 750,000 inhabitants of Reunion Island - located east of Madagascar - make up a plural and complex society: a mosaic, artificially composed, created ex nihilo by French colonial rulers under the impulse of European market capitalism. The absence of any deep-rooted indigenous cultural identity prior to plantation slavery and colonisation, constitutes a fundamental dimension of the quest for identity within Reunionese society. This book is a study of Reunion Island's social identity.