Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana: Implications for Latin America and the Caribbean [1st ed.] 9789811538315, 9789811538322

This book analyzes decades of immigration–population growth and rapid urbanization as political-demography and urban-gov

346 51 2MB

English Pages XIII, 106 [111] Year 2020

Report DMCA / Copyright

DOWNLOAD FILE

Polecaj historie

Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana: Implications for Latin America and the Caribbean [1st ed.]
 9789811538315, 9789811538322

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii
Introduction: Designing the Problematical and Theoretical Contours of Political Demography as Urban Governance Challenges (Romanovski Zéphirin)....Pages 1-8
Demographic Growth and Demographic Transition in French Guyana: The Diverse Determinants (Romanovski Zéphirin)....Pages 9-27
Composition of the Population and Its Spatial Distribution (Romanovski Zéphirin)....Pages 29-41
The Ethno-social and Spatial Diversity in Urban Poverty and Inequality Reduction Policy (Romanovski Zéphirin)....Pages 43-61
Urban Public Policy Planning in the Absence of a Demographic Engineering Consensus (Romanovski Zéphirin)....Pages 63-77
Conclusion: Blending the Specific French Guyanese’s Urbanization-Migration Patterns with the Wider Theoretical Literature on the Matter (Romanovski Zéphirin)....Pages 79-101
Back Matter ....Pages 103-106

Citation preview

Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana Implications for Latin America and the Caribbean Romanovski Zéphirin

Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana

Romanovski Zéphirin

Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana Implications for Latin America and the Caribbean

Romanovski Zéphirin Social Sciences City University of New York Brooklyn, NY, USA

ISBN 978-981-15-3831-5 ISBN 978-981-15-3832-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgements

I wholeheartedly thank Ms. Juliette Guirado, who is the Director of AUDEG (Agence d’Urbanisme et de Developpement de la Guyane) for kindly giving me an updated map. I deeply appreciate her help to my work. Also, I am grateful to Herve Domenach who, in the year 2000, opened to me the field study of population-migration. He hosted me in his research body of Population-Environment and Development (LPED, UMR-151) at the institute of research for development in Aix-Marseille, France. Apart from other previous publications, 20 years later (June 2000–June 2020), this new book is another occasion for me to thank him for his strong support to my work. Finally, I thank very much my family in New York (USA), particularly Mathilde Cassamajor who encourages me in different ways in my academic endeavors for so many years.

v

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

Introduction: Designing the Problematical and Theoretical Contours of Political Demography as Urban Governance Challenges

1

Demographic Growth and Demographic Transition in French Guyana: The Diverse Determinants

9

Composition of the Population and Its Spatial Distribution

29

The Ethno-social and Spatial Diversity in Urban Poverty and Inequality Reduction Policy

43

Urban Public Policy Planning in the Absence of a Demographic Engineering Consensus

63

Conclusion: Blending the Specific French Guyanese’s Urbanization-Migration Patterns with the Wider Theoretical Literature on the Matter

79

Index

103

vii

About the Author

Romanovski Zéphirin does peer-reviewing works for both the academic journal called Development in Practice, Oxford, the UK, and La Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales – REMI , Poitiers, France. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant-Professor of “Human Geography and World Issues” at the City University of New York (CUNY)—Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and Lehman College, NY, USA. His work focuses on international migrations, network cities, transnational territories, geo-sociology, politics of scale, political geographies, geopolitics, international relations and economic regionalization-globalization in the Americas.

ix

Abbreviations

ARUAG CDH CGT DDE DIV DSQ DSU EPAG FDG IHSI INSEE-TER MDES ORSTOM PACS PDALPD POS PSG PUD SCOT

Agence régionale d’urbanisme et d’aménagement de la Guyane Departmental Council of Habitat Centrale guyanaise des travailleurs (The main Guyanese Labor Union) Direction départementale de l’équipement Direction inter-ministerielle à la ville Développement social des quartiers (or social development of neighborhoods) Développement social urbain (or in English, urban social development) Etablissement public foncier et d’aménagement de la Guyane Democratic Guyanese Forces (in English) Institut haïtien de statistique et d’informatique Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques – Tableaux économiques régionaux Mouvement de décolonisation, d’émancipation économique et social Office de la recherche scientifique et technique outre-mer The civil solidarity pact (the official name for the French’s samesex marriage) Le plan départemental d’action pour le logement des personnes défavorisées Plan d’occupation de sol (or in English, land use plan) Guyanese socialist party (in English) Plan d’aménagement directeur Schema of Territorial Coherence xi

xii

ABBREVIATIONS

SDAU SIGUI UN-MDG

Schéma d’aménagement urbain A para-statal housing agency in French Guyana (or in French, Société immobilière de Guyane) United Nations millennium development goals

List of Maps

Map 3.1

Map 3.2

Map 4.1

Map 6.1

Spatial distribution of the Haitian Immigrants in French Guyana (Source R. Zéphirin [2005]. Based on the data from Specific exploitation, INSEE-Guyane, RPG: 1999. Author: Romanovski Zéphirin [2005]) Residential Migration of the Cayenne population toward Matoury and Rémire-Montjoly from 1990 to 1999 (in value) (Source R. Zéphirin [2005]. Based on the data from Specific exploitation, INSEE-Guyane, RPG: 1999. Author: Romanovski Zéphirin [2005]) 1990–1999: Nationalities involved in residential mobility from Cayenne to Matoury and Remire-Montjoly (Source R. Zéphirin [2005]. Based on the data from specific exploitation, INSEE-Guyane, RPG, 1999. Author: Romanovski Zéphirin [2005]. [See complement in Chapter 3]) Urban growth in Cayenne and the risks of flooding in the agglomeration: 1950–2015 (Permission from AUDEG led by Ms. Juliette Guirado. March 26, 2020. I wholeheartedly thank Juliette Guirado who is the director of AUDEG (Agence d’Urbanisme et de Développement de la Guyane) for kindly giving me an updated map. I deeply appreciate her help to my work)

36

39

44

88

xiii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Designing the Problematical and Theoretical Contours of Political Demography as Urban Governance Challenges

Abstract This book problematizes and contextualizes decades of urbanization, immigration and population growth in the overseas department of French Guyana (located in South America between Brazil and Suriname) as a power conflict between the core France and local political actors over managing the population, its composition, its size and its spatial distribution. The introduction delineates the core elements and delimits the contours of the theoretical concept of “political demography”, largely based on the Myron Weiner and Michael Teitelbaum’s (2001) book of Political Demography and Demographic Engineering. The political demography theory crosses and federates the following four chapters that constitute the content of the book. Keywords Immigration · Population composition/re-composition · Demographic change · Population distribution · Urbanization · Urban relocation · Politics · Policy · Urban governance · Political demography and geopolitics

Decades of accumulation of migration flows and the constitution of stocks of immigrants in French Guyana triggered issues going over simple concerns of crude birth rates and crude death rates. The general increase © The Author(s) 2020 R. Zéphirin, Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2_1

1

2

R. ZÉPHIRIN

of the population, its diverse compositions and its spatial distribution point out serious contentions dividing the local political system and the major political actors on key public policy choices regarding urban and housing policy planning, poverty reduction and migrants’ sociospatial integration in French Guyana. The politics and policy concerns over population-migration and urbanization transcend not only French Guyana, but also reach the core France in its interactions with some neighboring states in Latin America and the Caribbean. Definitely, the population composition and relocation in its diverse causes and effects become a serious political demography and urban governance challenges.

1.1 Portraying the Demographic Shift in the Cayenne’s Rapid Urbanization The historic context of 1970–1982 in French Guyana was marked by two crucial events. First, some important infrastructural development projects started to fill the gap between the other core France’s territorial entities and other French overseas departments. The infrastructural constructions initiated by the state went along with a socioeconomic and agricultural bid to promote economic growth, prosperity and development in French Guyana. Second, during the first half of the 1980s, the elected socialist government in France and the late President François Mitterrand promoted decentralization as a political approach and method of modernizing and engineering the state and the governance of territorial collectivities. As a result, decentralization of the public policy and the decision-making process was given in part to local elected officials and territorial governing bodies to tackle key public policy issues. Taken both, separately and interactively, the decades of 1970 and 1980 played an important role in shaping the variables of populationmigration growth linked to socioeconomic and spatial development in French Guyana. In this perspective, the arrival from neighboring countries of thousands of guest migrant workers highlights the importance of human influxes during the decade of 1970. The strategies of urban settlements differ from one ethnic community to another. Rapidly, the continuation of fluxes of migrants created the constitution of stocks of population with different social and ethno-cultural backgrounds. These changes in

1

INTRODUCTION : DESIGNING THE PROBLEMATICAL …

3

the French Guyanese society not only allowed the constitution of stocks of populations, but also sparked ethno-cultural and economic claims in terms of (among others) good living conditions in housing, Medicare and other social benefits for the population of French Guyana becoming a multicultural one by the end of 1970s. However, in the beginning of 1980s, all the socioeconomic, ethnic, demographic, geographic and political conditions were gathered on the ground to rethink immigration policy (management of influxes) in French Guyana in light of migrant policy (management of stock) and as an issue of public policy efficiency and good governance. Additionally, migrants’ choices of integration and/or reintegration in the origin countries or in the host one causing urban relocation, inter- and intra-urban mobility, housing construction patterns, the claim for good public urban services for all, schooling the second generation of migrants, or more importantly, the new French citizens in French Guyana with immigrant decent, reducing urban poverty and inequality in a composite population, pave the way to elevate the problem of population-migration, socioeconomic development and housing conditions in an environment of urban sprawling and urban policy planning as a political demography issue. This new political demography problematic ground is more suited to encircle the diversity and the complexity of the connection of housing, population density, urban sprawling and public policy efficiency. These issues beg the following questions. How population-migration influx, population re-composition, urban housing and urban policy planning combined with ethno-cultural claims enfold political demography in French Guyana—and more broadly, how the above-mentioned problems draw the conceptual and the theoretical contours of political demography and urbanization-migration? In order to answer the interrogations, it is important to evaluate the manifestation of the demographic problems in daily life of the inhabitants. In the Cayenne agglomeration, the capital city of the department of French Guyana, statistics over birth rates, death rates and migration rates intersect with family size, population size, households and housing construction. Also, the re-composition of the population and its diverse socio- and ethno-cultural experiences affect not only the culture of reproduction and procreation, but also the spatial distribution of the population in housing in various communes and neighborhoods of the Cayenne agglomeration.

4

R. ZÉPHIRIN

The spatial distribution of the population and its claims for netter living conditions not only change the composition of the urban population, but also modify the nature of social and ethnic claims linking at times (not always) society and community logics. As a result, in their different causes and effects, population-migration, urban housing, spatial mobility and urban policy planning transform traditional political district and redesign the local political maps in urban sections of the agglomeration. Aside from the above-mentioned changes, the willingness to allocate financial resources by some urban local elected officials goes in pair with their political views on immigration, on public policy agenda, design and implementation. Often, political actors and elected officials are divided on inclusion or exclusion of some segments of society in regard to local public policy. The opposition on immigration policy does not divide only local players in the local political system over the composition of the population and the effectiveness of public policy, but also conflicts with the core France and the French state which, at times, uses immigration in its foreign policy in the region and elsewhere in the world to maintain a certain level of geopolitical influence and ambitions. Moreover, generally speaking what is political demography? According to Wiener and Teitelbaum (2001: 10), “Political demography is the study of size, composition, and distribution of population in relation to both government and politics. It is concerned with the political consequences of population change, especially the effects of population change on the demands made upon governments, on the performance of governments, on the distribution of political power among within states, and on the distribution of national power among states. It also considers the political determinants of population change, especially the political causes of the movement of people, the relationship of various population configurations to the structure and functions of government, and public policies directed at affecting the size, composition and distribution of populations ”. Regarding this definition, political demography goes over the narrowly and traditional concepts and analytical tools in demography to stretch its domain of definition toward political science, economics, sociology, geography, etc.… In this view, how population-migration, urban housing and urban policy planning in French Guyana impact politics and policy at both localdepartmental and international (Latin America and Caribbean) levels?

1

INTRODUCTION : DESIGNING THE PROBLEMATICAL …

5

In order to answer this question, the book mainly asserts that population-migration, urban housing and spatial mobility become a political problem because they shrink the influence of some traditional dominant ethnic groups in the French Guyanese society, and then, the spatially recomposed and redistributed population points out a possible shift in power affecting politics and policy. This central thesis is delineated through the following six chapters of the book.

1.2 Structuring the Politics and Policy Arguments Over Population-Migration and Urbanization The first chapter introduces various elements involving in the demographic contention in French Guyana. The population dynamic is described and interconnected to the human urban settlements. The chapter lays out not only the characteristics of the problems of the demographic shift, but more importantly, frames the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of the political demography issue as a matter of urban governance challenges. The second chapter analyzes the dynamic of demographic growth in French Guyana through more than three decades. It reveals the diverse determinants involved in the reproduction of the population and its nature. Also, the chapter studies the diverse cultures of reproduction of the composite population as an impediment to the completion of the demographic transition process. The third chapter underlines the composition of the population and the contribution of immigration in the transformation, the size and the spatial distribution of the population. It also covers the migrants’ choices of integration and/or reintegration as a driver of urban settlement and mobility in the urban structure of French Guyana (Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009). As a result, the chapter shows the impacts of the population recomposition in terms of redesigning urban sectors’ local political maps in some municipalities in the Cayenne agglomeration, the capital city of French Guyana. The fourth chapter addresses the diversity in ethno-social and economic conditions of the population in terms of poverty and inequality reduction policy. In this view, the chapter questions the efficiency of

6

R. ZÉPHIRIN

public policy approaches regarding both the poverty reduction strategies at different urban and geographic scales in French Guyana. Consequently, it points out the different views of the immigrants of socio-spatial integration and/or reintegration in urban public/private housing. The fifth chapter highlights the urban public policy planning approach, value and purpose in the context of rapid urban demographic explosion of the capital city of Cayenne in French Guyana. Also, the chapter shows the limitations of the surge in public housing construction (Gallibourg 1995) without a coherent urban policy planning of the agglomeration as a whole. Urban relocation and urban spreading go faster and in an uncontrolled way than the capacity of public policy bodies to anticipate and regulate urban explosion. The multi-levels and the multi-scales of public policies and their diverse sociopolitical actors that are involved in isolated urban zonings become a challenge to efficient urban governance and a coherent territorial schema for the whole Cayenne agglomeration— harboring a composite population with different spatial perceptions and practices of the urban network loci and their artifacts. Consequently, the book problematizes and contextualizes decades of immigration and population growth in the overseas department of French Guyana as a power conflict between the core France and local political actors over managing the population, its composition, its size and its spatial distribution. It delineates the core elements and delimits the contours of the theoretical concepts of “political demography” (Weiner and Teitelbaum 2001) and “demography and national security” (Weiner and Russell 2001). Chapter 6 concludes the book and merges the different preceding chapters, while moving the political demography debate from a localdepartmental-national level to an international one involving mainly Brazil, Suriname and Haiti. The chapter which highlights immigration, demographic explosion, political demography, urbanization and urban governance shifts from domestic politics and policy. It links local, national and transnational population-migration spatially distributed to explore a broader perspective of international relations. As a matter of fact, the chapter explores relations among neighboring states involving supranational-regional organizations in dealing with transnational people movements in the Americas in general as political geographies, politics of scale and geopolitics (Zéphirin 2005, 2016, 2017, 2018).

1

INTRODUCTION : DESIGNING THE PROBLEMATICAL …

7

In order to understand the particular geography of the population, the chapter interacts with the native and foreign-born inhabitants’ logics regarding human mobility on territorial scales as a matter of urbanizationmigration interrelated to economic development and social fulfillment. As result, the chapter blends the specific French Guyanese’s urbanizationmigration patterns into the wider existing theoretical literature on the topic. Consequently, the complex interactions and changes in internal population, international people movements and their human settlement patterns in the French Guyanese society are analyzed in this book titled political demography and urban governance—implications for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Bibliography Domenach, H. (2003). L’évolution au XXe siècle du système démographique et migratoire caribéen. Hommes et Migrations – Diasporas caribéennes, Paris, no. 1237, mai-juin, pp. 13–25. Domenach, H., & Picouet, M. (1988). Transition démographique et migration en Guyane: des conditions de peuplement sous pression, Dynamique de la population et migration en Guyane. In La nature et l’homme (pp. 5–29). Cayenne: ORSTOM. Gallibourg, E. (1995). L’accès à l’habitat – le cas des immigrés haïtiens en Guyane française, Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, Programme P.I.R ville, Rapport intermédiaire Tome 1 (Annexes), Mars. Bordeaux: Université de Bordeaux II. Goldstone, J. A., Kaufmann, E. P., & Toft, M. D. (2012). Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics. Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers. Hayot, A., & Sauvage, A. (sous la Dir.). (2000). Le projet urbain – Enjeux, expérimentations et professions. Paris: Editions de la Villette. Le Gales, P. (1995). Du gouvernement des villes à la gouvernance urbaine. Revue française de science politique, 45(1), 57–95. Merlin, P. (1991). L’urbanisme, Que sais-je? Paris: PUF. Roncayolo, M. (1997). La ville et ses territoires. Paris: Ed. Gallimard. Tapinos, G. (1991). Eléments de démographie - Analyse, déterminants socioéconomiques et histoire des populations. Paris: Ed. Armand Colin. Teitelbaum, M. S. (2014, July 4). Political Demography: Powerful Forces Between Disciplinary Tools. International Area Studies Review (Sage Journals). Available online at https://doi.org/10.1177/2233865914534428.

8

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Weiner, M., & Russell, S. S. (2001). Demography and National Security. New York: Berghahn Books. Weiner, M., & Teitelbaum, M. S. (2001). Political Demography and Demographic Engineering. New York: Berghahn Books. Zéphirin, R. (2005). Le Champ migratoire haïtiano-guyanais: étude des causes et effets politiques, socio-économiques et spatiaux. – Multipolarité et réversibilité dans le système migratoire interaméricain. Thèse de Doctorat sous la direction de Hervé Domenach, Université Aix-Marseille III-IUAR, Aix-en-Provence, France. Zéphirin, R. (2016). Les réseaux de migrants haïtiano-guyanais dans l’espace américain. Avant-Propos de Mark J. Miller - Préface de Hervé Domenach. Paris: L’Harmattan. Collection “Questions Contemporaines”. Zéphirin, R. (2017). The Politics and Policy Implications of Widespread Immigrations in French Guyana. In S. Rodriquez (Ed.), Migrants: Public Attitudes, Challenges and Policy Implications (pp. 59–110). New York: NOVA Science Publishers. Collection “Immigration in the 21st Century: Political, Social and Economic Issues”. Zéphirin, R. (2018, June 1). The Americas’ Multi-Polar Displacements as a New Pattern in Haitian French Guyanese Migrations. International Migration Journal—IOM . Available online https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12470. Zéphirin, R., & Piantoni, F. (2009). Les stratégies d’accès au logement des Haïtiens dans l’agglomération de Cayenne Comme facteurs de restructuration urbaine. Revue L’Espace Politique, 6(3), 1–12. mai. En ligne. www.l’esp acepolitique.revues.org.

CHAPTER 2

Demographic Growth and Demographic Transition in French Guyana: The Diverse Determinants

Abstract This chapter analyzes the dynamic of demographic growth in French Guyana through more than three decades. It reveals the diverse determinants involved in the reproduction of the population and its nature. Also, the chapter studies the diverse cultures of reproduction of the composite population as an impediment to the completion of the demographic transition process. Keywords Population growth · Immigration · Birth rates · Death rates and demographic transition

The natural balance (which is the ratio between birth and death rates) reflects other dimensions including migration, the French Guyanese population growth, population structure and the demographic transition. The elements linked to the demographic balance sheet are closely connected to the use of contraceptive methods in French Guyana and the availability of hospital care, psycho-cultural elements and mortality. In this view, immigration in French Guyana is part of the natural movement of the population in terms of renewal of the population and its indexes of youth and old age. As a result, all of the above factors are linked to various reproductive cultures, natality rates and socio-cultural practices which contribute one way to another to the delay in the demographic transition in French Guyana. © The Author(s) 2020 R. Zéphirin, Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2_2

9

10

R. ZÉPHIRIN

2.1 Demographic Balance Sheet and Socio-sanitary Infrastructures The official French census body (called INSEE-Guyane) in Guyana in 2016 stood out demographic data and noted that the population has significantly increased. In 2015, 259,865 inhabitants have been counted comparatively to the year 2010, where 30,825 people have been numbered. For the year 2000, INSEE stated that the Guyanese population “has exceeded 157,000 inhabitants. This is a gain of more than 42,000 people compared to the 1990 census. The natural balance alone accounts for three-quarters of this increase (3.6%)”. Inter-census periods have fluctuating demographics with a pronounced trend for growth. In 1950, the population reached 25,484 inhabitants to increase to 32,287 in 1960. From 1965 where counted 38,958 people, this population increased in 1970 to 48,247. From 56,754 in 1975, the population grew to 67,527 in 1979. From 1980, the population of Guyana was 67,527 and passed four years later (1984) to 78,271 inhabitants. In 1987, this population was quantified to 86,434 people (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2000: 28). “In half a century, the Guyanese population has increased by 53.6% from 28,000 to nearly 178,000 inhabitants. Between the censuses of 1990 and 1999, the department counts 42,000 additional persons, a growth of 3.6% per year” (INSEE-TER 2003: 30). The figures show a fluctuating growth of the Guyanese population.1 The natural increase is defined as the difference between births and deaths for a given period of time. The natural balance in French Guyana varies according to several indirect factors such as immigration, the reinforcement of the socio-sanitary infrastructures and the improvement of the socio-sanitary conditions. Natural increase2 presents a number of

1 The official census body (INSEE-Guyane 2018) asserted that the population in 2016 continues to increase through the birth rates. For instance, between 2010 and 2016, newborn babies grew to 19.5%. Also, it is important to note that 44% of the newborns are from French citizens, 29% possess a French father and a foreign mother, and 27% have both foreign parents. Additionally, a third of the babies from mothers coming from Haiti has French fathers. Babies linked to Suriname mothers reach 45%. Births from Brazilian mothers at 60% have French fathers. 2 “Birth: 4907 (in 1999); 5149 (in 2000); 5137 (in 2001).

Death: 648 (in 1999); 634 (in 2000); 678 (in 2001)”.

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

11

births which exceed that of deaths in French Guyana for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 (INSEE-TER 2003: 37). First, it appears that male births supersede those of women in the results of the last census of INSEE-TER (2003) in French Guyana. Life expectancy3 for the number of males and females at birth in Guyana for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 (INSEE-TER 2003: 37) creates conditions for a renewal of generation and the general population. Then, beyond the natural increase (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 12), which is the surplus of births over deaths, migration is also one of the analytical tools for increasing or decreasing population. Thus, even if its weight deserves to be relativized, migration is a serious vector for measuring and explaining demographic disturbances. The complexity of migration experiences, networks and migration systems has influenced the evolution of the concept of migration. Moving from restrictive definitions to more extensible definitions in order to identify practices and parameterize variables, the concept of migration has undergone contortions, extensions depending on researchers and currents. Infections associated with poorly performed and repeated abortions increase the chances of sterilization of the fertile female population. The combination of these factors contributes to lowering the offspring on one side. But, the possibility that infectious diseases affect the decline of fertility and births should not be overvalued in any way. However, other socio-sanitary and legal parameters can relativize the predictive analyzes on the decrease of the births under the effect of the inaccessibility or the ignorance of a part of the population of the medical care and the most modern methods of contraception underway in French Guyana. The use of contraception4 in 1992 varies in percentages according to age groups related to the growth of sexual activity in French Guyana (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2000: 47). The ethnic mix of the Guyanese population conveys a conception of the fragmented world of medicine. Each community perceives hospital and medical care differently. From Brazilian to Haitian, from Surinamese

3 “Life expectancy at birth for Men: 71.1 (in 1999); 71.7 (in 2000); 71.6 (in 2001).

Life expectancy at birth for Women: 77.9 (in 1999); 79.2 (in 2000); 77.9 (in 2001)”. 4 Examples, 18–24 years old: 70.8%; 25–34 years old: 49.0%; 35–44 years old: 51.2%;

45–69 years old: 19.4%.

12

R. ZÉPHIRIN

to Dominican, from the local Guyanese population to people from core France, relations are different from the hospital. For example, in the case of Haitian immigrants who are of peasant origin, they go to hospitals when their situation worsens dangerously, generally when it is almost too late. This population which is found in Guyana with its rural culture of traditional medicine increases the number of deaths per year. Psycho-cultural elements indirectly play a role in the variation of mortality rates. Also, we must mention that the urban concentration observed in Cayenne favors from a certain angle a reduction of infectious diseases, such as malaria in its variants (bearable and sometimes deadly). Indeed, French Guyana by its abundant vegetation shelters also different types of insects. Parasitic and malaria diseases transmitted by mosquito bites to men are very present in the areas bordering rivers (Maroni and Oyapock). They are less so in Cayenne according to doctors officiating at Andrée Rosemond hospital in Cayenne. Moreover, in the diagnoses of doctors relating to certain diseases (related to the risk of malaria), often comes the question “did you leave Cayenne?”. Of course, this does not mean that zero risk exists in Cayenne or that all people living in Guyana’s deep heartland are infested with the malaria virus. But, according to medical sources, the possibility of catching the disease is higher in rural than in urban areas. The urbanization of Cayenne has to some extent control the level of risk of this disease. The cleaning and periodic sprinkling of the open channels in the southern part of the city of Cayenne help to combat the growth of mosquitoes and minimize the risk of contamination. While waiting for the public authorities to extend underground urban planning to the entire island of Cayenne and unify the canal network, residents living in areas near the city center where road services are active are already experiencing a certain security. Of course, the uncontrolled urbanization of Cayenne relativizes this advance in the fight against parasitic diseases insofar as the creation of islands of precarious habitats on the periphery asserts itself as potential points of reference for health problems of all kinds (e.g., tuberculosis). Despite its limitations, the urbanization of Cayenne influences and reduces the chances of catching parasite-related infections and decreases this particular type of death in Guyana’s net death rate.

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

13

On the socioeconomic level, the decline in mortality and its corollary, and the increase in life expectancy are combined with a whole system of accompanying measures and sectoral policies aimed at raising the standard of living. Calorie consumption per person and family has increased in Guyana in recent years. For example, the purchase of meat, poultry, eggs and fish from 1994 to 1995 affected more than 10,684 households. This increase in consumption is not only a global effort to raise the purchasing power of the population. This probably has close links with the social policies in force both for employment assistance and for accompanying unemployment. Guyana which receives a large part of its budget from the financial benefits of its metropolis, is largely an economy under perfusion. In fact, the heading “calorie consumption” occupies 6.8% of their budget. Raising the level of household consumption is to some extent a guarantee of good health for the population. As a result, this has reduced malnutrition, stunted growth, weakened human organisms and increased residents’ resilience to certain infectious diseases that in many cases led to death. It should be noted that some aggregated data on male/female deaths (all causes) in French Guyana showed that they presented more specific values for certain types of pathologies recorded in hospitals. For example, in 1996, an overall total of 544 deaths (342 men and 202 women) for all of Guyana (including males and females) has been recorded, while the causes and the numbers differ for mortality males/females (518 cases) linked to specific diseases (INSEE-GuyaneTER 2000: 35). Although the difference of 26 cases does not allow to have a decided position on the death of males/females, it still shows a slight decline in deaths. In 1996, some of the types of pathologies are “diseases of the respiratory system” (16 cases for the men and 7 cases for the women) and “infection of parasitic diseases ” (46 for men and 23 for women) (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2000: 45). The continuous effort of the public authorities in the improvement of health care will ultimately reduce the number of deaths in the Guyanese population.

14

R. ZÉPHIRIN

2.2 Immigration in Guyana: Element of the Natural Movement From the Latin etymology, migrare, to move from a starting point A (ex = out of, to emigrate) to a point of arrival B (in, within, to immigrate), has been accepted for a long time as a classic definition of migration. But, many researchers have attempted to mark the slippage of the concept from legal-administrative and territorial criteria. Migration types stand out and differentiate from each other. Modernity and its multiplicity of means of mobility introduce the variable of scale and the nature of displacements. The scientific community of demographers agrees that any displacement is not necessarily a migration. Migration is defined as a movement of person(s) in a given space with a life project related to the change of residence-base over a long time horizon. The “residence-base” (Domenach and Picouet 1995) is defined as a place, or a set of places, from which travel has a very high probability of return, regardless of the length of stay (weeks, months) during the lifetime of the residence. When the probability of return becomes very low (notion of very different nature in different countries and socio-cultural contexts), the implantation of the residence-base changes and the nature of the displacement is then a migration. For Domenach and Picouet (1995), the notion of “migratory reversibility” modulating an outward movement of immigration flows starts from the “residence-base” which can be influenced by the motivations of an immigrant’s migration project. Migration, combined with natural increase in Guyana, is an important contributor to population growth5 (INSEE-TER 2003: 31). During the last thirty years, immigration has been at the heart of the problem of population6 growth in French Guyana.

5 The combined natural and migratory balances show the degree of variation of the population in French Guyana from 1974 to 2002. The average annual rates of change (in %) in the population are the following: 1974–1982: 3.87%; 1982–1990: 5.79%; 1990– 1999: 3.57%; 2002: 3.40%. 6 The official census body (INSEE-Guyane) asserted that the population in 2016 continues to increase through the birth rates. For instance, between 2010 and 2016, newborn babies grew to 19.5%. Also, it is important to note that 44% of the newborns are from French citizens, 29% possess a French father and a foreign mother, and 27% have both foreign parents. Additionally, a third of the babies from mothers coming from Haiti

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

15

The conjunction of births, deaths (natural movement) and net migration gives a demographic balance in Guyana from 1990 to 1999. The urban centers7 of Cayenne and Saint-Laurent du Maroni are particularly affected by the population growth (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2000: 29). The forms of mobility in the above-mentioned spaces are conditioned by the activities of the people, the geographical places of life and their administrative and economic importance for the types of population that practice them. The city of Saint-Laurent du Maroni is like the facade of Guyana compared to Suriname. As a result, it not only houses people born in the district, but also hosts many people in transit for Cayenne. It offers the most opportunities for work and opportunities to undertake. Such realities mean that the net migration of Cayenne (9.2) is positive for the period considered (1990–1999) and higher compared to Saint-Laurent du Maroni (1.1). In addition, since the end of the attractive immigration policy in the second half of the decade of 1980, the specificity of the Guyanese’s permeable border of the St. Lawrence Maroni (nearly 250 km long) permeable, requires to relativize the concept of net migration that is a difference between entries and exits for a given period. Most immigrants cross the border illegally—thus, in both directions (entry and exit). It is necessary to take a critical step backward with the INSEE data (census published in 2000) on the concept of net migration and the reality it wants to measure. In the discontinuous territories of the HaitiGuyana migratory field, for example, the mobility of Haitian immigrants between Fond-des-Nègres (Haiti) and Cayenne (Guyana) was obscured as a parameter of analysis of net migration from 1990 to 1997. In other words, the inter-census period alters the intermediate migrations. The Haitian immigrant returns to Fond-des-Nègres (a source country of emigration from Haiti for many Haitians in French Guyana) for some, for two to three years and others for six months. During a prolonged absence, he rents his house and leaves in wandering at both ends of the migratory field with wife and children. This reality does not only concern

have French fathers. Babies linked to Suriname mothers reach 45%. Births from Brazilian mothers at 60% have French fathers. 7 For the decade of 1990, while Cayenne presents both an increase in the natural movement and the net migration of 21.8%, Saint-Laurent du Maroni stands out 10.4%.

16

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Haitian immigrants. Brazilians and Surinamese neighbors of Guyana are just as concerned as Haitians.8 Reality varies according to the defined territory scale, which means that from the department to the municipality, the forms of mobility change. At the communal level in Guyana, there is a circular migration in certain types of populations. For example, Haitians growing giblets spent three to four months in Guyana’s heartland, farming the land and went for six or eight other months in Cayenne to work in the service sector during the lean season. Note that this form of mobility is not only valid for Guyana, it is also valid for Haiti. The last population/habitat census (2001) organized by the IHSI (the national census bureau of Haiti) in the Aquin area is biased in its results by population movements (back and forth) at both ends of the Haiti-French Guyana migratory field. Some immigrants in retirement or semi-retirement spend six months in Haiti and six months in Guyana, which excludes a section of the population of the communal section of the assessment.

2.3 Renewal of the Population: Indices of Youth and Old Age In the analysis of demographic characteristics of Guyana, establishing a relationship between the index of old age (number of elderly people per 100 young people) and its opposite the youth index (quantity of young people per 100 elderly people) is needed to identify quantified data on the effective capacity of the population potentially able to procreate and renew itself. As such, data from the 1997 INSEE-Guyane-TER (2000) census show that 22.9% of the total Guyanese population is between 25 and 39 years old and only 5.6% is over 60 years old. Zeros at age 14 make up 36.2% of the total population. This means that not only are the descendants making progress, but also demographic conditions conducive to maintaining and increasing the birth rate. In addition, the frequency of births may be due to the spacing of sexual acts after childbirth and the time to resume sexual intercourse. Practices 8 According to the census bureau (called INSEE-Guyane) in 2016, aside from traditional immigrant populations (Suriname, Brazil and Haiti) living in French Guyana, recently, other populations coming from neighboring countries such as Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Dominican Republic are counted in French Guyana.

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

17

diverge according to the fringes of the Guyanese population which is of a composite nature. The recovery time of sexual life in a couple after first procreation varies from Guyanese to Surinamese, from Haitian to Brazilian, from Dominican to Chinese and from Lebanese to Mhong (from Laos). Some communities living in Guyana do not even wait for the breastfeeding period to expire. Unemployment in Guyana helping, six months later (in Haitian circles), some men are already pressuring their women to resume their sexual activities. In addition, the phenomenon of unwanted immigration is not without consequences on births. In a survey of illegal Haitian immigrants in Guyana, many women are generally pregnant as a result of sexual abuse by smugglers. Between the strategies to move from Saint-Laurent du Maroni to Cayenne, most of the clandestine women know a lot of miseries. Sometimes, many arrive pregnant in Cayenne. Unplanned, “accidental” (or even forced) births related to illegal immigration into Guyana do not attract too much attention from statisticians who do not take these cases into account. Yet these unacknowledged tiny facts about general births affect the birth rate in Guyana. In addition, the average age at marriage9 identified shows that the population of marrying age is generally late (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2000: 26). Early marriages do not take place in French Guyana. This limits early births in the marriage bonds. Increasing the marriage age of spouses reduces fertility. Because, especially for women, the age of procreation is mainly to a large extent in the range of 20–35 years (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 41). The fact that women marry generally at the age of thirty reduces fertility. Such a situation contributes to a reduction of the probability of births in French Guyana. However, two factors deserve to be taken into account in the analysis of the impact of late marriages on the fertility of the fertile population. The first concerns people who are already living in a marital or common-law relationship and who decide to legalize their union. The second is interested in a fraction of the illegal population of Guyana who establishes marital relations in the consulates of the countries of origin.

9 Example, the data for the “gap between Men and Women at marriage in French Guyana 1995 are 30.8% for women and 35.3% for men”.

18

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Data on undocumented immigrant marriages not recorded in town halls and sealed in consulates are recognized under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. However, the annual number of married couples in the consulates of Cayenne is not counted and added to the data collected in the town halls. This makes partial the index of marriage rate that does not identify all marriages. In one way or another, officiated marriages in the consulates are legal and pass on the general birth rate in French Guyana. Of course, this does not mean that birth statistics are not well controlled.

2.4 Various Reproductive Cultures and Delay in the Demographic Transition The population of Guyana is characterized by its youth. The age of the majority of the population could also influence the types of mobility (interregional, intraregional and international). The young age of immigrants (young adults) in an indirect way influences their migratory trajectories. Even in the case of repatriation in the country of departure, the young immigrant could always try to return several times to the country of immigration. These facts are legion in Guyana (in number of people interviewed) where the repressed of the police of the air and the borders re-migrate clandestinely for the umpteenth time (investigation by interviews with expelled in Haiti). By describing the population growth of Guyana through conceptual tools such as natural increase, net migration, migratory matrix and age pyramid, it turns out that demographic facts interact, condition and are self-maintaining. If the natural increase marked by a superiority of births over deaths and if the net migration shows positive signs, such facts should not be passed on to the demographic transition in Guyana. Natural balances and migrations contribute not only to the increase of the population, but also, they determine the structure of the population of French Guyana. Thus, without forgetting the fertility index in Guyana, for example, between 1992 and 1997, which varies from 3.9 to 4.0 children per family and impacts the natural balances (Zéphirin 2005: 162). In dissecting the data on the Guyanese population by sex and age groups from the census published by INSEE-Guyane-TER (2000), it turns out that the demographic transition is underway (contradictory for

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

19

the different populations: the French and foreigners) in French Guyana despite delays due to immigration. The demographic transition10 (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 18) is a graded tool for measuring two phases of evolution over time of the components of natural increase (birth/death) within a given population. It is used to describe the mode and the current regime in terms of reproduction of a population, of its path toward the control of its growth and its balance. There are encouraging signs of a dramatic decline in the death rate and a creeping rise in the birth rate. But, they only position Guyana in the second phase of the demographic transition. While focusing on Guyana, it would be interesting to briefly discuss other cases and make a comparison. Let us note that according to Guillon and Sztokman (2000: 18) countries are “on the threshold of the second phase, at mid-term, at the end and in a post-transitional situation”. Some countries are on the threshold of the second phase of transition. “Only in 1995, the countries of tropical Africa, Laos and Afghanistan are still in this situation and can, as such, be considered to be lagging behind in demographic terms. The drop in mortality, which began essentially after the Second World War, led to acceleration in growth, which, at around 2% per annum in the 1950s, progressively rose to 3% and more in the eighties. The decline in mortality is far from over. The general mortality varies between 10 to 20 per 1000 in spite of the youth of the population (16 in West and Central Africa, 18 in the East), and infant mortality reaches here its record levels: 195 in Sierra Leone, 150 in Afghanistan, 140 in Malawi, 134 in Mozambique, 123 in Niger, and juvenile mortality is still very high” (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 67). Countries are in the midst of the demographic transition. “A large number of countries (quite heterogeneous Ivory Coast, Bolivia, Egypt, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Taiwan) have today irreversibly crossed the threshold of the second phase of the demographic transition. For many, the decline in 10 “Formulated by the American F. Notestein in 1945, the theory of the demographic transition is best known by the diagram which summarizes the path… the diagram highlights a first phase defined by the decline in mortality then a second characterized by the inflection and then the rapid fall of the birth curve. The growth of the population accelerates throughout the first phase, reaches its maximum at the beginning of the second, while the fall in mortality is still greater than that of the birth rate, then slows down until stabilization. The population then enters its post-transitional phase, the modern democratic regime”.

20

R. ZÉPHIRIN

the birth rate is a recent development that began between 1970 and 1980, or even later … Fertility most often varies between 4 and 5 children per woman, although some states have rates close to 3, The growth rate, although declining, remains high, in the order of 2 to 3% per year because of the youth of the population but also because the decline in the birth rate is partly offset by the decline in mortality” (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 74). Some countries are at the end of transition. These countries (China, Taiwan, Cuba) today have traits very similar to those of the industrialized countries: mortality below 10 per 1000, high life expectancy, birth rate of between 15 and 20 per 1000, fertility less than 2 children per 100,000 wife. However, they are distinguished by the pace of growth which remains close to 1% per year and by a slightly younger age structure, since the under-15s still account for 20–30% of the total population. The aging of the population is more advanced than in the previous groups and the weight of adults is very high: two out of three people are between 15 and 65 years old. Mortality is now very low and the epidemiological transition is being completed (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 81). Countries are in a post-transition situation. “Countries having completed their demographic transition for a generation where more have common characteristics, aging of the population, low mortality, non-renewal of generations or barely assured renewal, very dynamic demographic weak” (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 85). What is the evolution of Guyana toward its demographic transition compared to the other cases mentioned? Guyana has not yet fully reached the second phase in that the birth curve would stabilize in the first moment and drop in a second. In the dynamics that would combine both a fall in mortality and a controlled decrease in births, has not yet begun (for all sectors of the population) in French Guiana. This situation characterizes the first phase which maintains a high rate of mortality and birth rate. The signs of progress toward the second phase of the demographic transition in Guyana do not yet appear in a relevant way. The beginning of the second stage implies in the long term a considerable reduction in births and a significant decrease in deaths. In other words, comparing the inter-census data (1990–1999) on natural increase shows that the numbers are leveling upward. Two interdependent elements converge to explain the delay in the initiation of the second phase.

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

21

First, the decline in mortality is accompanied by a high birth rate which has a contribution in the 41,982 inhabitants also recorded between the 1990 and 1999 censuses. Second, in addition to the possibility of a continuation even of slow migration flows, the generations currently of childbearing age and those who will have to do so represent in the age pyramid the largest part of the population. The base of the pyramid is broad and reflects the youth of the population. However, it should be noted that in order to deal with the demographic transition the natural balance indicator is not sufficient as an element of analysis; it is also necessary to work with the total fertility rate (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 43)11 which studies for one year the fertile history of different generations of women. The birth rate may remain high with decreasing fecundity simply because the number of breeding populations has increased in the earlier phase. In other words, even without immigration, it is necessary to wait for a certain time to reach a certain leveling of the base toward the middle and 11 “The total fertility rate, also known as the total fertility rate, the sum of births which has been reduced or sometimes, and arguably, the average number of children per woman, provides a summary of these age-specific fertility rates. It is obtained by summing the children born in a year by a female population which would have, at each age, the fertility of the year concerned. Thus, in the case of Egypt, with the fertility rates of 1988, 1000 women aged 15 to 19 give birth to 102.5 children (20.5 in one year, 5 times more during the five years of the age group), 1000 women aged 20 to 24, 968 children and so up to 49 years. A total of 5448 births corresponding to 5.5 children per woman … […]This cyclical indicator of fertility is, as its name suggests, an indicator of the moment, namely a cross-sectional indicator (in relation to the time axis) which results as Gérard Calot, who for a long time led INED”, the end-to-end fragments of history lived in the same year by different generations of women. “It does not measure the actual descent of women, but it is nonetheless irreplaceable because it makes it possible to grasp in a simple and rapid way the evolution of behaviors and define trends.” […]Current index, the cyclical index is particularly sensitive to changes in the calendar: imagine that a high proportion of French women aged 25–29 years decide to postpone the birth of their first child by two or three years. At once, the fertility rate for 25–29 year olds has fallen sharply, which has an immediate impact on the overall index. To conclude that the fertility of French women decreases would be a mistake. A few years later, they will have this child, the fertility rate of 30–34 years will increase and, in total, their descendants will not be affected by what will have been a change of calendar. This indicator exists, it is designated by the expression final descent. As a longitudinal indicator [life story] (and no longer cross-sectional like the ICF), it measures the actual number of children born to a generation of women. By nature, it can only be calculated at the moment when this generation completes its fertile life: thus in 1999, it is possible to measure the final descent of women born in 1949 who reach their fiftieth birthday”.

22

R. ZÉPHIRIN

the summit and thus to modify the shape of the pyramid (Zéphirin 2005) or its present structure, which would be qualitatively a change in the natural demographic regime (high birth rate, high mortality and uncontrolled increase) to a modern regime (low mortality, controlled birth and controlled growth). For now, French Guyana12 is not there yet (INSEETER 2003: 35). The path is difficult, and there is still a long way to go because of the contradictions between the reproductive cultures of the components of the population. Meanwhile, the demographic situation is becoming more complex. The problems of social cohesion related to the heterogeneous increase of the population arise at different levels of the Guyanese society.

2.5

Natality and Socio-cultural Practices

Contraceptive means not only prevent the offspring, but also protect the population against sexually transmitted diseases. In a society where there is a growing effort to improve sanitary conditions, reduce mortality, the fertility of the legal population, combined with that of immigration, creates a favorable factor for the growth of births in Guyana. How these demographic parameters point out the problem of the renewal of generations? It is important to highlight that the data produced by INSEE-TER (2003) on the evolution of the population concern specific conjunctures. Reading the published results of the 2000 census, it turns out that the data production criteria did not take into account the reproduction of generations identified and followed from age groups over a long time. That means, a display was made for the “sex ratio at birth” (ratio of the number of boys per hundred girls), but this does not allow for any clearing or renewal, nor the fertility of the indigenous or legal population by age groups.

12 “The distribution of the Guyanese population in thousands of inhabitants and in % of age ranges and by sex from 1990 to 2002 shows that less than 20 years old represent 44.7%; 20 to 59 years old are counted for (49.6%); and 60 years and up for 5.7%”.

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

23

However, an analysis of generations and their offspring becomes difficult. The available data are very general13 (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2000: 35). The data present a synthetic view of all births. They do not highlight the different sectors (native and immigrant) of the population and their contributions to the net birth rate. The inter-census figures on total births in French Guyana, not only don’t facilitate an evolutionary reading through particular conjunctures, but also, for example, they don’t provide information on the renewal threshold (Guillon and Sztokman 2000: 45) of the Guyanese population. The descendants can be part of a logic of change of status in the case of an immigrant for example. Until what proportion of immigrant births related to social inclusion strategies would contribute to increase or reduce the birth rate? An undocumented immigrant can, from birth in the host country, initiate a legal mechanism to obtain documents. Generally speaking, in developed and democratic countries of North America, such as the United States and Canada, if an immigrant woman gives birth to a child (or in their territorial waters), not only does the child automatically have the US citizenship (Jus soli 14 ), but also this fact can constitute a path toward the legalization of the status of the mother who is illegal. The fact that Jus soli is in force in France, and an immigrant and pregnant woman benefit from it. However, this did not prevent police authorities in French Guyana in their fight against illegal immigration, to push back in Haiti (or other neighboring countries) in the rural area of Pémerle (near Aquin) the twin brothers “Louis-Fils” who were born and archived in French Guyana. These are immigration cases for legal battle in courts. Besides the socio-legal aspect of births, there is also the interaction of the socio-cultural level. For example, in the case of the Haitian population, the “hougan” (voodoo priest), taking advantage of the psychological weakness of a patient, can use the possession of a spirit to sexually abuse him. Often, young women seeking “luck” to get married from the invocation of the “hougan” were trapped. Generally, the “hougan” is released

13 “Total male and female births in Guyana for the years 1995, 1996 and 1997 point out a greater number of men and a lesser quantity of women. Examples, in 1995 (2175 men versus 2089 females = total 4264); in 1996 (2224 men versus 2143 females = total 4367); in 1997 (2267 versus 2186 = total 4453)”. 14 Legally, Jus soli is still a core element of the United States immigration policy, despite the anti-immigrant sentiment and the tightening border policy of the sitting President Donald Trump and his administration.

24

R. ZÉPHIRIN

from all responsibility and suddenly accuses the spirit (the loa) who acted while he was possessed, so unconscious. Such cases are very little reported and are not listed as such in birth registries. And voodoo practices exist in Guyana (even marginal). Also, the socioeconomic realities that condition births deserve to be taken into account. Jean-Jacques Chalifoux (1988), studying the search for “opportunities in French Guyana”, described a practice in Haitian immigrant circles bordering on mutual aid and prostitution. Former Haitian immigrants in Guyana with a “certain financial base” are usually interested tutors of young and newly arrived immigrant girls. This aspect, certainly not measured by studies, certainly has “a significant share” on Haitian births in Guyana and finally on the overall birth rate of Guyana (Zéphirin 2005).

2.6

Marriages, Divorces, Births and Family Status

Marriage flows, even if they are not automatically determinants of births, have a significant role in them. According to INSEE-Guyane-TER (2000) data on nuptiality in Guyana, there is a progression. The marriage rate is the ratio of the number of marriages15 per thousand inhabitants in a year to the average population of the year in question (INSEE-TER 2003: 39). Nuptiality is one of the factors of increased fertility in French Guyana. The constitution of new families increases the possibilities of newborn babies. In the case of Guyana, the marriage trend is growing steadily. Thus, in 1982, the marriage rate16 was 3.6. It is 3.7 in 1984 and 3.8 in 1987 (INSEE-Guyane-Les Cahiers 2000: 25). The trend has not changed. It continued to increase to 3.9 in 1990 and reach 5.3 in 1992. On the other hand, the year 1996 (as well as for 1999 and 2001) marked a considerable decline in marriages where the rate of 3.5 per thousand has been registered. This is partly due to the beginning of a trend toward increasing the civil solidarity pact (PACS) in Guyanese society or other types of free unions between spouses commonly called 15 “The number of marriages in French Guyana for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 points out a slight increase. As a result, in 1999 (548 marriages or 3.5) have been counted, in 2000 (545 marriages or 3.3) and in 2001 (567 marriages or 3.5)”. 16 Number of marriages per thousand of inhabitants in French Guyana in 2003.

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

25

in Haitian Creole, plasay. Data from INSEE-TER (2003: 39), showed that spouses are increasingly adopting PACS where for the year 2000, 28 PACS were registered, 45 for 2001 and 63 for 2002. In this perspective, a rise in births out of wedlock is observed. Again, the data displayed in percentage by INSEE-TER (2003: 37), showed that for 1999 there were 82.0% births out of wedlock, for 2000, 82.4% and for 2001, 83.9%. The establishment of marriage ties increases the probability of procreation but also marks a perceptible evolution of the generations of the 1970s compared to the nuclear family. However, while the last three decades (1970–1990) were marked by a favorable marriage trend, the early 2000s saw a slight decline in marriage rates among the Guyanese population. Note that this decline is due to a renewed interest in other forms of consensual or traditional unions observed in the data and tables used above. With regard to the history of Guyana through the colonial and then departmental phases, mentalities have evolved in terms of the model of organization of family life. Different family models live differently their sexuality. Sexual behaviors combined with socioeconomic and legal criteria inevitably influence birth rates. Zéphirin (2005: 150) presents some significant data on the diversity of family models and births. “For 15451 men, the 25-39 age group presents in the case of a couple with a child 6773 against 1800 for couples without children. The 25-39 age-group for couples is to some extent more sexually active than the 40-59 age group or older”. This would facilitate procreation, even if the generalization of the contraceptive means prevents to establish mechanical relations between sexual activity and procreation. The conjugal ties within the immigrant populations of Cayenne with their visions of the family cannot be left out. The transition from monoparental to marriage changes practices within a relationship. It is not excluded that a change in family pattern may increase or decrease births. However, there is no cause-and-effect relationship (until proven otherwise in Guyana) between family types and their size in terms of number of children. According to the figures published in the table above, couples with children have a superiority in number compared to those without children. This supports the idea that couples generally tend to reproduce through their children. Also, finding childless couples between the 25– 39 and 40–59 age brackets shows some willingness to control births (Zéphirin 2005: 150). In addition, the delay of couples to procreate will

26

R. ZÉPHIRIN

lead to a decline in fertility in both women and men, even if the age limit for decreasing female fertility is lower (35 years) than in men (45 years), at least, especially in France “early fertility (before 20 years) and late fertility (between 35 and 40 years) are slightly higher” (Guillon and Stockman 2000: 41). The celibacy of a part of the population living in Guyana has a significant importance on the offspring as it would increase the possibilities of a certain sexual inactivity. And if there is activity, it is exercised at an unsupported frequency or in a spirit of non-procreation. The number of single men is higher for men than for women. In other words, the condition of celibacy cannot be explained solely by a question of birth limitation, but could imply other levels of explanation. From this point of view, the socioeconomic situation of people seems to be one of the parameters to explore. If a person does not feel socially and economically ready to assume marital responsibilities, they may delay their entry into the life of a couple. In the end, all these data in one way or another help to reduce the births of the legal population (without immigrant births) to a downward or a steady state. Consequently, combined factors contribute to the increase of the population in French Guyana. Well-equipped hospital institutions offer good quality universal health care to the population. The general socioeconomic condition of the population keeps improving. However, diverse reproductive cultures in the population slow down the completion of the demographic transition. In the long term, the rapid growth of the population will have a considerable impact on the local social structure and other economic and political aspects of the French Guyanese society.

Bibliography Chalifoux, J.-J. (1988). Chercher la vie en Guyane - Temoignages d;Haitiens et d’Haitiennes emigres. Departement d’Anthropologie, Universite Laval, Laval, Quebec. Domenach, H., & Picouet, M. (1995). Les Migrations, Que Sais-Je? Paris: PUF. Guillon, M., & Sztokman, N. (2000). Géographie mondiale de la population. Paris: Ed. Ellipses. INSEE-Guyane. (2018). Recensement 2016. Cayenne. INSEE-Guyane-Les Cahiers. (2000). Cayenne. INSEE-Guyane-TER. (2000). Tableaux Economiques Régionaux. Cayenne. INSEE-TER. (2003). Tableaux Economiques Régionaux. Cayenne.

2

DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION …

27

Zéphirin, R. (2005). Le Champ migratoire haïtiano-guyanais: étude des causes et effets politiques, socio-économiques et spatiaux. – Multipolarité et réversibilité dans le système migratoire interaméricain. Thèse de Doctorat, Université AixMarseille III-IAR, Aix-en-Provence, France. Zéphirin, R. (2016). Les réseaux de migrants haïtiano-guyanais dans l’espace américain. Avant-Propos de Mark J. Miller - Préface de Hervé Domenach. Paris: L’Harmattan. Colection “Questions Contemporaines”.

CHAPTER 3

Composition of the Population and Its Spatial Distribution

Abstract This chapter underlines the composition of the population and the contribution of immigration in the transformation, the size and the spatial distribution of the population. It also covers the migrants’ choices of integration and/or reintegration as a driver of urban settlement and mobility in the urban structure of French Guyana. As a result, the chapter shows the impacts of urbanization and the population recomposition in terms of redesigning urban sectors’ local political maps in some municipalities in the Cayenne agglomeration, the capital city of French Guyana. Keywords Demographic growth · Immigration · Population composition · Spatial distribution · Urban settlement · Integration-reintegration · Urban planning · Local politics and public policy

The mosaic population observed in French Guyana largely generated by decades of immigration reflects some degree to the social structure. Community and social practices coexist and run into each other. In this view, community is not necessary mutually exclusive to society as migrants’ choices of integration enfold. Going over the dichotomous (community/society) approach of a sociological understanding of an immigration society such as French Guyana allows to manage the © The Author(s) 2020 R. Zéphirin, Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2_3

29

30

R. ZÉPHIRIN

issue of influxes (immigration policy) and stocks (migrant policy). The theoretical dimension of community and society logics regarding the demographic engineering of the composite population is bridged by the practical issue of the spatially redistributed composite population and the redrawing of local political maps and power in the Cayenne agglomeration. Consequently, population composition and human settlement patterns, expressed in terms of both community and society logics, not only cross the problems of population distribution and local political power re-composition, but also are federated through the political demography as an attempt to effectively deal with demographic growth, immigration, integration-reintegration, urban planning, local politics and local public policy.

3.1

Composite Population and Social Structure

The population of Guyana, given its diverse and random sources of growth (birth, death and migration), presents enormous difficulties to be quantified with some accuracy. The question of measurement raises the contradictions between many researchers on the real population size. However, note that beyond the contradictions between the estimates of different researchers on the Guyanese population, INSEE-Cayenne (2000, 2003) provides official data. However, illegal immigration and mobility mechanisms maintain a random part in the results, even if the uncertainty remains moderate. In French Guyana, immigration (all nationalities1 combined) constitutes a significant part of the total population (Zéphirin 2005). Data (Zéphirin 2005) show that in the registers of residence cards of the Prefecture of Cayenne, almost all the countries of the world were listed—from Germany, Laos, Bulgaria to Democratic Republic of Congo. Almost all the countries of the world are counted in French Guyana.

1 Among different other immigrant communities from other regions of the world (particularly the European Union), some Caribbean and Latin American countries form the bulk of the foreign populations in French Guyana. They have differently contributed to the general French Guyanese population growth. For example, in the mid of the decade 2000, countries (among others) such as Suriname, Haiti and Brazil are respectively accounted for 17,654 immigrants or 37.9%; 14,143 immigrants or 30.4%; and 7171 immigrants or 15.4%. Also, Guyana (former British Guyana) has 2372 immigrants or 5.1%; the Dominican Republic counts 673 immigrants or 1.4%.

3

COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION AND ITS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

31

However, in a quantitative standpoint, the most important ones are: Suriname, Haiti and Brazil. The INSEE-Cayenne (2000, 2003) data do not fully reflect the demographic reality of Guyana. However, updating the figures on immigrant communities allows for a better quantitative assessment of the population. Also, it gives the means to undertake a social problematization of the population by counting the members of the different communities and by locating them in the main communes of Guyana. From 1995, an evolution in the diversification of occupation sectors took place. This observation is verified in the records of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Guyana. There is a dynamic movement of activity sectors partitioned according to family or national affinity criteria to sectoral ethnic investments on a corporatist basis. Several analytical approaches have tried to define the multi-ethnic problem of Cayenne. The vast majority of them are part of a more strictly anthropological than sociological perspective. The concerns to explain the demo-social phenomenon are generally concerned with competition, the comparison of communities and their place in the general social body of Guyana. Thus, many theses have placed too much emphasis on the description of community classifications and battles at the bottom of the whole social ladder where an ethnic community (confused with a class community) struggles to climb a rung of the ladder, while relegating another to this place at a lower level. This approach is part of a static and a reproduction of the social order in place. It proves to be antiprogressive insofar as there is a hierarchy of ethnic groups, communities are positioned as class, and precariousness is hierarchical. The concrete notions of community of interest, upward or downward mobility, and social groups transcending the nationality criteria are hidden in favor of a monolithic classification of communities. To construct and analyze a social structure in such a perspective is a mechanical functionalism of bad quality. This schematic view of the Guyanese social system does not allow us to see how within the different immigrant communities, elements raid, plunder their peers to accumulate at their expense and later to form groups of interests negotiating with other interest groups belonging to other communities. The logic of ethnic partitioning does not facilitate an observation of the convergences of interethnic interests between the aforementioned populations within the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Guyana, for example. This is so true that Frantz Gérôme—a well-educated Haitian, graduated from Harvard

32

R. ZÉPHIRIN

University (in the United States) in Architecture and Business Administration, Entrepreneur and Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce of Guyana—is challenged by many unionized Haitian immigrants linked to the CGT. It is necessary to question the limits of the simple anthropological view of the city as ethnically and spatially self-segregated. Often, the ethnically self-centered approach hides some major socioeconomic contradictions which transcend ethnic or national origins in urban settlement patterns and sociopolitical incorporation in the Cayenne agglomeration.

3.2 Living Together: Community as a Way of Integrating Society In Guyana, even when partially the question of ascending social mobility was approached in an introductory manner, it was in the intra-community and non-inter- or trans-community sense. In other words, segmentation into opposite and homogeneous communities effectively rules out the principle that society is a coherent, historical, complex and dynamic system. This analysis gives communities an independent status, impervious to interactions and devoid of links between sociological units. The systematic communitarianism as a grid of analysis of the poly-ethnic reality in Cayenne favors the affinity variable (kinship, nationality) as a fundamental vector of constitution of social link to the detriment of socioeconomic parameters in immigrant circles. Admittedly, affinities play a significant role in the grouping of communities in space and time. But this prism is limited as a methodological framework to identify the internal dynamics of struggles, individual or group social promotion, the passage of parental and national links to those essentially economic types or at least mercantile within populations for a long time. Should not we question the different issues and the actors involved in the field (in the Bourdieu’s sense) of development? In this respect, the communitarian approach does not make it possible to study, on the one hand, the strategies implemented by the groups to take advantage of the system, and on the other hand, to understand the historical process of formation, constitution and the re-composition of social classes in a weakly structured Guyanese immigration society (as the French sociologist Georges Balandier, for example, has studied African societies newly acceded to independence in his book entitled Sense and Power).

3

COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION AND ITS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

33

The question of the watertight segmentation of Guyana and more particularly of Cayenne in ethnic groups has had important socio-cultural consequences in terms of the perception of immigration by Creole elites. Zéphirin (2005: 180) citing Mam Lam Fouck (1997: 23) and Doumenge (2000: 103) wrote that “At the end of the 1970s, Creoles accounted for about 70% of the population living in Guyana (Mam Lam Fouck 1997: 23). Today, the demographic growth in which net immigration occurs and its impact on the natural balance of the population has reduced this percentage to 45% in 1999 (Doumenge 2000: 103)”. The articulation of the ethnic components of Guyana is not devious and smooth compared to the nationals of the host society. The population growth of French Guiana not only changed the structure of the population, but also redesigned the social structure. The notions of deviance to morals, behavioral anomie, crumbled social cohesion, threatened cultural identity and ethnicity will be posed with acuity and feed recurrently the debates of politicians and local decisionmakers.

3.3 Problems of Influxes and Stocks as a Mirror of Political Demography The quest for identity definition on an ethnic basis (creoles) marked and arbitrated by history conveys underlying sociopolitical interests and a latent vision of demography. What is a political demography? Political demography is an articulated action of the state through the choice of approaches of public interventions to manage at the same time a population and the complex of consequences that it generates on the space. Political demography cannot be confused or reduced to a simple population policy inspired by approaches of “natalist” or settlement by migration in the case of Guyana. It reaches a dialectical articulation of the various problems (in their causes and effects) engendered by a given population linked to the functioning of the institutional mechanisms of a society led by the state and its organs. Political demography is the study of size, composition, and distribution of population in relation to both government and politics. It is concerned with

34

R. ZÉPHIRIN

the political consequences of population change, especially the effects of population change on the demands made upon governments, on the performance of governments, on the distribution of political power among within states, and on the distribution of national power among states. It also considers the political determinants of population change, especially the political causes of the movement of people, the relationship of various population configurations to the structure and functions of government, and public policies directed at affecting the size, composition and distribution of populations. (Weiner and Teitelbaum 2001: 10)

In this regard, the positions contradict each other in the general council or the Region in Cayenne on the place of immigrants in the general population2 and society of Guyana (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2003). The rise in natural and migratory balances is “scary” to certain political sectors and is stirring public debate. The politician George Othily (in 1986) thought that immigrants should be remote within the rural country of Guyana, far from the contact of the urban aboriginal population. This public statement of the President of the Regional Council of Guyana shows an intention on a type of intervention of the state in the demographic management. The measures proposed to redistribute and displace Haitian immigrants are inspired by an aggressive perception of immigration. As a result, the ethnic exclusion of the immigrant population on an ethnic basis is not only discrimination but also a safety net for the endogenous elements deemed to be threatened by the foreign presence in Guyana. The discriminatory institutional logic followed by some officials has had repercussions on public action in urban housing. While the state (through the regional council body) formally debated the allocation of housing-related budget resources on Cayenne’s citizens, a local politician such as Elie Castor disengaged (a French congressman and Mayor) over public funding of urban housing for immigrants and ruled out the option to finance the reconstruction/demolition of immigrant housing.

2 For example, from 1974 to 2002, French Guyana faced an average rate of change

of population due to the combined natural balance and the migration balance of the [population. The decades 1974–1982 showed an increase of 3.87%; 1982–1990 stood out an evolution of 5.79%; 1990–1999 pointed out 3.57%; and for the year 2002 a number of 3.40%. Aside from some slight reduction, high immigration and natural population growth severely impact the demographic explosion in French Guyana.

3

COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION AND ITS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

35

He affirmed that “not a penny intended for Guyanese will be diverted to the benefit of immigrants”.3 The logic assimilating immigration to an aggression developed in 1990 a public discriminatory action in housing insofar as for reasons of political appeasement of the social tension that engendered the foreign presence, a category of the population4 is taken into account, thus at the expense of others (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2003: 45). In other words, between the discourse in favor of a decline of the Haitian community in Guyana’s heartland (rural) and the refusal to grant budgeted funds to the resorption of substandard habitats in Cayenne in the early 1990s, there is a need for a serious intervention of state officials at different levels to manage demography. A policy of subtraction of population (Weiner 1995) is adopted by the representatives of the main political forces of the political system in Guyana moved by the idea of maintaining the hegemony and the arithmetic domination of the ethnic group “the creoles” by a search of demographic balance. Indeed, in general, four types of state intervention with regard to demographic management are enumerated in French Guyana: “addition”, “subtraction”, “substitution” and “restriction from entry” (Weiner and Teitelbaum 2001). Foreign population inflows are factors of power conflict between local politicians in French Guyana and some of core France state values (Map 3.1). The addition of population in Guyana was done by an action of the French metropolitan state which organized and supervised the arrival of the Mhongs in 1977. This is different from the other migratory currents observed in this department. This type of intervention is attributable to the leaders of metropolitan France. From this official policy, the challenge is total. Creole and independence hegemonic tendencies feel threatened: one in its number and its influence, and the other by a possible weakening of the separatist movement.

3 Gorgeon Catherine, “Gestion urbanistique d’une immigration – Le cas de l’île de Cayenne”, p. 164, Université d’Aix-Marseille III, Institut d’Etudes politiques d’Aix-enProvence, Juin 1985. 4 The foreign population by age and sex ranges in French Guyana is relatively young (men and women), and susceptible to procreate. For example, in 2003, “less than 20 years old in the population are accounted for 18224 inhabitants; from 20 years old to 59 count 26583 people”. These data simply mean that the French state has to do its best to integrate the often new components of the population with migrant decent.

36

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Map 3.1 Spatial distribution of the Haitian Immigrants in French Guyana (Source R. Zéphirin [2005]. Based on the data from Specific exploitation, INSEE-Guyane, RPG: 1999. Author: Romanovski Zéphirin [2005])

In response to this mode of political management of demography by France in the department of Guyana, the creoles have worked for the subtraction of population (developed above) and the separatists for another method that I assimilate to substitution (approach developed by Myron Weiner and Michael Teitelbaum’s book entitled Political Demography and Demographic Engineering ). “A third approach to construction/demographic management, substitution, combines the first two (addition and subtraction) by making certain groups emerge while others are activated from within - A third demographic engineering approach, substitution, combined the first two by moving certain groups out while moving others in”. If a settlement policy existed from colonization to departmentalization and continued with the arrival of the Mhongs in Guyana in 1977, the unequal spatial distribution of the total population of Guyana and the absence of a coherent migration policy relate this lack of demographic policy.

3

COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION AND ITS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

37

Obviously, a contrasted spatial location of the Haitian population in the communes of Guyana marks this immigration. The rationality preceding and motivating the arrival of the first Haitians largely conditioned the mode of unequal occupation of the host territory. This aspect is largely related to the genesis of the Haitian migrant network in French Guyana. This pattern of human settlement does not concern only the Haitian immigrants. For example, if the Haitian migrants in priority choose the areas located between Saint-Laurent and Cayenne, Brazilians, however, very largely settle in French Guyanese communes close to the fluvial border of Oyapock, separating French Guyana from Brazil. The Surinamese are located in remote areas delimited by the other fluvial border of Saint-Laurent du Maroni close to Suriname and former British Guyana. The search for opportunities, better jobs in public works, in private companies and other small temporary urban “jobs”, the urban centralization of the department’s economy, the collective facilities and especially the links of geographical proximity and from Haiti contribute to channeling the flow of Haitian immigrants on Guyanese soil. Haitian immigrants are mainly concentrated in communal areas bordering the (northern) coast of Guyana and in the fluvial zone bordering the “St. Laurent du Maroni” (near Suriname). The agglomeration of Cayenne and Saint-Laurent du Maroni are the two largest receiving centers of Haitians, while the heart of the Guyanese territory is practically abandoned. There is a tangle of historical and structural facts in the migratory field that explains this Haitian demographic configuration in French Guyana.

3.4 Spatially Redistributed Population and Redrawing the Local Political Map and Local Power In the field of contradictions between, on the one hand, the metropolis and its department and on the other hand between the political forces represented in the institutions of the department, how the opposing visions of the political management of the demography have repercussions: on the re-composition of the political landscape, on the municipal and departmental level, on the distribution and the spatial movement of the population through the main communes?

38

R. ZÉPHIRIN

The rapid urbanization and the spatial redistribution of the population5 redistrict the electoral map (Zéphirin 2005; Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009). For example, the gain (or redeployment) of “population-habitat” by the commune of Matoury compared to the other components of the agglomeration of the Cayenne agglomeration (Cayenne, Rémire-Montjoly and Matoury) has not only consequences on urban growth, but also upsets the data of the traditional political equation at the level of this municipality or the whole of the department of Guyana. The press reviews on the latest electoral games give an idea of the political configuration out of the polls. On March 15, 1999, at the end of the regional elections, a new political landscape is emerging in Guyana. According to French Guyana, with 53.3% abstention rate, no absolute majority comes out of the ballot box. The Walwari group made its entry into the regional council by obtaining two seats, as well as the MDES which obtained three of them (Map 3.2). “The Democratic Guyanese Forces (FDG) maintain their position with nine seats while the list led by Antoine Karam finishes in the lead by placing eleven elected representatives in the new assembly”. “PSG, FDG, MDES and Eugenie Rézaire vote the report. The bi-departmentalization project is relaunched. The allies are both in the region and elsewhere”. For the newspaper L’Express, “the MDES has left the electoral marginality by exceeding 10% in the last regional elections”.6 If it is easy to realize the political evolution of Guyana according to the configuration of the political groups at the congress (regional council and general council), at the level of the origin of the votes, the part of the naturalized French immigrants and other French in the final result for each party becomes very difficult to appreciate. However, the 5 For example, the spatial redistribution of the population in the Cayenne agglomeration impacts the political districts in diverse communes. Human mobility can be observed and measured through some number for the different communities. Between 1990 and 1999, for example, 971 Haitian immigrants moved from Cayenne to the nearby commune of Matoury, and other 150 to Remire-Montjoly, another municipality within the Cayenne agglomeration. This is the same pattern that other communities followed such as the Brazilians who moved from Cayenne to Matoury (135) and Remire-Montjoly (118). This urban mobility involved also immigrants from Guyana (former British), Suriname and others…. 6 Conan Eric, Pourquoi la Guyane craque? L’EXPRESS, 9/12/99, p. 79.

3

COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION AND ITS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

39

Map 3.2 Residential Migration of the Cayenne population toward Matoury and Rémire-Montjoly from 1990 to 1999 (in value) (Source R. Zéphirin [2005]. Based on the data from Specific exploitation, INSEE-Guyane, RPG: 1999. Author: Romanovski Zéphirin [2005])

contribution of naturalized French immigrants can be measured on a communal scale. From this point of view, Matoury’s experience in terms of the spatial redistribution of the population (analyzed by the prism of political demography (Weiner and Teitelbaum 2001) is well suited to understanding the participation of immigrants in the municipality’s policy changes.

40

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Three local members of the MDES made their appearance on the municipal council in 1999. Francis Ismaël and two other MDES elected officials campaigned in the name of the insertion of immigrants “No more fear - no more terror - participatory democracy” to the commune of Matoury. These local elected officials oversee a large multi-ethnic social movement for access to urban land, to challenge an old policy of management of illegal buildings conducted by the municipal assembly (led by Mr. Roumillac). This aspect of the issue, which deals with the consequences of the politico-institutional management of immigration and its repercussions on urban and rural restructuring, is studied in further chapters through the thesis of ethno-cultural claims in terms of “guyanity/creolity”. As a matter of fact, political demography in Guyana is framed as an ethno-cultural claim and conflict reflecting a major political concern in terms of population policy issues and power conflict. It should be noted that the spatial distribution pattern (Zéphirin 2005) and the movements of the current population cannot be seen only through the prism of economic centrality. Major political contradictions within the political class and differences in approaches to population policy weigh also on the political demography debate. The uneven demographic pressure on the communes7 of Guyana plays an important role in local political arenas (Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009). Some communes are denser in population than others. A real imbalance characterizes the land use in French Guyana. While some communes keep growing in population, others are almost empty. The foreign populations in a large extent (including all nationalities) and a considerable amount of French citizens (core France and overseas department) are concentrated in Cayenne. The reality of this spatial settlement raises the need for questioning political demography as an attempt of designing inclusive public policy to reduce poverty and inequality in French Guyana. Consequently, the human settlement patterns both in heartland communes and in coastal cities and their peri-urban areas, considerably impact traditional local political districts and the new distribution of

7 Examples, in the end of the year 2000, 22 Brazilians have been counted in the commune of Apatou, while in Cayenne registered 6121. In the commune of Maripasoula, 26 Haitians are numbered, while in Cayenne and Kourou respectively 6244 and 2139 are recorded. Generally speaking, all the immigrant communities follow the same unequal spatial distribution pattern in French Guyana.

3

COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION AND ITS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

41

local political power in French Guyana. Aside from the ethnic composition of the population, the uneven spatial distribution of inhabitants presents other problems. To some extent, it is not only a factor of cultural claims, but also the loss or the gain in inter-urban population-migration reverberates differently on statal public funding for local municipalities. The urban population growth and its spatial distribution shake the rank of the communes and their cities in the urban hierarchy as a migration-urbanization issue in French Guyana.

Bibliography Conan, E. (1999). Pourquoi la Guyane craque? L’EXPRESS, 9/12/99, p. 79. Piantoni, F. (2002). Pouvoir national et acteurs locaux : L’enjeu des mobilités dans un espace en marge – Le cas de la Guyane française. Thèse pour le doctorat de géographie, Département de Géographie, U.F.R des sciences humaines et arts, Université de Poitiers. Weiner, M. (1995). The Global Migration Crisis: Challenge to States and to Human Rights. New York: HarperCollins. Weiner, M., & Russell, S. S. (2001). Demography and National Security. New York: Berghahn Books. Weiner, M., & Teitelbaum, M. S. (2001). Political Demography and Demographic Engineering. New York: Berghahn Books. Zéphirin, R. (2005). Le Champ migratoire haïtiano-guyanais: étude des causes et effets politiques, socio-économiques et spatiaux. -- Multipolarité et réversibilité dans le système migratoire interaméricain. Thèse de Doctorat, Université AixMarseille III-IAR, Aix-en-Provence, France. Zéphirin, R. (2016). Les réseaux de migrants haïtiano-guyanais dans l’espace américain. Avant-Propos de Mark J. Miller - Préface de Hervé Domenach. Paris: L’Harmattan. Collection “Questions Contemporaines”. Zéphirin, R., & Piantoni, F. (2009). Les stratégies d’accès au logement des Haïtiens dans l’agglomération de Cayenne Comme facteurs de restructuration urbaine. Revue L’Espace Politique, 6(3), 1–12. mai. En ligne. www.l’esp acepolitique.revues.org.

CHAPTER 4

The Ethno-social and Spatial Diversity in Urban Poverty and Inequality Reduction Policy

Abstract This chapter addresses the diversity in ethno-social and economic conditions of the population in terms of poverty and inequality reduction policy. In this view, the chapter questions the efficiency of public policy approaches regarding both the poverty reduction strategies at different urban and geographic scales in French Guyana. Consequently, it points out the different views of the immigrants of socio-spatial integration and/or reintegration in urban public/private housing. Keywords Interethnic relations · Socioeconomic conditions · Poverty and inequality reduction strategy policy · Urban public housing · Politics of scale and integration-reintegration

The two dominant, institutionalist and mutually exclusive approaches of “income-expenditures” and “needs-based” in poverty reduction policy, incoherence and inconsistencies are still remained and negatively impacted some policy outcomes. Consequently, public policy-makers in French Guyana need to shift to a more cognitive and incrementalist policy paradigm to cover unseen implications of public–private actors’ strategies as a means of efficiently and inclusively bridging socio-urban integration and housing public policy for a composite population with different rationales.

© The Author(s) 2020 R. Zéphirin, Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2_4

43

44

R. ZÉPHIRIN

4.1 Spatially Redistributed Composite Population and Poverty Issues: Housing as a Public Problem There appears to be a direct correlation between Cayenne’s population increase and its corresponding urban growth and poverty. That connection manifests itself in various residential trajectories. Centripetal influxes coincide with centrifugal ones to heighten and geographically dispatch the population in the Cayenne agglomeration. The interconnection of both influxes which cause social promotion projects and strategies of local individuals in urban dwellings, including French expatriates and immigrants (Zéphirin 2017), needs to be highlighted (Map 4.1).

Map 4.1 1990–1999: Nationalities involved in residential mobility from Cayenne to Matoury and Remire-Montjoly (Source R. Zéphirin [2005]. Based on the data from specific exploitation, INSEE-Guyane, RPG, 1999. Author: Romanovski Zéphirin [2005]. [See complement in Chapter 3])

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

45

According to the French census bureau (INSEE-Guyane-TER 2003), the Guyanese population1 density (number of inhabitants on square kilometer) now reaches 1.9 people per square kilometer. The notion of density is a synthetic indicator which gives a general estimate of an occupying territory by a particular population. But, specifically, this notion does not fully allow us to seize the complexity of occupying patterns and the population distribution trends which transcend simple demographic criteria. Other economic, social and infrastructural parameters also contribute to the understanding of the spatial settled population (Zéphirin 2005, 2016). For a total Guyanese population2 of 106,237 inhabitants numbered by the INSEE3 in 1989, while distributed on 83,534 square kilometers, more of 41,164 live in the commune of Cayenne,4 10,131 in Matoury and 11,709 in Remire-Montjoly. In other words, more than half of the population (63,004) in Guyana lives in the Cayenne agglomeration. Only a small portion (43,233) of the population is allotted to other Guyanese’s communes. Aside from this aspect related to unequal population repartition on the Guyanese land as a whole, there is also a type of urbanization in Cayenne which proportionated the notion of density.

1 In 2009, 230,000 people are registered in French Guyana including 33% of aliens. Citizens from three countries (Brazil, Suriname and Haiti) constitute 90% of the immigrant population. For decades, French Guyana has been receiving immigrants. In 2003, 14,242 Haitians are numbered in French Guyana. Also, according to the official data published by the French census bureau (INSEE-Guyane) in 2000, 14,143 Haitians were counted and constituted 30.4% of the total French Guyanese population (46,576 people)—alongside other major migrant communities which include 17,654 Surinamese, 7171 Brazilians and 2343 Guyanese (from former British Guyana). 2 According to the official data published by the French census bureau (INSEE-GuyaneTER 2003) in 2000, 14,143 Haitians were counted and constituted 30.4% of the total French Guyanese population (46,576 people)—alongside other major migrant communities which include 17,654 Surinamese, 7171 Brazilians and 2343 Guyanese (from former British Guyana). Also, in 2009 (INSEE 2011), 230,000 people are registered in French Guyana including 33% of aliens. Citizens from three countries (Brazil, Suriname and Haiti) constitute 90% of the immigrant population. For decades, French Guyana has been receiving immigrants. 3 INSEE-Guyane-TER (2003: 6) – La démographie des Antilles et de la Guyane entre 1982 et 1997. 4 Récensement Général de la population de 1990: Logements – Population et Emploi. INSEE-Guyane-TER (2003: 64).

46

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Cayenne has a population loss that is beneficial to Rémire (for instance) which paradoxically is positive in densely family houses. This type of habitation increased in 1987, 1992 and 1998 to 69.07, 68.53, and 66.79%. That explains the high mobility that affects Rémire-Montjoly and Matoury. Matoury received a high percentage of dwellings “densely family houses” 34.17, 31.72, and 32.70% corresponding to years 1987, 1992 and 1998. Zéphirin (2005) showed that “dispersal houses” contribute also in increasing the Matoury’s housing mosaic that reached 44.20% in 1987, 39.65% in 1992 and 36.37% in 1998. However, despite figures relating to population loss and gain, the complex reality of settling population in Cayenne and individuals’ urban insertion strategies inspires to be cautious. In Matoury,5 urban segments like Balata, Cogneau, La Levée, La Mirande, La Désirée and the Amerindian village are prioritized. These urban sectors represent some microcosms and host an autocratic sociality. Sometimes, an urban quarter carrying a set of ethnic contradictions can split inhabitants and inhibit them from developing close social ties. Such self-segregated settlement urban pattern6 is in a large extent unacceptable for the French Guyanese social body cohesiveness and state institutions which tend to integrate people regardless of race, ethnicity and national origins. From this perspective, according to Zéphirin (2016), the growth of the Matoury housing mosaic for years 1987, 1992 and 1998 was an important juncture for French state to step in in order to set some rules tending toward the landing of social equality and diversity statal philosophy in urban housing. According to Zéphirin (2005), spontaneous dwellings (37, 148, 183 cases), densely populated (168, 263, 311 cases) and dispersed (218, 329, 345) construction types go faster and higher than social ones (0, 3, 18). Also, it appears that public infrastructures and industrial plants are far below the growth of individual density, spontaneous and other types of housing. That explains why Matoury is a more

5 The Haitian population is redistributed in the Cayenne agglomeration in the year 2000 as follows: Cayenne 6244 (or 50.1%), Matoury 2697 (or 56.7%), Rémire-Montjoly 1156 (or 44.7%). 6 For example, the spatial distribution of spontaneous and substandard housing in the agglomeration of Cayenne, particularly in the commune of Matoury, reached for the years of 1987, 1992 and 1998 the respective numbers of (in % of hectares) 7.58; 17.80; and 19.28.

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

47

residential suburb than an administrative center, an attractive business environment and a job market place like Cayenne is in the agglomeration. The continuation of this trend in urban construction in Matoury without a state public policy to tackle substandard housing would be a factor of deepening the social and ethnic gap in French Guyana. This is the reason why elected leaders in various levels, high-ranking public servants and other interest groups in the civil society set up an inclusive housing policy agenda to fight poverty. In terms of evolution of the French Guyanese housing public policy, the 1999–2001 period with the PDALPD document shows both a rupture and a continuity through some bills7 voted by the French parliament. The housing bills sparked some policy changes. In this view, the departmental road map dealing with needy people in housing8 updates preceding laws on poverty in habitat. It also takes account of specificities of different public/para-public and private players in the housing field in French Guyana. According to Zéphirin and Piantoni (2009), dwelling concerns were raised in the public debate as a social issue at the scale of the Cayenne agglomeration. The congested Cayenne heavily suffered from substandard housing. While primary residences are only 36.7%, social renting and affordable homes respectively reach 3871 units or 47.0% and 202 units or 5.3% (Zéphirin 2005). The increase in Cayenne’s social habitations reflects not only its high population density, but also a public effort to eradicate poor conditions in housing. Contrary to the crowded Cayenne, Rémire-Montjoly presents a lower percentage (10.6%) of primary residences. Rémire-Montjoly is well known for its low human density in housing. This is largely a mid- and high-income coastal suburban environment. Also, the social renting and the affordable home types are respectively numbered 593 (or %) and 291 (or %). These numbers illustrate the socioeconomic profile of Rémire-Montjoly. It is probably politically motivated, because mayoral authorities could be less inclined 7 First, voted on June 28, 1994, promoting transversal ministry city policy (or in French speaking “Direction inter-ministerielle à la ville-D.I.V”) associating the state, municipalities, the regional council and the general council—second, on July 29, 1998 (social rights to housing and reducing poverty policy). 8 Or in French speaking, “le plan départemental d’actions pour le logement des personnes défavorisées (PDALPD)”.

48

R. ZÉPHIRIN

(or it could be more expensive) to significantly augment the RémireMontjoly social housing mosaic, in spite of the statal legislation and a legal municipal obligation to do so. In this view, Rémire is not only left behind by Cayenne in the agglomeration, but also by Matoury which ranks second in terms of social home constructions. While Matoury has a very short lead (11.1%) over Rémire-Montjoly (10.6%) on primary residences, it inflates the amount of social renting (1456) to near the Cayenne’s number (3871) in this category, to finally largely overpass it in the affordable housing classification (634). The particular upsurge of affordable housing in Matoury is mainly characterized by the public spending to ease the access to private single homes mainly oriented toward immigrants. Most of them are looking for buying a more descent habitation to better socially integrate their new French Guyanese homeland. In terms of land reserve, Matoury offers better opportunity to live in a suburban dwelling with a considerable backyard. As a matter of fact, past decades of development policy sparked both socioeconomic prosperity and spatial relocation for some, while increasing poverty in somewhat for others, wealth creation and money circulation in the society reverberate on the need for more standard housing both as a lack of housing and as a social demand to improve the quality of life for the many by reducing poverty and inequality.

4.2 The French State in Fighting Urban Housing Poverty and Inequality: An Inclusive Public Policy The high spatially concentration of people in downtown Cayenne caused a high demand for new and standard dwellings which became rare. The shrink in standard available housing sparked shantytowns which flourish everywhere in a rapid urbanized Cayenne. This broad context allowed the French government to intervene in order to curb the degradation in housing living conditions. As a result, from 1999 to 2001, the French overseas department of Guyana through an official document called PDALPD9 (2000) showed a big policy change through some bills10 voted by the French parliament 9 Or in French speaking, “le plan départemental d’actions pour le logement des personnes défavorisées (PDALPD)”. 10 First, voted on June 28, 1994, promoting transversal ministry city policy (or in French speaking “Direction inter-ministerielle à la ville-D.I.V”) associating the state,

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

49

to deal with urban poverty and inequality. Housing policy in Guyana is conceived through the LOV’s and Besson’s bills (voted in core France) which purposed (Kirszbaum 1999) to fight poverty11 (Chuhan 2006: 33) and ensured social fairness for the poor living in bad conditions in urban housing. This policy has been implemented by the public institution of PDALPD (2000) to coordinate and build a large institutional network organized around public and private sectors. It aims at providing a decent habitation to low-income households living in unacceptable conditions. Young people, the elderly, disabled people and Amerindians are particularly concerned by the housing action plan. In order to transform the bills in policy, a framework has been drawn to spend the money: So, standing out a land policy, conceiving an adapted policy with brand new housing for needy people, using and re-using the current habitation mosaic, and creating a unique institutional body are part of a strategy to build up a joint funding system of solidarity in habitat. According to Zéphirin (2005), public housing is an effort to reduce poverty in dwellings by both destroying substandard constructions and erecting new public buildings to relocate the displaced people. Previously, they lived in precarious Cayenne’s neighborhoods which have been bulldozed. In this view, spending in public housing in 1995 concerned 421 dwelling units for an amount of 73.3 million French francs. This amount of money has been settled down for the year 1996 which focused on 384 habitations for financing of 66.5 million French francs. However, the year 1997 overwhelmingly overpasses the preceding years 1995 and 1996 both in public funding for public housing. Regardless of other major migrant communities,12 particularly, the end of the decade of 1990 constituted a turning point in the Haitian migration in French Guyana in terms of a clear manifestation of a social integration desire. Consequently, numerous municipalities, the regional council and the general council—second, on July 29, 1998 (social rights to housing and reducing poverty policy). 11 “The conventional notion of poverty is narrow, characterizing it in terms of deprivation or lack of essential goods and services.” [But also,]… Chuhan (who refers to a Amartya Sen, an Economist Nobel prize winner in 2000) goes over a simple definition of poverty relying on income and consumption of commodities to satisfy basic needs (food, shelter, clothing…)—to extend his definition to other parameters of well-being such as vulnerability, risk, lack of voice, powerlessness, political participation, health, education, security, inequity in opportunities, etc.… 12 Brazilian, Surinamese and Guyanese (former British Guyana).

50

R. ZÉPHIRIN

immigrants (including many Haitians) and low-income (and few middle income) French Guyanese people switched from their initial poor, segregated and excluded urban neighborhoods to new multi-ethnic zonings in Matoury. Particularly, Haitian pioneers were deeply involved in the urban relocation (Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009). Low-income housing is a kind of public funding assistance to the working class or disadvantaged who struggle to maintain the public standard in quality housing. In 1995, 396 habitation units have been funded and cost 46.6 million French francs.13 For instance, for the following year 1996, the number has considerably increased with an additional lot of 478 low-income homes for a total of 60.8 million French francs (Zéphirin 2005). Also, the year 1997 has reinforced the tendency of financing the lowincome housing at low-interest rates (often from 0 to 1 or 2%). 1997 showed that public spending and the number of new home constructions sprung up and shifted from 478 units in 1996, to reach 567 for a total of 85.9 million of francs (Zéphirin 2005: 376). This incentive for lowincome housing policy aimed at curbing the growing flimsy and crowded constructions in Cayenne’s outskirts. The availability of this type of public funding brought the fresh cash needed to overcome social marginality, broke barriers of old self-discriminated ethnic urban neighborhoods and promoted socio-spatial diversity as a means of integration. The dwellings delivered by the French overseas department (PDALPD 2000; DDE-Cayenne 1998) to beneficiaries through a para-public institution (SIGUY) presented some key technical aspects to cover the needs of the poor (Mitlin 2004: 3, 6).14 Houses ranged from 2 to 5 bedroom units (Gallibourg 1995; Zéphirin 2005) (Plan 4.1). They all have potable and piped water. Rooms are functionally well distributed to satisfy the “basic needs” of working-class households and to avoid crowding with the number of people per room. All the singlefamily houses, two-level dwellings and apartments are equipped with modern kitchen, toilet and connected to the electrical grid. Also, the 13 The numbers are presented in French francs because they have been published by the French state in the end of 1999 before the adoption of the Euro currency in 2000. However, in terms of giving more insight into the currency conversion, I would say that 1 euro globally equals 6 French francs. 14 “…the term poverty is taken to mean human needs are not met…” […] “At the heart of the poverty reduction strategy papers lies the identification of the poor…”.

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

51

Plan 4.1 Redesigning the illegal peripheral settlements in the Cadastral plan AB-62 of Matoury (Cotonnière nord) (Note The dark part of the plan refers to illegal land occupation without legal property document The bright part is the unoccupied plots of land identified in the urban segment designed by the geometer. Initial Scale: 1/2000. Source Zéphirin and Piantoni [2009]. Authors: Zéphirin and Piantoni [2009], based on the Geometer Design in 2001, for both the Matoury’s town hall and the urban neighborhood grassroots’ movement of North Cotonnière development)

houses were built with first hand and brand new materials—and not from scrap or second-hand materials. As a matter of fact, while the quality criteria (aforementioned) that the French state used to put in place the affordable housing policy have not been clearly specified in the official policy paper called “PDALPD”, through a thorough policy analysis of the affordable housing policy in Cayenne, Zéphirin (2005) underlined them by identifying and reconstituting the policy principles and facts.

52

R. ZÉPHIRIN

4.3

Income--Expenditure vs. Needs-Based Approaches in Poverty Reduction and the Reasons Why to Shift Paradigm

Gallibourg (1995) and Zéphirin (2005) underlined that all the French Guyanese stock of built dwelling units and their urban sites to alleviate poverty and inequality applied the principles of piped water, sanitation (low) human density, standard housing and power grid connection. However, Mitlin’s (2004) works, under a five “composite unsatisfied basic-needs index”, grouped them to universally assess basic needs and urban poverty. As a result, the French Guyanese overseas department meets the standard of basic needs in urban housing. Now, what are the theoretico-conceptual approaches, their differences and the policy rationales? The analysis of policy papers of the French Guyanese poverty reduction strategy (Zéphirin 2005: 398–400; PDALPD 2000: 2; Gallibourg 1995: 2) and their political rationales show that there was a combination of the mutually exclusive approaches15 of “income-expenditures” versus “needsbased” measurements (Travers and Richardson 1993; Saunders 2004) to assess urban poverty. According to Saunders (2004: 7, 8), needs-based account which is (also) called subsistence needs means that “basic needs are not being met” as a definition of poverty. The needs themselves are absolute and refer to universal conditions such as having access to adequate food, housing and clothing. Contrary to the needs-based approach, the use of the incomeexpenditure account indicates the standard in living conditions [capacity to pay for services and goods]. Also, Saunders (2004: 9) citing Travers and Richardson (1993: 24) states that “When measuring the resources available to an individual, it is preferable to quantify expenditure rather than income. Expenditure generates the flow of services from which material well-being is derived. Income, in contrast, provides the capacity to purchase things…generally income is valued not for its own sake but for the ability it provides to buy goods and services. It is thus more satisfactory to measure directly the level of goods and services bought ”.

15 In some circumstances (and not all the time), the two mutually exclusive accounts can be combined.

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

53

Additionally, taking account of limitations and strengths of both income and expenditure, Saunders (2004: 9) decided to combine them into a single indicator of poverty as “income-expenditure”. Where and how the poverty reduction policy project [partly] failed and why to shift paradigm? Three crucial reasons emerge and make the case for a paradigm shift (Khun 1996). First, in an “income-expenditure” standpoint, the UN-MDG16 of US$1 a day and the World Bank of US$1.25 a day in poverty measurement (Mitlin 2004) do not apply in any circumstances to the French Guyanese situation. The official monthly bracket income associated with the poverty line in French Guyana is 978–998 euros. The French define the salary range as medium revenue or 50% (+ or −). Specifically, in Guyana, according to the French census bureau (called INSEE) in 2011, the hardest cases of poverty concerned people who earn monthly 651 euros. Additionally, even many illegal immigrants who take sporadic jobs monthly raised about 200–400 euros17 (Zéphirin 2005; INSEE18 2011). However, if those living with the income of 998 euros are able to get ends meet in the formal economy and pay for the “costs of basic needs”, those who belong to the category of 651 euros or less (including some illegal immigrant workers with 400 euros) are more willing to go to the informal sector of the economy (Domenach and Guengant 1981: 1) to get some self-employed activities to square their monthly budget and pay for the “costs of needs”. Also, contrary to some illegal immigrants who do all by themselves (with their monthly sporadic job salaries of 200 or 400 euros), those living with a legal status can still get social and financial benefits from the French state to balance their monthly budget. In this view, according to the French census bureau in 2011 (called INSEE 2011), state financial and social benefits contribute 60% to low-income workers’ budget in allowing them to pay for “basic needs”. It is true that salaries coupled with pricing marketed goods can explain poverty progression/regression in households (Salama and Valier 1994: 38, 49) in a formal and modern economy. However, the mode of functioning of

16 The United Nations Millennium Development Goal. 17 For those living under the poverty line. 18 One out of four French citizens in Guyana lives under the poverty line.

54

R. ZÉPHIRIN

the French Guyanese economic sectors (modern, traditional and intermediate) which run in parallel from one to another and lack connections allows very low-income people to live, of course, below the French standard and modern economy, but relatively “well” in the standard of the traditional agricultural economic sector described by Domenach and Guengant (1981: 1).19 Until they find a good paid job, they still can claim some social benefits from the state to manage their budgets. Employment strategies are complex in French Guyana, and the weight of the state in providing the financial complement20 (INSEE 2011) to low-income households largely puts workers above the universal UN-MDG of $1 a day and fingers out the inadequateness and the inaccurateness of this poverty-based measurement, at least in French Guyana. In some extent, the analysis of the French Guyanese poverty reduction opposes both the UN-MDG and World Bank poverty measurements. This is a factor of paradigm shift21 in favor of the incrementalist account. The state affordable housing policy is a mirror of an attempt to inclusively respond to a public crisis. Second, Guyana poverty and inequality reduction strategy through an affordable housing policy corresponds with the French state purposes of social diversity, integration (Costa-Lascoux 1999: 333) and ethnic equilibrium in urban areas. Also, with the decentralization in urban and territorial management, the French state and local municipalities go along with private developers and do not confront them in achieving the goal of quality housing as a matter of economic development and poverty reduction. As a matter of fact, the state co-constructs dwellings with private

19 “…noted that employments offered are partly channeled through the job market. Another large part of the jobs are undeclared and low-paid, because there is a lack of connection between the three sectors (agricultural productive farms, construction and infrastructure and public administration) of the economy which is marked by a high unemployment rate”. 20 The poverty line measurement differs from one French department to another. The poverty rate in French Guyana would be 37% in lieu of 25% if the financial benefits were not paid to the poor to reduce inequalities. Public financial benefits for people living under the poverty line represent 60%. In comparison with other French overseas departments, French Guyana has a poverty rate of 9.5%. 21 This concept is used in the sense of Thomas Khun (1996). It means a move from one way of thinking to another as a scientific revolution.

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

55

developers on local communal territories. The rules for guidance22 (Gallibourg 1995; Zéphirin 2005) in distributing affordable housing to needy people show a kind of “cooperation” between public and private sectors. However, the collaboration does not work without some contradictions in ends and means of both sectors according to the rationales of private profit maximization on investments versus integration and social cohesiveness in urban areas. Sometimes, para-statal institutions in housing hide the concurrence dimension to bring up-front the cooperation in producing affordable housing. In other words, while the rules in French Guyana took account of households’ incomes to deliver houses, the housing problem which required public action and the policy assumption leading to the affordable housing project were designed on “needs-based measurements” of urban poverty and the “costs of needs” related to households’ income-expenditures. Once again, “income-expenditure” and the “needs-based” approaches don’t run apart one from another in the French Guyanese analysis (Zéphirin 2005: 398–400) of urban poverty and inequality reduction strategy (PDALPD 2000: 2). This is the reason why the paradigm shift matters to bridge over mutually exclusive theoretico-methodological accounts in poverty reduction and go beyond. In other words, The incrementalist (Hall 1993, 1997) account reveals a cross-paradigmatic policy approach and pragmatic understanding of the state principles and values in public decision-making and policy. Third, paradoxically, while the French state blindly identified all the people living in poor neighborhoods as precarious and started building affordable dwellings23 to house them, a significant part of pioneers and other long-term immigrants alongside numerous low- and middle-income French Guyanese people, surprisingly built mansions and decent singlefamily houses (1500, with one or two private cars in their backyards) in new peri-urban areas (mainly in Cotonnière and Balata) of the Cayenne agglomeration (Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009). They simply abandoned the public housing project. 22 For example, beneficiaries of affordable houses from the SIGUY (para-statal housing agency in French Guyana) have to provide some key personal documents as the proof of residency, civil status, low-income household and paystubs. 23 It is important to note that beneficiaries of the public affordable housing, while they are largely renters of their homes, could also buy them and become owners through some administrative and legal procedures.

56

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Definitely, grounded evidences in the three aforementioned aspects are reason why for shifting paradigms such as the “income-expenditure” versus “needs-based” and the institutionalist public policy (Muller 1990) in dealing with poverty reduction projects. In this perspective, three aspects need to be considered in a policy shift. First, the institutionalist public policy (Muller 1990) that produced the affordable public housing in French Guyana during the decades of 1990 and 2000 was mainly decided by policy-makers and public servant experts for the poor. This institutionalist approach (Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009) using only the formal institutional expertise and bodies shows its limitations to both fully understand and accurately respond to the need of low-income households in a durable manner in reducing inequality. For instance, this institutionalist public policy approach failed to prevent and anticipate many low-income beneficiaries of public dwellings to rent them few months later and relocate in bigger private single-family houses in other urban neighborhoods in the Cayenne agglomeration. Second, the institutionalist public policy approach utilizing the mutually exclusive accounts of income-expenditure and need-based cannot encompass and prevent such deviant attitudes and policy inefficiency in reducing poverty and inequality. For example, private builders and owners of single-family houses in peri-urban areas move away from the state-funded housing project and express self-fulfillment and socioeconomic success. This practice opposes to the simplistic policy diagnosis and implementation of the state affordable dwellings. All these show the complexity in poverty reduction strategy which cannot be approached under the current “institutionalist” and “needs-based” v/s “income-expenditure” perspectives. Third, in order to reinforce the cognitive perspective in public policy dealing with poverty reduction policy projects, the incrementalist 24 account in policy analysis (Hall 1993, 1997; Gouin and Harguindéguy 2012: 7, 8) which is largely based on “cognition” would give a better

24 “…an incremental process which begins by rejecting the intellectual margins of a given paradigm [in the sense of scientific paradigms of Thomas Khun 1996], while its intellectual core endures. At the end of the day, the mental mechanisms that impede desertion of this intellectual position disappear when confronted by an accumulation of negative empirical evidence. This constitutes the last step before the ‘conversion’ of a new paradigm […]. In the process of policy change described by Hall, actors also try to find a new coherence by fighting against intellectual inconsistencies ”.

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

57

understanding to diagnose poverty issues by solving intellectual inconsistencies, policy incoherence, traditional mental framework, mechanisms of transition from one set of ideas to others and moving from one old paradigm to a new one (Hall 1997: 275–296). For instance, a cognitive account in public policy in French Guyana would help in a better comprehensive assessment of the urban poverty problem in housing, where the poor would not be considered only as part of the urban problem, but also as part of the solution of poverty reduction strategy through a broad-based participation. Consequently, these three aspects highlight the practical and the theoretical gap that poverty reduction projects and public policy have to bridge in order to pave the way to a sustainable development transition in housing.

4.4 Shifting Paradigm in Poverty Reduction Policy: Exploring the Perspective The French state public affordable urban housing as a means of poverty and inequality reduction strategy attempted to respond to an uncontrolled and rapid urban population growth in French Guyana in the context of 1970–2000. However, the policy of financing, constructing and distributing public houses to both renters and buyers showed a mixed result. Some could say a half success and others a half failure. In one case or the other, the mixed result can be largely explained by the public policy rationale and approach on the one hand, and by the poverty reduction hypothesis and leading to the policy implementation, on the other hand. In terms of policy rationale and approach, the French state and the government bodies in charge of the policy miss-red the targeted population (partly composed of people with immigrant origins). The fact is the poor are not disadvantaged for life, even if they are still living in shantytowns. If new comers inflated the total population in French Guyana and increased the number of the poor, after two or three decades living, working and saving money, they cannot be still perceived entirely as poor. Unfortunately, this was a skewed perception. Probably, against itself, the governmental agency was “victimized” of a “stigmatization” of poverty. Numerous beneficiaries of affordable houses relocate in bigger and nicer private single-family houses in other urban neighborhoods. Many had a much more financial asset in reserve, an unseen additional source of

58

R. ZÉPHIRIN

income and a much higher purchasing power and expense to pay for “basic needs” than the government diagnosed it prior to the policy implementation. Consequently, that shows the assumption involved in the policy diagnosis claiming that “poverty is present and factual” failed to apprehend the historical and slow process of accumulation, and more importantly, different underground saving patterns of a large part of the new and composite population in French Guyana. Paradoxically, the causes and effects of the mixed failure of the French state housing policy fallen over the shoulders of local and sectoral municipal governments who have to deal with land use, land change and connecting new illegally built townhouses to the urban plan and extension (Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009). This urban planning problem caused by the redistribution and the recomposition of the population reveals the socio-spatial integration issues in both politics and policy in French Guyana. This concern can be understood, not by mechanically separating two important dimensions of the integration (urban physical, urban social), but by their interconnectedness through the major geographical concept of socio-spatial structure that shows the interplay of historical human settlement patterns, population shift and growth, the dialectic relationships linking people’s perception of places, neighborhood, house and ethno-social trajectories, people urban relocation strategies, and lastly, how places and people’s mobility impact the demographic structure, the social structure and the social body cohesiveness at large, as a means of both socio-spatial re-compositions and urban artifact (Zéphirin 2005). Definitely, the universal one-dollar index to measure poverty is inappropriate in French Guyana. The real income and the true purchasing power of a large part of the population have been underestimated in a complex economic system. Preconceived judgments based on the present, the visual and factual situation, the presumably and historically poor, unable to pay and satisfy their basic needs created bias in pro-poor policy project. Grounded evidences of public policy inconsistencies show the importance of shifting to a more cognitive and incrementalist public policy paradigm dealing with urban housing poverty reduction. This is the reason why the article first analytically breaks paradigmatic borderlines and reconstructs the French Guyanese poverty reduction policy strategy and logics (Zéphirin 2005: 398–400; PDALPD 2000: 2; Gallibourg 1995: 2) by re-uniting the (mutually exclusive)

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

59

approaches of “income-expenditures” versus “needs-based” under the broader theoretico-conceptual umbrella of the cognitive incrementalist public policy paradigm. Now, the findings raise the need to put in perspective housing poverty reduction strategy policy by moving from a restrictive approach of ‘poverty defined in terms of satisfying basic needs or essential needs to a broader account including well-being and quality of life’ (Matson et al. 2016). At a time when French Guyana adopts sustainability as a new policy development framework, a larger conceptual redefinition of basic needs matters in pro-poor policy. This extended approach would be better appropriate to interconnect parameters such as socio-urban demographic change, migrant policy, human-made vulnerabilities, hazard, disaster and risk, safety, comfort, community-based approach, civil society and interracial relationship as a means of socio-environmental justice in urban housing development planning, green economic growth and inclusive sustainable development. Consequently, reframing the problematic of poverty and inequality reduction strategy in terms of sustainable quality of life impels both policy-makers and citizens’ awareness to harmoniously use, protect and preserve socio-environmental systems in assuring human needs and well-being for all.

Bibliography ARUAG. (2000). SCOT – Schéma de cohérence territoriale, projet urbain de Cayenne. Cayenne. Castles, S., & Miller, J. M. (2003). The Age of Migration. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London: Macmillan Press. Chuhan, P. (2006). Poverty and Inequality. In V. Bhargava (Ed.), Global Issues for Global Citizens (pp. 31–50). Washington, DC: The World Bank. Costa-Lascoux, J. (1999). L’intégration à la française: une philosophie des lois. In D. Philippe (Ed.), Immigration et intégration – l’état des savoirs (pp. 328– 339). Paris: La Découverte. Czaika, M., & de Haas, H. (2013). On the Effectiveness of Immigration Policies. Population and Development Review, 39(3), 487–508. DDE-Cayenne. (1998). Etude urbaine et socio-économique des phénomènes de l’habitat informel sur le littoral de Guyane - Les territoires de l’exclusion, Ministère de l’Equipement, des Transports et du Logement - Direction Départementale de l’équipement de la Guyane (tome 1 et 2, octobre). Cayenne: DDE.

60

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Domenach, H., & Guengant, J. P. (1981). Le chômage dans les DOM, emploi et sous-emploi. Economie et statistiques - INED/INSEE, 137, 3–23. Gallibourg, E. (1995). L’accès à l’habitat – le cas des immigrés haïtiens en Guyane française, Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, Programme P.I.R ville, Rapport intermédiaire Tome 1 (Annexes), Mars. Bordeaux: Université de Bordeaux II. Gerarden, D. T., et al. (2014, November). An Assessment of the Energy-Efficiency Gap and Its Implications for Climate Change Policy (Discussion Paper). Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs—Project on Climate Agreements. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School-Harvard University. Gouin, R., & Harguindéguy, J. B. (2012). The Issues of Cognition in Policy Analysis: A First Appraisal. Journal of Public Administration and Governance (Macrothink Institute), 2(1), 2161–7104. Hall, A. P. (1993). Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policy-Making in Britain. Comparative Politics, 25(3), 275–296. Hall, A. P. (1997). The Role of Interests, Institutions, and Ideas in the Comparative Political Economy of Industrialized Nations. In M. Lichbach & A. Zuckerman (Eds.), Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure (pp. 174–207). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. INSEE-Guyane. (2018). Recensement 2016. Cayenne. INSEE-Guyane-TER. (2000). Tableaux Economiques Régionaux. Cayenne. INSEE-Guyane-TER. (2003). Tableaux Economiques Régionaux. Cayenne. Khun, T. S. (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolution (3rd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kirszbaum, T. (1999, Janvier/Avril). Les immigrés dans les politiques de l’habitat – Variations locales sur le thème de la diversité. Revue Sociétés Contemporaines, 33/34, 87–110. Matson, P., Clark, C. W., & Andersson, K. (2016). Pursuing Sustainability—A Guide to the Science and Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mitlin, D. (2004). Understanding Urban Poverty: What the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers Tell Us. Washington, DC: Washington University in St. Louis, on the Internet. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228816573/Und erstanding-poverty-reduction-policy-strategies/Diana-Mitlin/2004. Muller, P. (1990). Les politiques publiques, Que sais-je? Paris: PUF. PDALPD. (2000). Plan Départemental d’Action pour le Logement des Personnes Défavorisées – 1995–1997 and 1998–2000. Cayenne: DDE-Préfecture de Cayenne. Piantoni, F. (2002). Pouvoir national et acteurs locaux: L’enjeu des mobilités dans un espace en marge – Le cas de la Guyane française. Thèse pour le doctorat de géographie, Département de Géographie, U.F.R des sciences humaines et arts, Université de Poitiers.

4

THE ETHNO-SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY IN URBAN POVERTY …

61

Projet PPE. (2015, Octobre). Programmation Pluriannuelle de L’Energie: 20162018 et 2019-2023 de la Guyane. Republique francaise, Collectivite territoriale de la Guyane. Salama, P., & Valier, J. (1994). Pauvretés et inégalités dans le tiers-monde. Paris: La découverte. Saunders, P. (2004, January). Towards a Credible Poverty Framework: From Income Poverty to Deprivation (SPRC-Discussion Paper No. 131). Sydney: Social Policy Research Centre. Travers, P., & Richardson, S. (1993). Living Decently: Material Well-Being in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Weiner, M. (1995). The Global Migration Crisis: Challenge to States and to Human Rights. New York: HarperCollins. Weiner, M., & Russell, S. S. (2001). Demography and National Security. New York: Berghahn Books. Weiner, M., & Teitelbaum, M. S. (2001). Political Demography and Demographic Engineering. New York: Berghahn Books. Zéphirin, R. (2005). Le Champ migratoire haïtiano-guyanais: étude des causes et effets politiques, socio-économiques et spatiaux. – Multipolarité et réversibilité dans le système migratoire interaméricain. Thèse de Doctorat, Université AixMarseille III-IAR, Aix-en-Provence, France. Zéphirin, R. (2016). Les réseaux de migrants haïtiano-guyanais dans l’espace américain. Avant-Propos de Mark J. Miller - Préface de Hervé Domenach. Paris: L’Harmattan. Collection “Questions Contemporaines”. Zéphirin, R. (2017). The Politics and Policy Implications of Widespread Immigrations in French Guyana. In S. Rodriquez (Ed.), Migrants: Public Attitudes, Challenges and Policy Implications (pp. 59–110). New York: NOVA Science Publishers. Collection “Immigration in the 21st Century: Political, Social and Economic Issues”. Zéphirin, R., & Piantoni, F. (2009). Les stratégies d’accès au logement des Haïtiens dans l’agglomération de Cayenne Comme facteurs de restructuration urbaine. Revue L’Espace Politique, 6(3), 1–12. mai. En ligne. www.l’esp acepolitique.revues.org.

CHAPTER 5

Urban Public Policy Planning in the Absence of a Demographic Engineering Consensus

Abstract This chapter highlights the urban public policy planning approach, value and purpose in the context of rapid urbanization and demographic explosion of the capital city of Cayenne in French Guyana. Additionally, the chapter shows the limitations of the surge in public housing construction without a coherent urban policy planning of the agglomeration as a whole. Urban relocation and urban spreading go faster and in an uncontrolled way than the capacity of public policy bodies to anticipate and regulate urban explosion. The multi-levels and the multi-scales of public policies and their diverse sociopolitical actors that are involved in isolated urban zonings become a challenge to an efficient urban governance and a schema of territorial coherence for the whole Cayenne agglomeration—harboring a composite population with different spatial perceptions and practices of the urban network loci and their artifacts. Keywords Urbanization · Public policy · Urban planning · Political demography · Demographic engineering · Political consensus · Urban governance and Cayenne agglomeration

The rapid demographic explosion and the diversity in urban relocation patterns in the Cayenne agglomeration weigh heavily on the spreading of new housing constructions. Urban public policy planning is lagged © The Author(s) 2020 R. Zéphirin, Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2_5

63

64

R. ZÉPHIRIN

behind by the distribution of the population. The periodization of urban local public policy shows the evolution process of human settlements in the city which presents two competing pictures between the street-grid of Cayenne downtown and rapid urban sprawl of other peripheral areas of communes of the agglomeration. Putting in coherence the diverse segments of the city to ensure a better quality of life for the urbanites becomes a mobilizing factor of various actors expressed in terms of urban project. The project as a temporary urban architectural proposal becomes an object of discussion, negotiation and mediation perceived as a paradigmatic rupture and an alternative to the fast-growing shantytowns and disconnected urban segments in Cayenne. Consequently, in the absence of a broad consensus on the population composition, its size and its spatial distribution, the urban project to put in coherence the agglomeration as a whole appears to be an attempt to ease spatial human settlement and compensate the inexistence of a demographic engineering consensus.

5.1

Spreading of New Housing Constructions Without Agglomeration Project

The political will of the public authorities in Guyana expressed in the direction of construction of social housing for the underprivileged classes would show its limits. This forced them to move from localized habitat operations to action at the level of the agglomeration structure. Cayenne, after more than thirty years of population growth and unequal distribution of population, is left with a diffuse urban development developed on the basis of land opportunities. This phenomenon is the result of an urban planning practice that prioritized the production of new housing on isolated sites. How to explain the annual growth of the social housing stock, urban planning diffuse without the concern to structure the whole agglomeration of Cayenne? Public housing is entering a field where actors, interests, games and stakes are numerous. As a result, the Guyanese or Cayenne experience has shown that it is much easier in a logic of “increasing its political capital” to act on unhealthy cities by building new homes on scattered plots to initiate a coherence of the habitat puzzle in a coherent agglomeration project.

5

URBAN PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING IN THE ABSENCE …

65

The production of social housing is more visible (by the delivery of keys to the beneficiaries), more politically exploitable in the short term than a strategic operation to articulate into a whole construction of isolated habitats and developed urban fragments. In other words, a strategic (decennial) public action affecting the structure of the agglomeration is less visible than punctual habitat financing (annual or triennial). Beyond the political issue for elected decision-makers and senior state officials, given the socio-demographic problems related to the housing crisis, the public authorities in Guyana are not only overwhelmed by the phenomenon and its effects, but also are more interested in acting on the habitat than on the city. It is a question of showing that they have not failed in the face of major public problems and are not won by public inaction. If the annual realization of social housing quota is like a cosmetic solution to the urban crisis, the difficult mobility between the different isolated urban centers of the agglomeration forces the public authorities to pose the problem in its overall and structural aspect. Hence the various attempts by the largely failed because of the diverse socioeconomic conditions and social mobility projects of individuals and ethnic groups in the Cayenne agglomeration.

5.2 Periodization of the Urban Action of Local Elected Officials and the Public Servants in Cayenne Through the years, the historical and colonial urban organization will change to adapt with contemporary socioeconomic and political shifts that are revealed in four periods.1 First, in 1954, shortly after the departmentalization of Guyana in 1946, a town planning operation marked the center of Cayenne. The aim of this action was to cut out built plots originally dedicated to colonial agriculture and to build penetrating ones and extend the city on the south side to Jubelin boulevard. This boulevard is a dividing line between the old historic route and its extension. The extension project, while situating itself in a logic of continuity of the fabric, was able to maintain the logic of 1 Or hypodamiens in French speaking.

66

R. ZÉPHIRIN

the existing fabric and ensure certain cohesion between the houses built both during the periods before and after the departmentalization. However, after this first attempt to structure the city’s growth from the historic core, a move to establish de facto cities would reach the outskirts of the city. This did not fail to attract the attention of state officials in the department. Second, in 1971, a public attempt was made to apply a land orientation law in French Guyana. This law would serve to guide the evolution of urbanization. This action was part of the public concerns of the authorities of the department of Guyana in early 1970. It contained an urban development that undermined the historic structure of the city. In this important reflection and action on the city, the Senator-Mayor Leopold Heder had played a central role. It is in the context of the emergence of de facto cities on the outskirts of the marked and delineated town of Cayenne, added to the first immigration flows that an urbanistic reflection took shape on the need to organize urban space. In this view, at the beginning of 1970, Jean-Michel Moreau (1999) inventoried the urban landscape and the uncontrolled urbanization in Cayenne. He noted that “In a study carried out for the establishment of an urban orientation plan,2 the Urban Planning Agency had, in 1969, identified 27 de facto cities whose servicing should be the subject of a specific program. Their surface then represented more than 40 hectares (on the 2380 hectares of the commune of Cayenne3 )”. Third, the 1975 SDAU4 and its urban renewal project which wanted to add a new stratum to the city of Cayenne in the northwest, in the south (extension plan in the southern neighborhoods toward Montabo/Rebard) and in the east. In this regard, several culverts spanning the Laussat canal separating the old fabric from its near periphery allow to gather them in a logic of rupture and continuity. If the operation showed a semblance of success on the physical plane, from the social point of view, being on the other side of the canal (rot 2 Or in French, Plan d’Urbanisme Directeur (PUD). 3 Moreau Jean-Michel, in De la ville dessinée à la ville spontanée - l’exemple de Cayenne,

p. 3, ARUAG (Agence Régionale d’Urbanisme et d’Aménagement de la Guyane), Cayenne, Mars 1999. 4 Schéma d’aménagement urbain (Schema of urban development).

5

URBAN PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING IN THE ABSENCE …

67

bo Krik in Guyanese Creole) is connoted pejoratively. Not far from the “Chinese village”, the neighborhood of “Chicago” is the place of the small or even the average delinquency. Many people avoid getting there at night. It appears in this urban planning project a failure in terms of socio-spatial integration of this part of the urban population of Cayenne. Fourth, the current “Cayenne 2000 urban project” aims to be a frame of reference for a global and alternative solution to the agglomeration crisis. The urban project of Cayenne launched by EPAG in 2000 is an effort to summarize all public policies. It fits in the broken of this global logic of the territory of the agglomeration already manifested latently from the “city contract” of 1998 in Cayenne. For, already from the end of the 1990s, the trend in French Guyana was to move from social development of neighborhoods (DSQ) to urban social development (DSU) through the “city contract”. The first ideas for a new approach to urban planning took shape in the institutions. They came in response to more than twenty years of urban management5 (ARUAG 2000: 5) by housing operations on localized sites, neighborhoods, zonings or isolated cities to try to identify the urban public action of the state at the level of agglomeration. After more than half a century of departmentalization and a quarter of a century of failed urban planning, Cayenne finds itself with a city densified by individual housing and congested by the circulation of vehicles. Functionality becomes difficult due to weak interaction of different hierarchical levels of lanes and streets. Meanwhile, the human load continues to increase over space, which in turn gradually increases with the addition of peripheral dwellings. Neighborhoods and cities add up to each other and here and there as land opportunities. National and departmental roads serve as a backbone to this diffuse urbanization. Along the roads, spots 5 The mid of 1970s showed a turning point in urban growth linked populationmigration in Cayenne, the main city in the agglomeration. For example, in 1974, the city of Cayenne pointed out some striking numbers where the occupied and urbanized surface measured 690 hectares. In the same pattern of urban and population growth, the years 1990 and 1997 stood out some increasing numbers highlighting the tendency of urban explosion in Cayenne with respectively 1422 and 1611 occupied surface in hectares. The rapid urbanization results of the combination of migration-population factors and urban settlement and relocation patterns in downtown Cayenne and its entire agglomeration for several decades.

68

R. ZÉPHIRIN

of new built houses are traced by subdivisions that do not communicate with each other. The amplification of this phenomenon is such that it gives the impression that the public action is absent and that a decline takes place. Such a situation challenges the public decision-makers who try to remedy it.

5.3 Urban Project: As Both Paradigmatic Rupture and Alternative How to explain the emergence or recourse to the concept of “urban project” in Cayenne? The proposal of an urban project in the year 2000 to change and better organize the ways of living and circulating in the agglomeration of Cayenne is in line with the objectives of the public authorities. After a failure6 of past urban policies through the urban extension plan,7 which was accompanied by a land use plan (POS in French) and which has been the subject of several revisions, the public authorities have moved to the level of urban renewal.8 These two moments were inspired by the modern urban planning movement, which was very interested in the function. Namely: “to live, to work, to circulate, to recreate the body and the spirit which must be translated by a partition of space9 ”. “It (the Charter of Athens10 ) is rightly considered, as the manifesto of progressive urbanism … It takes a condemnation of the contemporary city (“the evil is universal”) and opposes the ideal city, rational, functional. It is from the Athens Charter and the separation of functions that zoning, the separation of circulations and the rejection of the traditional city11 are born”.

6 “Even if some … procedures … are considered locally unsuitable, we must not hide the face: Cayenne has not been urbanized for 20 years. We are only trying to manage the shortage on an ad hoc basis,” writes Jean-Michel Moreau in a dossier entitled: From the city drawn to the spontaneous city—The example of Cayenne, p. 3, published by ARUAG in March 1999. 7 Notion that refers to a planning urbanism that is accompanied by an extension plan at the municipal level. 8 Concept involving a dynamic of demolition/reconstruction of unhealthy sites, often (especially in French Guiana) without great links with the historic urban fabric. 9 Merlin Pierre, L’urbanisme, p. 37. Que Sais-je? PUF, 1991. 10 IV ème congrès de 1933 (Charte d’Athènes) et de Le Corbusier (1943). 11 Ibid., p. 37.

5

URBAN PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING IN THE ABSENCE …

69

The increase in the agglomeration of Cayenne by the multiplication of projects of neighborhoods and housing estates, under the combination of socioeconomic factors and land, would put in difficulty a certain dogmatic and even a little misguided vision of urbanism functionalist. If already urban planners such as Cerda … within the framework of the modern movement already posed the question of “segregation and social cohesion”, with the critical current this aspect would take a very important place. In this perspective, the urban failure of Cayenne cannot be explained by a mechanical application of a certain modern urban planning. This means that the concept of urban project emerged in Guyana as a counterproposal to previous practices deemed catastrophic. “If the project is an old step of the architect, the emergence of the urban project is to be located in the 70s. The questioning of the modern movement and the space it inspired, what Jean-Paul Lacaze calls ‘project urbanism’ is at the origin of this new approach12 ”. The Cayenne urban project is in direct line with critical thought, close to the typo-morphological current of which Aldo Rossi and Peter Eisenman (1999) are among the fervent defenders. What is the urban project of Cayenne? The Cayenne urban project and its territorial coherence scheme are briefly explained by the clear objectives and start from a strategy defined in 14 steps that are thus presented. 1. Studies and preliminary contacts, 2. The initiative of SCOT (perimeter and creation of the EPCI or mixed syndicate), 3. The perimeter stop, 4. To bring it to the attention of the eventual provision, 5. Modalities of the association and the consultation, 6. Modalities of the consultation, 7. The diagnosis, 8. The initial state of the environment, 9. The planning and sustainable development project—the impacts on the environment,

12 Pinson Daniel, Projet de ville et projets de vie, p. 80, in “Le projet urbain”, ouvrage collectif, Ed. De la Villette, Paris, 2000.

70

R. ZÉPHIRIN

10. Orientations and major balances—objectives: habitat, transport, equipment, commercial, space to protect, 11. Review of the consultation, 12. Stopping the draft outline, introductory report—guidance document, 13. Consultation, 14. Public inquiry—a draft scheme and opinion of public authorities. Beyond these 14 stages presented as a logical progression of the urban project of Cayenne, a flowchart classifies the phases of realization, the role of the political and technical actors and the structures of interactions between the technical and political actors. In this process, the Achievement Flowchart displays three major filters that summarize the vertical and horizontal relationships that exist between the stages of the Cayenne urban project. In other words, to get out of the general orientation step on the principles to be respected or (the Schema of Territorial Coherence—SCOT) to the methods of realization, a set of procedures has been stopped.

5.4 Urban Project in Cayenne in the Absence of a Political Demography By analyzing Cayenne’s urban project, both in terms of broad guidelines and in terms of territorial coherence, a question often comes up. How does the urban project intend to remedy the failure or lack of a population policy that has led to this urban mal-training of Cayenne? When we talk about political demography13 in Guyana-Cayenne in relation to urbanization, we mean not only the various factors of population growth (birth, mortality) and their socioeconomic determinants and infrastructure, but also the management of inflows and stocks of inflows and outflows in the host territory (net migration). In addition, it implies for the population: its spatial distribution, its urban mutation and the multiculturalism in the human habitat, its mobility in its places of life and the changes of places residence between the generations, the new relations of powers between the communes

13 As defined by Weiner and Teitelbaum (2001) in Political Demography and Demographic Engineering (see the introduction of the book for definition).

5

URBAN PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING IN THE ABSENCE …

71

of Cayenne, the new social and economic stratifications, the shifts in balance of power within the political class generated by population movements, the new citizenships (the naturalized) in space and their new urban hierarchy. Does the loss of population in the Cayenne habitat and its shift to Rémire-Montjoly and Matoury not in the long run augur a change in the urban hierarchy of the agglomeration? In addition to numerous questions are added the contradictions of the Guyanese political system on the composition of the population in Guyana. However, dealing with the urban crisis in Cayenne in 2003 is first of all tackling the issue of the social cohesion of the composite population of Cayenne, and its harmonious and controlled integration into space. Guyana is an ethnic mosaic and an immigration society. The absence of an institutional compromise on what a coherent demographic policy should be in French Guyana makes it difficult to design, develop and implement an urban project for a composite population. Because French Guyana is a multicultural society of immigration torn between “creolity” and “guyanity”. This issue of immigration and urbanization poses the challenges of residential choices, the place of families in the habitat and the management of the mixed architectural contributions of a population with a diverse socio- and ethno-cultural background. The city project cannot exist without a strong social project defining the outlines of living together between inhabitants belonging to different countries or cultural referents—thus, despite its formalist, procedural and even technical aspects. The dimension of political demography in relation to urbanization and which serves as a matrix of our problematic is at the heart of the urban project. Yet, this element weighs heavily in the urban crisis to such an extent that it can be confusing if not fully understood. The abandonment of urban public policy (city project as a whole) in favor of a “fragmented urban projects and zonings” (social housing operation) to manage the demo-social emergency instead of intervening on the overall structuring reflects to some degree short-term quest for political gain by local elected officials who want to show tangible and visible public policy results, than invisible structural works to put the Cayenne agglomeration in coherence as a whole. The living environment is the very symbol of the importance of Guyanese demography. This socio-demographic issue of the urban project brings us to a much more technical question.

72

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Namely, how will the new zones built by naturalized French immigrants be connected to the city center or the city project for the commune of Matoury in terms of schema of territorial coherence? Does the vagueness or ambiguity crossing the urban project and the fragmented urban sectors and networks of peripheral dwellings, their populations and urban mobility plans widen the socioeconomic and spatial inequalities between the different urban segments and diverse components of the French Guyanese population? This urban project, rich in innovative ideas, raises more questions than it solves. A list of diverse problems is identified and requires a critical analysis as an attempt to explore the viability of this new concept of urbanism for Cayenne, called schema of territorial coherence (SCOT). With regard to the urban project, if this new framework of urban policy in theory corresponds to the diffuse urbanization described as “fish skeleton bone14 ” along the highways of Cayenne, in practice several socio-demographic aspects limit its scope or its viability. Urban planning, which is both a science and a practice, unites the thought and the action in an essential complementarity to understand, explain and transform the urban fact. Starting from this definition, we thus question the implications and the impacts of the urban project both in terms of thought (conception of the real) and at the level of practice (know-how and intervention). The urban project approach generates a movement of active participation of citizens, organized groups of civil society. However, the experience of social housing policies has shown that the establishment by the authorities of organized neighborhood structures is not sufficient to make the action of the public authorities effective. On the contrary, there were threshold effects as public actors and different political sectors tried in their own way to recover the associative dynamic (in the commune of Matoury). Concern about the role of organized groups in the process of urban re-foundation remains unchanged. Namely, how, to set up a charter of action between the different urban actors, the political and administrative sectors of Guyana will work to not torpedo the very foundation of the urban project which is the participation, the negotiation and the consensus? 14 Expression de Jean-Michel Moreau, urbaniste à Cayenne (in French: en arrête de poisson).

5

URBAN PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING IN THE ABSENCE …

73

How to make use of the participative experience of underprivileged populations as part of its relocation (in Matoury) and the demolition of unhealthy cities (de Petit-Bonhomme for example)? To what extent can the effective participation of the different populations of Guyana make the urban project of Cayenne viable both in its starting line and in its negotiated and completed form? Given the urban growth and the individual habitat in Matoury as a social process and struggles of actors in the local political system, the question posed above is still important. In addition, the establishment of public facilities, the relationship maintained by the municipal majority and the municipal opposition on the granting of new spaces to the disadvantaged populations partly resulting from immigration and the connection of the parcels built to the urban structure of Matoury only maintain our questions about the urban project of Cayenne 2000. Our analysis of the population/urbanization crossover in Cayenne leads us to problematize the route of the tracks or the grid of the parcels built as a municipal public action, as a conception of urban policies and especially as an approach of the population in French Guiana. The articulation of the new urban fragments of the immigrants in Balata and North Cotonnière asks us about the real objectives of the urban project. This is why we view the urban project as an attempt to mitigate the failure of a population policy in Guyana. That is to say, the attempts of the EPAG15 to sketch a development chart (for six communes involved in the SCOT16 ) to remake the urban burst of Cayenne as well technically tied or it will remain difficult to apply. Both the political system in Guyana and the French state in this department are opposed on the demographic policy in its approaches of “addition”, “subtraction” and “substitution” of populations (Weiner and Teitelbaum 2001), as much the schema of urbanism as a system of representation of society on space is a serious problem. From the block to the district, from the multi-family building to the suburban building, fragments of city scattered in the agglomerate city (Cayenne island), from the intra-urban to the inter-urban scale what will be the place reserved for the different populations in Urban Guiana?

15 EPAG (établissement public foncier et d’aménagement de la Guyane). 16 SCOT (schéma de coherence territoriale).

74

R. ZÉPHIRIN

How will a future Guyanese population policy influence the current or future urban hierarchy on the island of Cayenne and the territorial coherence scheme (SCOT) developed by EPAG? This question is important for the formation of urban and rural areas, for the distribution of the population and its coherent network, for the re-composition of powers by the concentration of voters in municipalities and especially for the change of responsibilities. Future policies could occur in the ethnic groups of Guyana. The unanimous protest of the Guyanese political class against the constitution of an (ethnic) Hmong commune in Cacao/Javouhey by the prefectural authorities of Cayenne reflects this fear of loss of power by certain groups. Demographic policy is a major issue for the various actors of the city on the island of Cayenne. This further complicates the meaning of the “urban project” and territorial coherence. In addition to the demographic parameter, an architectural mixed variable, largely composed of Asian architectural styles (Chinese), transforms the urban islets of Cayenne and adjoins the Creole house (creole archetype) in Guyana which is the subject of heritage conservation. The composite demographic landscape is consistent with a plural architectural panorama. It is on this complex reality that the urban project of Cayenne will be built. In addition to the demographic parameter adds an architectural mix variable. Asian architectural styles (Chinese) transform the urban islets of Cayenne and adjoin the Creole house in Guyana which is the subject of heritage conservation. The composite demographic landscape is consistent with a plural architectural panorama. It is on this complex reality that the urban project of Cayenne will be built. In any case, EPAG’s urban design will have a lot to do to bring solutions to the problems of population diversity in a diffuse city that the politico-institutional management could not find. Between its functions, its stages of realization, its graphic schemes, its social, economic, patrimonial and political stakes, the current urban plan is also the subject of a demographic debate which will depend on its success or its failure. All in all, despite some problematic limits, the Cayenne urban project, which is part of a quest for a territorial coherence scheme (SCOT), will have the merit of provoking by its approach and its implementation, a serious debate on the contours and surrounds of a population policy in French Guyana.

5

URBAN PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING IN THE ABSENCE …

75

Bibliography ARUAG. (2000). SCOT – Schéma de cohérence territoriale, projet urbain de Cayenne. Cayenne. Castles, S., & Miller, J. M. (2003). The Age of Migration. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London: Macmillan Press. Chuhan, P. (2006). Poverty and Inequality. In V. Bhargava (Ed.), Global Issues for Global Citizens (pp. 31–50). Washington, DC: The World Bank. Costa-Lascoux, J. (1999). L’intégration à la française: une philosophie des lois. In D. Philippe (Ed.), Immigration et intégration – l’état des savoirs (pp. 328– 339). Paris: La Découverte. Czaika, M., & de Haas, H. (2013). On the Effectiveness of Immigration Policies. Population and Development Review, 39(3), 487–508. DDE-Cayenne. (1998). Etude urbaine et socio-économique des phénomènes de l’habitat informel sur le littoral de Guyane - Les territoires de l’exclusion. Ministère de l’Equipement, des Transports et du Logement - Direction Départementale de l’équipement de la Guyane (tome 1 et 2, octobre). Cayenne: DDE. Domenach, H., & Guengant, J. P. (1981). Le chômage dans les DOM, emploi et sous-emploi. Economie et statistiques - INED/INSEE, 137, 3–23. Gallibourg, E. (1995). L’accès à l’habitat – le cas des immigrés haïtiens en Guyane française. Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, Programme P.I.R ville, Rapport intermédiaire Tome 1 (Annexes), Mars. Bordeaux: Université de Bordeaux II. Gerarden, D. T., et al. (2014, November). An Assessment of the Energy-Efficiency Gap and Its Implications for Climate Change Policy (Discussion Paper). Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs—Project on Climate Agreements. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School-Harvard University. Gouin, R., & Harguindéguy, J. B. (2012). The Issues of Cognition in Policy Analysis: A First Appraisal. Journal of Public Administration and Governance (Macrothink Institute), 2(1), 2161–7104. Hall, A. P. (1993). Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policy-Making in Britain. Comparative Politics, 25(3), 275–296. Hall, A. P. (1997). The Role of Interests, Institutions, and Ideas in the Comparative Political Economy of Industrialized Nations. In M. Lichbach & A. Zuckerman (Eds.), Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure (pp. 174–207). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. INSEE-Guyane. (2018). Recensement 2016. Cayenne. INSEE-Guyane-TER. (2000). Tableaux Economiques Régionaux. Cayenne. INSEE-Guyane-TER. (2003). Tableaux Economiques Régionaux. Cayenne. Khun, T. S. (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolution (3rd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

76

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Kirszbaum, T. (1999, Janvier/Avril). Les immigrés dans les politiques de l’habitat – Variations locales sur le thème de la diversité. Revue Sociétés Contemporaines, 33/34, 87–110. Matson, P., Clark, C. W., & Andersson, K. (2016). Pursuing Sustainability—A Guide to the Science and Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mitlin, D. (2004). Understanding Urban Poverty: What the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers Tell Us. Washington, DC: Washington University in St. Louis, on the Internet. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228816573/und erstanding-poverty-reduction-policy-strategies/Diana-Mitlin/2004. Moreau, J.-M. (1999). De la ville dessinee a la ville spontanee. ARUAG (Agence d’urbanisme et d’amenagement de la Guyane). Cayenne: Mars. Muller, P. (1990). Les politiques publiques, Que sais-je? Paris: PUF. PDALPD. (2000). Plan Départemental d’Action pour le Logement des Personnes Défavorisées – 1995–1997 and 1998–2000. Cayenne: DDE-Préfecture de Cayenne. Piantoni, F. (2002). Pouvoir national et acteurs locaux: L’enjeu des mobilités dans un espace en marge – Le cas de la Guyane française, Thèse pour le doctorat de géographie, Département de Géographie, U.F.R des sciences humaines et arts, Université de Poitiers. Projet PPE. (2015, Octobre). Programmation Pluriannuelle de L’Energie: 20162018 et 2019-2023 de la Guyane. Republique francaise, Collectivite territoriale de la Guyane. Rossi, A., & Eisenman, P. (1999). The Architecture of the City. The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tenth Printing, Cambridge. Salama, P., & Valier, J. (1994). Pauvretés et inégalités dans le tiers-monde. Paris: La découverte. Saunders, P. (2004, January). Towards a Credible Poverty Framework: From Income Poverty to Deprivation (SPRC-Discussion Paper No. 131). Sydney: Social Policy Research Centre. Travers, P., & Richardson, S. (1993). Living Decently: Material Well-Being in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Weiner, M. (1995). The Global Migration Crisis: Challenge to States and to Human Rights. New York: HarperCollins. Weiner, M. (2001). Demography and National Security. New York: Berghahn Books. Weiner, M., & Teitelbaum, M. S. (2001). Political Demography and Demographic Engineering. New York: Berghahn Books. Zéphirin, R. (2005). Le Champ migratoire haïtiano-guyanais: étude des causes et effets politiques, socio-économiques et spatiaux. – Multipolarité et réversibilité dans le système migratoire interaméricain. Thèse de Doctorat, Université AixMarseille III-IAR, Aix-en-Provence, France.

5

URBAN PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING IN THE ABSENCE …

77

Zéphirin, R. (2016). Les réseaux de migrants haïtiano-guyanais dans l’espace américain. Avant-Propos de Mark J. Miller - Préface de Hervé Domenach. Paris: L’Harmattan. Collection “Questions Contemporaines”. Zephirin, R. (2017). The Politics and Policy Implications of Widespread Immigrations in French Guyana. In S. Rodriquez (Ed.), Migrants: Public Attitudes, Challenges and Policy Implications (pp. 59–110). New York: NOVA Science Publishers. Collection “Immigration in the 21st Century: Political, Social and Economic Issues”. Zéphirin, R., & Piantoni, F. (2009). Les stratégies d’accès au logement des Haïtiens dans l’agglomération de Cayenne Comme facteurs de restructuration urbaine. Revue L’Espace Politique, 6(3), 1–12. mai. En ligne. www.l’esp acepolitique.revues.org.

CHAPTER 6

Conclusion: Blending the Specific French Guyanese’s Urbanization-Migration Patterns with the Wider Theoretical Literature on the Matter

Abstract The book conclusion merges the different chapters and moves the political demography debate from a local-departmental-national level to an international one. In other words, the conclusion, which problematizes immigration policy efficiency, political demography, urbanization and urban governance, shifts from domestic politics and policy regarding local, national and transnational population-migration spatially distributed—to a broader perspective of international relations among neighboring states involving supranational-regional organizations in dealing with transnational people movements in the Americas in general as political geographies, politics of scale and geopolitics. Consequently, the book puts in perspective the French Guyanese’s patterns of migrationurbanization into broader theoretical accounts. Keywords Immigration-urbanization · Demographic transition · Mobility transition · Economic development · Urban governance · Urban migration theories · Political demography · French Guyana · Geopolitics · Latin America and the Caribbean

© The Author(s) 2020 R. Zéphirin, Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2_6

79

80

R. ZÉPHIRIN

The political demography concerns point out major political and policy differences linked to ethno-cultural claims in the French Guyanese society. The importance of migration in the composition of the population reveals the difficult task to politically manage the rapid urbanization of the Cayenne agglomeration which is home for a mosaic population with a diverse ethno-social and economic background. The different political perceptions over the demographic shift in French Guyana, spark the core France to adapt its interactions with some neighboring Latin American and Caribbean countries. The French Guyanese political demography contentions linked to local-national and international rationales are contextualized and explained the urban governance as a inclusion challenge. Consequently, the specific French Guyanese patterns of urbanization-migration are blended into the wider theoretical literature on the topic.

6.1 Demography Bridges Politics and Policy at Various Geographical Scales The economic development policy approach in French Guyana in the early 1970s started with the importation of population from some neighboring countries. The importation of foreign population rationale was based on the premise that French Guyana is underpopulated and the local workforce was more reluctant to accept some substandard working conditions. As a result, policy-makers in French Guyana allowed both private investors and public infrastructural constructions to benefit from guest workers who are cheap labors and less inclined to claim social rights and benefits and launched protests and strikes. To some degree, the historic economic development sparked population growth which itself through time, in its diverse causes and effects has considerable consequences on politics and policy on different locations and relocations of human life in French Guyana. In other words, the combination and change in economic policy, scalars of population, population density and public policy efficiency draws the contours of political demography in French Guyana facing urban governance problem. In this perspective, demographic explosion largely resulting from continuous immigration flows divides political actors and elected officials in office. In a large extent, temporary migrant workers did not come back home. Instead, they make French Guyana their new homeland. Of

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

81

course, the contrasting picture of economic opportunities and the possibility of having access to social benefits in French Guyana on the one hand—and the economic regression or the slow development pace in many neighboring Latin American and Caribbean countries, contribute to transform the temporary guest migrant workers in definitive and permanent immigrant communities. This situation fuels a power conflict in the local political system. First, very largely, the local influential French citizens in Guyana (calling themselves creoles) identify themselves to right-wing political parties. They vehemently oppose to immigration and the definitive settlement of foreign population in the demography and society of French Guyana. They see that as a menace to their traditional socioeconomic and political influence on the long term in local politics. The continuous increase in the immigration and the birth rates outnumbers the segment of the population named (rightly or wrongly) creoles. Second, French Guyanese socio-political activists, social reformers and left-wing political parties differ from those calling them “creoles”. While opposing to continuous and unwanted immigration, they strongly defend the idea that immigrant workers after decades of working have to be allowed to fully integrate the French Guyanese society if they want. They mainly defend the point that, the migrant workers have been exploited for at least two decades as cheap labors by both the state public infrastructural constructions and private businesses. As a matter of fact, in the end of the big projects the state and business owners cannot ask the pioneers to simply go home. Moreover, aside from the political differences over migrants or continuous immigration, the question of integration of the pioneers appears as a common ground between the state and social reformers. However, if nationally and at the departmental level there is a largely acceptable political consensus for the full integration of the first-settled immigrants and their reunified families under the French state value and principle of “equality of chances for all”, at local urban level there are some frictions (to some degree) to fully apply the state principle of total integration. Some right-wing elected officials at municipal level, often try to torpedo the principle of integration by allowing malicious practices of exclusion in local; public housing policy. This political attitude largely relies on some ethno-cultural claims, which by the way hide a major political demography bone of contention. In fact, the ethno-cultural claims dividing the

82

R. ZÉPHIRIN

population and the society at large into two cultural identities of “creolity” and “guyanity” reflect the dualist logics of exclusion and inclusion. Very briefly, “creolity” encircles the inhabitants who historically live in French Guyana since the French colonial era, the departmentalization and until now. They are generally well-educated and socioeconomically and politically influential in the local society. As a result, they exclude newcomers’ rights to play key and influential role in French Guyana. However, “guyanity”, contrary to “creolity”, encompasses not only those who have deep historical roots in French Guyana, but also, all those who come with the idea to stay and contribute in diverse ways to the social, economic and political progress of French Guyana. In this view, legal immigrants and new naturalized citizens are part of the “guyanity”, which is more open to the future of the society. Contrary to “guyanity”, “creolity” is perceived by many as a backward ideology, stuck in the past. As a matter of fact, the diverse immigrant communities are seen by many advocates of “guyanity” as the future of French Guyana, and then they have to be fully integrated in the society which becomes multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. Additionally, the ethno-cultural claims of “crolity” and “guyanity” which are mutually exclusive political ideologies reflect on public policy, urban planning, housing construction and urban governance issues. In other words, “creolity” and “guyanity” are the hiding ethno-cultural side of the political demography debate in French Guyana. The strategies of integration cause considerable inter- and intra-urban migrations in different communes of the Cayenne agglomeration. As the annual numbers of family houses and public buildings increase, urbanization spreads rapidly everywhere in Cayenne and the need to grid the city and make it coherently work in its structures become an important preoccupation in terms of public policy addressing the “basic needs” or the “common good” of a composite population. In this view, the dismissal of certain urban neighborhoods populated with people with immigrant descent in some municipalities led by some right-wing elected officials impedes the efficiency of local urban public policy. Municipalities which drive by the ideology or the cultural claim of “creolity” simply use a traditional institutionalist public policy approach to address urban public problem and implementing solutions. This is the reason why, some municipalities neglect the substandard living conditions in urban slums in edge-cities or some urban segments (such as Suzini, Ploermel, and EauLisette). Often, some urban segments are led by a double-standard in public service and public policy.

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

83

As a result, both the decentralization of decision-making in municipalities and the core France state values of equality of chances differently impact housing public policy as a means of poverty and inequality reduction. Based on the local political opposition over immigration or the mutually exclusive ethno-cultural claim of “creolity” versus “guyanity”, local housing public policy to fight poverty and inequality is torn between “income-expenditure” versus “needs-based” approaches. However, grounded evidences linked to the new French citizens with migrant descent show that both dominant policy accounts in poverty reduction strategies are limited to successfully address efficiently the socioeconomic and spatial gap in the population. Both approaches in poverty reduction strategies expressed through a traditional institutional public policy current fall short to embrace the different logics of socioeconomic and spatial human settlements linked to integration and/or reintegration of individuals and groups of people in their new homeland or in their origin country. In this view, a more cognitive public policy view would be better equipped to federate both the limited “incomeexpenditure” and the “needs-based” in poverty reduction policy strategy. The adoption of the cognitive perspective in poverty reduction would be in itself a paradigm shift, of course with its ethno-cultural, demographic, political and institutional implications for local institutions and policy-makers in French Guyana. In this view, the composition and the spatial distribution of the population in the city allow the mayors of urban sectors to prioritize certain types of agglomerated populations with particular ethno-cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. In order to turn down this tendency and practices in play in local politics and public policy—aside from local urban and housing policies of municipal governments—the (French) state intervenes with bigger inclusive project to ease interethnic relations and reduce inequality and poverty as a matter of integration promoting equality of chance for all in good urban housing quality. Contrary to the right-wing local elected mayors who adopt a simply traditional view of public policy, left-wing mayors and social reformers largely advocating the ideological and ethno-cultural claim of “guyanity”, opt for a cognitive public policy approach. As a result, inhabitants with immigrant descent are not seen as the problem of French Guyana, but as part of the solution. This “guyanity” cultural and political current in local public policy is more favorable to large components of the urban population in the Cayenne agglomeration. As a result, naturalized citizens and their grassroots in coalition

84

R. ZÉPHIRIN

with larger organizations in the local civil society are involved in shaping public problem, public policy agenda, policy design and implementation. They participate in urban governance, at least, at the scale of their urban segments. The population spatially distributed impacting public policy is a serious issue of political demography. In the context of composite population and urban sprawling, designing coherent urban schemas and plans, and promoting good urban territorial governance, become an object of political negotiations and compromise to get rid of exclusion, inequality and poverty. As a matter of fact, the adaptation of “guyanity” instead of “creolity” in some urban neighborhoods has some electoral and political consequences in terms of changing the local political in the Cayenne agglomeration. The mobility of some components of the population from one urban sector to another impacts local elections outcomes. Furthermore, in terms of involvement of population composite and population spatially redistributed in political demography in French Guyana, it is crucial to interrogate the implications for Latin America and the Caribbean. At a local level, while the right-wing political elected officials reject largely the electorate with immigrants descent or newly naturalized voters—left-wing political organizations (also supporting tightening border policy), in a very specific manner, accept to host and integrate immigrants from neighboring Latin American and Caribbean countries. Paradoxically, they totally reject other immigrants from other world regions living in French Guyana (allowed to come in by the French state). Why this selective approach in population linked to politics and policy by the political left in French Guyana? Two reasons explain that selective policy choice. First, the political left includes not only nebulous popular urban organizations, grassroots and unions—but also the French Guyanese independentist party (called MDES). The inclusion of immigrants or naturalized citizens from the Latin American and Caribbean region allows the political left and the independentists (proponents of independence) particularly to increase their immediate political gain in the local French Guyanese political system, and become through time, a major political actor. Second, particularly, the independentists, focusing on “decolonization”, “emancipation” and “independence” of French Guyana, expect in a strategic and long-term political construction to connect with the long

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

85

history of national liberation movements, revolutions and anti-imperialism ideologies in play in Latin America and the Caribbean. These are the reasons why, the political left, and particularly the independentists In French Guyana, tactically (short-term) and strategically (long-term) prioritize new naturalized French citizens, part of the “guyanity” to build a new country free of French tutelage and dominance. Note that, the independentists accuse the core France of attempting to delete the Guyanese identity through mass immigration. As a matter of fact, they want to return the “arm” of immigration against the core France, and its long-term strategy to destroy the Guyanese identity. Returning immigration against the “colonial France” is to use neighboring immigrants as a tool to make Guyana closer to Latin America and the Caribbean political struggle and liberate it from France. Political demography goes over simple statistics on population composition and population spatially distributed to become an issue of national liberation movement, revolution and international relations. In this view, in terms of international relations and security, how population-migration concerns in Guyana matter for the core France in dealing with Latin American and Caribbean relations? During the past decades of the 1990s and 2000, the French diplomacy in Latin America uses immigration to get involved in regional politics and extend its political influences. France in 1991s–1994s led by late president François Mitterrand, raised the fear of a massive immigration in French Guyana and other Lesser Antilles to push for both the OAS (the Organization of the American States) and the United Nations security council to get peacekeeping forces in Haiti to pacify the country ravaged by a bloody military coup d’état. France actively and militarily participated behind the United States in a military intervention under the UN mandate to oust the military regime and allowed the then and deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return to Power. Additionally, in 2004, France, led by President Jacques Chirac, facing a demand of restitution of an indemnity that Haiti was forced to pay for the recognition of its independence to its former colonizer—supported the political opponents of the then-President Aristide to overthrow him from power. In the political struggle and turmoil, France diplomacy, led by (former foreign minister and former prime minister) Dominique de Villepin, asked the UN Security Council to act and send peacekeeping forces in Haiti (Zéphirin 2016). Once again, France waived the fear of undocumented immigrants and refugees in Guyana and other French

86

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean to urge the UN to take action, of course, after negotiating with the G. W. Bush administration taking the lead of the operations. However, realistically, there was no causation between regional violence and armed conflict in northern Haiti and a risk of massive emigration and refugee flows toward French Guyana. As a matter of fact, it is clear, in two occasions and for two very different reasons, France instrumented the immigration fear for its department in the Caribbean to obtain a UN preventive intervention in Haiti. Also, the Brazilian immigrant community living in French Guyana, motivated France build joint border infrastructures with Brazil in order to promote economic cooperation and partnership. In doing so, France puts itself in a position to be the main economic partner of Brazil in international trade. However, Brazil shows less interest in giving this status to France on the international stage. Economic development policy, population-migration, human location and mobility impacting politics and policy at various geographic scales are clearly transdisciplinary issues in political demography and urban governance. Consequently, as posited in the research guided-question, it becomes obvious that the change, the composition, the location and the relocation of the composite population pose a serious problem of reduction of socioeconomic and political influence of certain dominant social and ethnic groups. The addition and the substitution of some segments of the population are seen by other groups as a lost in influence and privilege—and reflect an ethno-cultural claim translated in power conflicts, shift in institutional leadership, power sharing and policy efficiency in French Guyana. Political demography goes far beyond local urban population and its consequences on politics and policy.

6.2 The French Guyanese’s Urbanization-Migration into Some Wider Theoretical Accounts Generally speaking, the chapters of the book cover the populationmigration issues and their diverse implications for politics and policy agendas in French Guyana. As a matter of fact, the specific patterns

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

87

of population-migration and urbanization in French Guyana, which are supported by quantitative evidences, reveal at some point some limitations of the wider literature. In other words, it becomes important to blend the specific urbanization-migration context in French Guyana into a broader theoretical explanation. Among other theories, the analysis (partly) relies on “demographic transition1 ” and “mobility transition”. In this view, three problematical paths are considered. They are respectively, first, internal population dynamics and the type of urbanization—second, international migrations and urban growth—and third, the combined urban relocation of a composite population for different rationales and its spatial consequences for the Cayenne’s agglomeration and the urban hierarchy in French Guyana at large (Map 6.1). First, based on the quantitative evidences displayed in this book, the internal population dynamics and urbanization show a stable pattern during the 1950s and the mid-1960s. The main factors involved in the internal population growth were largely the crude birth rates. The evolution of the general number of the population corresponded to the economic activities and the type of human settlements in main cities and towns in French Guyana. Note that the main economic sector providing the sources of employment in the early 1970s, according to Domenach and Guengant (1981: 1)2 were: “traditional agriculture, infrastructural

1 As noted in earlier chapters, French Guyana is in the second stage of the demographic transition with a high birth rates (and a low death rate). The general youth of the population and the urban relocation strategies of young couples and families from different origins, becoming new French citizens in Guyana, clearly impact the urban explosion in the Cayenne agglomeration. 2 According to Domenach and Guengant (1981: 1), French Guyana’s economy and its market of employment are characterized by first a traditional or pre-capitalist sector (agriculture of subsistence, arts and crafts, and other domestic products)—second, a modern or capitalist sector (exportation of agricultural and mining goods, housing and infrastructure, and lastly, administrative and public office jobs)—third, an intermediary sector called informal and non-structured activities, taking place in urban areas, arts, crafts and trade). Note that the authors above mentioned the incapacity and the impossibility of the modern sector to absorb the surplus in the available workforce, largely, because of the rapid demographic growth, allowed the intermediary sector to come to existence. Also, notice that some important economic, spatial, historic and technological factors need to be taken into account to fully understand the patterns of urbanization-migration in French Guyana. On this matter, Domenach and Guengant (1981: 2) wrote that “It can be observed, first, a colonial urban zone in Cayenne – second, a created newly and modern high-tech space station in the area of Kourou built since 1965 – third, the traditional post-colonial zone of

88

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Map 6.1 Urban growth in Cayenne and the risks of flooding in the agglomeration: 1950–2015 (Permission from AUDEG led by Ms. Juliette Guirado. March 26, 2020. I wholeheartedly thank Juliette Guirado who is the director of AUDEG (Agence d’Urbanisme et de Développement de la Guyane) for kindly giving me an updated map. I deeply appreciate her help to my work)

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

89

construction and public office jobs”. However, the public office employments constitute one of the more important sources of money for urban households. The relative stable population which is spatially distributed in local towns and some traditional colonial urban structures allowing local economic actors to do business as usual did not pressure much rural land-use for new industrial plants and urban sprawl in French Guyana. The combined mosaic composition of the population, its spatial distribution, the economic structure and the public administrative employments, allowed the segment of the population, called “Guyanese Creole” to keep their demographic, social, economic, political and spatial dominance in French Guyana, in a context of insignificant rural-urban internal migration. As a result, in the wider theoretical standpoint, the specific pattern of urbanization-migration in French Guyana during 1950–1960 corresponds with the first phase of the “mobility transition” coined by Zelinsky (1971), which refers to a “pre-modern traditional society (minimal residential migration and only limited human mobility)” (Norton 2007: 173). On a large extent, the specific pattern of urbanization-migration fits theoretically in the first stage of the broader theoretical perspective of

Saint-Laurent du Maroni – fourth, the constitution of heartland communes where traditional and pre-colonial activities still take place with the concentration of Amerindians and some African groups.” Furthermore, it is important to underline that in analyzing unemployment and under-employment, Domenach and Guengant (1981) highlight the sharp difference between the job markets and economic sectors in industrialized societies which are relatively well integrated and homogenous on the one hand-job markets, economic sectors and activities in less-developed, traditional or pre-capitalist societies that run in parallel, and are dualist and pluralist. If in industrialized societies the offer and the demand of employments are expressed in terms of unemployment issues, however, in less-developed and traditional economies only a part of the demand for employments is reflected on the market workforce. The contextualization (1970–1980) and the characterization of major economic sectors and their activities in French Guyana largely help to better portray the economic and social factors impacting human settlements problematized as urbanization-migration issues.

90

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Zelinsky (1971), which by the way contains five steps3 (Norton 2007: 173). Second, international migrations and urban growth constituted a serious shift in human settlements in French Guyana. During the decades of 1970–1980, new evidences of national development policies tended to fill the socioeconomic, infrastructural and technological gap between the department of French Guyana and other core France ones in Europe. The influxes of international workers looking for job opportunities appeared as a new problematic element. They practically outdated the “pre-modern traditional society” the Zelinsky’s (1971) theoretical model explaining urbanization-migration. Instead of allowing rural–urban migrations to flow and to constitute the bulk of the modernization process, the underpopulated French Guyana4 turned to international labor migrations to up-hold the modernization efforts. In this view, the second steps of the urbanization-migration pattern in French Guyana did not schematically follow at all the second phase of the Zelinsky’s “mobility transition” theory, where an “early transitional society”, beginning with “migration from rural to urban and overseas movements” (Norton 2007: 173). To the contrary, French Guyana’s cities were flooded with international labor migrants. Foreign migrant workers played an important role in the change of arithmetic density and urban concentration. Particularly, while the urban center of Cayenne was crowded, other peripheral urban segments were overcrowded. The densification of the urban fabric and the attempts of de-densification by public officials put pressure on rural land located on the edge of main urban fabric during the decades of the 1970s–1980s. As a matter of fact, the specific patterns of urbanization-migration in French Guyana did not valid the second, third and fourth steps of the Zelinsky’s (1971) theory of “mobility transition”.

3 They are: (1) the pre-modern traditional society (minimal residential migration and only limited human mobility)—(2) the early transitional society (migration begins with rural to urban and overseas movements)—(3) the late transitional society (rural to urban mobility decline and important reduction in overseas migrations)—(4) the advanced society (residential mobility continues, rural to urban movements lessen, but continues rural to urban movements)—(5) a future super-advance society (most migration is between urban centers). 4 …at some point more fortunate than its neighbors, largely because of the core France regularly renewed fresh cash injections in the local economy….

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

91

Also, in a theoretical standpoint, not only the specific model of urbanization-migration in French Guyana invalidates the three other steps (two, three and four) in the Zelinsky theory—but also, it shows the irrelevance of the Ravenstein Law delineated in 11 statements5 (Norton 2007: 173, 174) which explains rural–urban migrations linked to industries, commerce, transport, natural increase and rural depopulation. Instead, contrary to Zelinsky (1971) and Ravenstein (1885) theories, the specific patterns of urbanization-migration in French Guyana follow Massey (1993), Massey et al. (1987), Zéphirin (2005, 2016), Krissman (2005) and more other recent and current accounts. International labor migrants come to the Cayenne agglomeration, established self-segregated urban enclaves, densified the urban fabric and raised shanty-towns in city edges—while pioneers driven other family members to come in the receiving society in quest for a better living and better wages they could not find in many rural economies of some Latin American and Caribbean countries. Once again, the urbanization-migration patterns in French Guyana during the decades of 1970–1980, rather than the Zelinsky’s theoretical steps (two, three and four)—and the Ravenstein Law (of 11 statements) underline the internal driving forces. Some of the internal factors such as rural–urban migrations, local spatial and urban hierarchy, agriculture,

5

1. The majority of migrants travel only a short distance (distance friction). 2. Migration proceeds step-by-step (first to port city, then to rural areas). 3. Migrants moving from distance generally head for one of the great centers of commerce or industry (large centers are better known than small areas). 4. Each current of migration produces a compensating counter-current. 5. The natives of towns are less migratory than those of rural areas (the frequency of rural to urban migration). 6. Females are more migratory (in order to marry) than males within their own country of birth, but males more frequently venture beyond (international migrants are usually young males). 7. Most migrants are adults. Families rarely migrate out of their country of birth. 8. Large towns grow more by migration than by natural increase. 9. Migrations increase in volume as industries and commerce develop and transport improves (urban centers become more attractive and reduce distance friction). 10. Migration is from agricultural areas to centers of industry and commerce. This is still the most common direction in the early twenty-first century, evidenced by the ongoing rural depopulation in the Canadian prairies. 11. The major causes of migration are economic.

92

R. ZÉPHIRIN

industries and commerce, natural increase, age and sex structure of the population linked to industrialization and urbanization are unseen or neglected. These various drivers are more related (to some extent) to theories such as migrant network6 Massey (1993), Massey et al. (1987), international migration network7 (Krissman 2005: 4, 5, 8, and 34) and

6 Through the neoclassical migration theory (macro and micro levels), labor migration as a corollary element to economic development causing territorial mobility is conceptualized by Massey (1993) as migrant network. In this view, Krissman (2005: 29) wrote that “… most migrant networks can be traced back to the fortuitous employment of some key individual. All that is necessary for a migrant network to develop is for one person to be in the right place at the right time and obtain a position that allows him to distribute jobs and favors to others from his community” (Massey et al. 1987: 169, emphasis added). “[…] In a brief ethnographic synopsis, Massey and colleagues (1987: 164–169) noted that migrants become network pioneers when employers use them as labor recruiters ” (Krissman 2005: 29). 7 “I argue that restrictions on its composition and functions also render the migrant network unable to explain why such migratory flows continue or expand even further … the propositions on which it rests, the methods it employs, and the conclusions that it imparts must be reconsidered” (Krissman 2005: 4). “The ‘Migrant network’ concept cannot explain large-scale international migratory flows … goes beyond a critique of its ahistorical and post factum nature … Most immigrant researchers have excluded a variety of actors involved in the origination and perpetuation of migratory flows from data collection, analytical assessment, theoretical construction, and/or public policy promotion. These actors have been ignored because the ubiquitous migrant network concept focuses on symmetrical relationships among the natives of the same labor-sending hometowns. However, the assumption that employers, labor smugglers, and their myriad assistants are not active participants in international migration networks is no longer shared by federal officials, the media, or even all immigration researchers… (Krissman 2005: 5). “The migrant network concept did not spring from network analysis, but from social adaptation studies that examined the effects of massive population shifts within third world nation after World War II (Gurak and Caces 1992: 153). Early studies (e.g., Lewis 1959) argued that rural migrants became anomic loners in urban metropolises, stuck in ‘cultures of poverty. Later research (e.g., Arizpe 1978; Kemper 1975; Orellana 1973) countered this view, noting that migrants manage in the cities by adapting the support systems that aided them in their rural hometowns’ … the network concept used to analyse the adaptation of rural migrants to Third World cities was borrowed to analyze the much more complex treks of international migrants” (Krissman 2005: 8). “I argue: 1) International migrant networks seldom originate in and are never comprised exclusively from individuals from the same hometowns; 2) migration is not self-perpetuating, but continues to be affected by non-hometowns actors in and/or native to the labor-receiving nation; and 3) labor recruitment continues to be a major stimulus to international migration. If I am right, moral and legal responsibility for continued undocumented migration should shift from the Third World ‘Them’ to the First World

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

93

international multipolar migration network (Zéphirin 2005, 2014, 2016, 2018). Third, the urban relocation strategies of a composite population driven by different rationales and the spatial consequences for both the Cayenne agglomeration and the urban hierarchy of French Guyana are closely connected factors and need to be theoretically reframed. During the decades of 1990–2000 and to date, the Cayenne agglomeration witnessed an important de-densification of its downtown. Diverse factors explain the population change that takes the form of both intra and inter-urban migrations. Some low-income workers and poor labor migrants living in abandoned or squatted family houses without basic public services in the Cayenne’s urban center are relocated by municipal elected officials and local high-ranking public policy-makers in other parts of the city in state public housing projects. Public housing authorities remove populations in overcrowded homes, bulldoze flimsy constructions in shantytowns to relocate low-income households in standard public housing or in “incremental” affordable private family homes. The authorities, in order to better design and requalify segments of the urban center, allow legal owners of the squatted homes to retake their control and rebuild them. This process leads to an intra-urban migration. Very largely, those who are not owners of the family houses in downtown Cayenne contribute to the intra-urban migration. However, the owners of homes, in a large extent, move from one commune to another in the agglomeration to set new dwellings. Generally, the owners of family houses in the traditional urban center in the pre-industrial city of Cayenne are historically part of the economic, cultural and political influential local creole elite. During the colonial era mainly, and to a lesser extent the pre-industrial city of Cayenne played a key politico-administrative and commercial role in trading agricultural goods and engineering exportation. In this view, old archetypes in the historical urban fabric no longer match with new quests for larger outdoor space, spacious housing, good indoor air quality, new socialities, new commodities and the claim of better living conditions. As a result, instead of involving in intra-urban migration, traditional households opt for inter-urban relocation and contribute to de-densify

‘us’ with corresponding changes in public policy to focus upon those who initiate and perpetuate international migration network” (Krissman 2005: 34).

94

R. ZÉPHIRIN

the urban fabric of Cayenne, while causing a population loss in Cayenne which benefits to other communes of the agglomeration. Furthermore, the state public housing agency, aside from selecting some new sites within the city, uses peri-urban vacant public lands in neighboring communes of the agglomeration to re-settle urban dwellers of the Cayenne’s urban center. In other words, the state also contributes to the inter-urban migration. Additionally, former migrants becoming naturalized and new French citizens, looking for less expensive and more affordable land, buy some pots of peri-urban land to relocate their houses as a means of sociospatial integration. In consequence, the various above-mentioned actors with their rationales, participate in spatial-redistribution of the urban population. The combination of intra-urban and inter-urban migrations modifies to some degree the urban hierarchy in French Guyana (Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009). Currently, the population loss in cayenne urban center and the population gain for communes such as Remire-MontJoly and Matoury—reach the neighboring commune called Macouria. The search for a cheaper price for land to build new family houses with large portions of land, not only changes the geographical scales of the Cayenne agglomeration by adding a new commune (Macouria)—but also modifies the urban hierarchy by reinforcing the politico-administrative, economic, demographic and socio-cultural predominance of the Cayenne agglomeration in the entire department of French Guyana. The extended agglomeration alone is a factor of urban population beneficial to Cayenne, and detrimental to the heartland communes in the department of French Guyana. In terms of geography of the population in French Guyana, the Cayenne agglomeration and its three (now four) traditional communes (Cayenne, Remire-MontJoly and Matoury) are followed by the commune of Kourou (a French new built city) and Saint-Laurent du Maroni, which is a border city close to Surinam and former British Guyana. The evidence of the evolution in spatially redistributed population as a consequence of urbanization-migration in French Guyana questions the broader theoretical literature on this matter. Definitely, the third phase (from 1990 to 2000 to date) witnesses a relocation in the rural belt of the cities and their agricultural lands. The urban de-concentration of Cayenne highlights an expansion of suburbanization through a kind of urban–rural migration which can be interpreted as a “counter-urbanization” (Norton 2007: 466).

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

95

The dynamics of the third phase in the pattern patterns of urbanization-migration in French Guyana intersect with some broader theoretical explanations. As a matter of fact, the departmentalization of French Guyana, its institutional modernization and decentralization, spark the core France to inject considerable financial influxes into the local economy. Fresh money invested in the construction of major transportation infrastructures, the building of the city of Kourou to support the high-tech space station and the implementation of other major agro-industrial and farming projects—allows the local economy and its different sectors to grow. While not being fully industrialized and developed from (internal factors), it becomes obvious that the urbanizationmigration nexus in French Guyana, meets to some degree the fifth phase of the Zelinsky’s theoretical account which points out “a future super-advance society [where] most migration is between urban centres”. This is largely a socio-spatial and inter-urban migration caused by the modern economic sector in Cayenne analyzed by Domenach and Guengant (1981) as a modern source of employment and activities. As a matter of fact, the urbanization linked to immigration is not driven by rural to urban migration as Zelinsky’s steps (2, 3 and 4) state it, or by the Ravenstein Law—but by the constitution of migration network (Massey et al. 1987), international migration network (Krissman 2005; Zéphirin 2005, 2018) and migration field (Simon 1985). The specific patterns in French Guyana show that overtime, international temporary labor migrations, become definitive and self-perpetuating, where those who choose integration rather reintegration move from the main urban fabric to peri-urban areas. Furthermore, in a broader theoretical understanding of urbanizationmigration, other authors’ works are considered. Canfei He (2013: 1) writes that “From a demographic perspective, urbanization depends on the interaction of two factors, that is the rural-urban differential in the natural increase of population and the migration exchange between the rural and urban sectors.” …Urbanization is the process of a greater proportion of human activities—economic, social, cultural—taking place in urbanized areas. [Urbanization] is “the rise of the urban proportion of the total population” (Ledent 1982). The general scholarly literature on urbanization-migration issues is associated with industrialization, economic modernization and development. In this view, analyzing the population shift from rural to urban areas as a matter of the urbanization-migration nexus puts forth three

96

R. ZÉPHIRIN

important characteristics. Canfei He (2013: 1) citing (Lee 2008) underlines three key facts that are: “1 -wages in the urban sector exceed those in the rural sector; 2 – labor migrates from the rural to the urban sector; and 3- urban unemployment exceeds that in rural sector” (Lee 2008). The references to Ravenstein (1885) Law of 11 statements and Zelinsky (1971) theories, while they highlight the early academic writings on the urbanization-migration nexus linked to robust industrialization in the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, do they neglect or unseen other more actual parameters involved in the scholarly and contemporary theories on the matter. As a matter of fact, Lewis (1954) explains people movements from traditional rural to modern urban areas in a dualist classic economic development perspective, where lowproductivity in rural economic activities affected by unemployment and population surplus, sends labors to urban high-productivity areas to find opportunities and jobs. In doing so, migrants contribute to urban growth. Also, Todaro (1969) pointed out a thesis that went over the simple income differentials to integrate the dimension of income expectation to explain migration process between rural to urban areas. Pushing further this theoretical pathway, authors such as Harris and Todaro (1970) and Stiglitz (1974) emphasized more on the predominance of expected salaries than actual pays. This theoretical account considerably impacted urbanization-migration research attempting to problematize both “ruralurban labor market” and the “new labor migration economy” approaches in diverse parts of the world. In the same vein, other researches in the field of urbanization-migration nexus such as Piore (1979) underlined the connected interests of both sending countries of migrants and receiving ones. In this view, Canfei He (2013: 2) noted that “Piore theorizes that immigration is caused by a built-in demand for immigrant labor that stems from four fundamental characteristics 8 of advanced industrial societies and their economies.” [However,] “An alternative perspective, grounded in the new economics of labor migration (Stark and Bloom 1985), argued that rural-urban migration might be undertaken primarily to improve an individual’s or a household’s comparative income position…”.

8 Also, in analyzing the Piore’s dual labor market theory explaining immigration Gurieva and Dzhioev (2015: 104) wrote that “Piore (1979) connected demand for immigrants’ work with four fundamental characteristics of modern industrial society, structural inflation, motivational problems, economic dualism and labor demography.”

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

97

How the general above-mentioned theories relate to French Guyana socio-demographic, economic and spatial conditions to explain urbanization-migration? In analyzing the specific patterns of immigration-urbanization in French Guyana, it is important to underline that the local native-born population was stable at the beginning of 1970 when the major economic development, infrastructural projects and politico-institutional modernization started. The citizens got access to social benefits, minimum wages, universal health care, workers’ rights and their unions were respected. The inhabitants of French Guyana were less malleable to accept below standard working conditions. Aside from the socioeconomic benefits (while were reinforced in the mid-1980), the citizens have living in heartland communes of French Guyana, the composite nature of the local population and its limited number did not significantly drive rural to urban migration linked to economic and infrastructural development. The increase of the urban population in French Guyana is dramatically caused by a considerable number of international migrants, coming largely from neighboring Caribbean and Latin American countries, consequential to an attractive immigration policy designed in the early 1970s. As a result, and at a high extent, the migration-urbanization interplay in French Guyana opposes to the theoretical explanation of internal migration, rural–urban income differentials, expected income discrepancy and households comparative wages. These key variables and problematic parameters that cross the theoretical accounts of Todaro (1969), Harris and Todaro (1970), Stiglitz (1974), Stark and Bloom (1985), are largely irrelevant to the specific patterns of the French Guyanese population-migration growth and urbanization. The generalization of both social benefits to those who are unemployed, and a national minimum wage in the early 1980s are important parameters to be considered in analyzing income differentials and salary incentives as a matter of urbanization-migration. If during the early 1970s, “income differentials and salary incentives” played to some degree a certain role (because of the diverse ethno-cultural and sociodemographic components of the population) in explaining urbanizationmigration—after 1980, the above-mentioned theories need to be seriously downplayed and revised regarding French Guyana. The context of urbanization-migration in French Guyana, at a high degree, invalidates the above theories. However, the Piore (1979) theory, in part, focusing on the “interconnected logic of sending and receiving

98

R. ZÉPHIRIN

countries of migrants” on their mutual interests to use foreign migrants’ workforce. The Piore’s (1979) account is partly appropriate to address the international migrations flows in French Guyana coming from neighboring countries. In part, it takes into account of the high-density of their rural population, the high level of unemployment, the potential risk for socioeconomic unrests, political strifes and institutional instability. In this view, the international migrations that filled the Cayenne agglomeration in the early 1970s met the diverse needs and expectations of both origin and host countries. The origin countries obtained remittances (Zéphirin 2005, 2014) for local families and hard currencies for the national economies. The host country (France) in Guyana benefited from a cheap labor migration (low- and mid-skilled workers) to fill many available low-paid jobs in farms, construction, etc. However, if on that particular front, the arguments of the “new economics of labor migrations” correspond with French Guyana’s patterns of urbanization-migration in the early stage of the constitution of the migration fields (Simon 1985) linking sending-receiving countries in 1970—after the decades of 1980, the types of migrants’ international trajectories, routes and urban settlements partly invalidate the linear migration itinerary (departure-arriving) in a bipolar migration field. The bipolarity in migrants’ displacements is replaced by scattered multipolar migration fields interacting as a system (Simon 1985; Zéphirin 2016, 2018). During the decades of 1990 and 2000, and until now, migrants’ urban settlements in the Cayenne agglomeration change. The old selfsegregated urban enclaves into Cayenne downtown partly opened their gates to allow migrants who choose full socioeconomic and socio-spatial integration in French Guyana to relocate themselves in new built multiethnic urban zonings on different sites of the agglomeration, often along major road infrastructures. This integration strategy sparks re-settlement and suburbanization in the agglomeration while those opting for a reintegration in the migrants’ home countries continue to live in the old urban enclaves, until they finally and definitely move back (or maybe not…). Additionally, the completion of the major development and infrastructural projects started in the end of 1960s and the early 1970s, the change in immigration policy, shifting from attractive to repulsive in the end of 1980s and the early 1990s (Zéphirin 2005), have consequences on urban structures of the sending or receiving countries. Also, the immigration impacts major urban centers or border cities in the neighboring

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

99

countries of French Guyana. In other words, the old French Guyanese side of the migration field, continues to attract new immigrants, who adopt a scattered and multipolar displacements (Zéphirin 2018), linking both the new and the old urban zonings with new immigrants’ trajectory strategies in diverse neighboring countries in the Americas. The new migration strategies diversely impact the urban settlements, as family reunification and transnational family formation enfold on different scattered urban–rural sites in the Americas. The inter-American multipolar migrants’ urban networks are linked to the initial migration field (of the pioneers) connecting diverse migrants’ sending countries as sub-systems within a broader system of migration space (Smith 2001; Zéphirin and Piantoni 2009; Zéphirin 2016). According to that evolution in the French Guyanese urbanizationmigration patterns, an alternative theoretical account is needed to problematically reframe the topic. As a result, urbanization-migration should be studied through the theoretical account of international multipolar migration system (Zéphirin 2018) producing a transnational urban network and geographical scales of people movements across the Americas. This new proposed multipolar migration system account overcomes the theoretical limitations of the bipolar (sending-receiving countries) in the migration field, inherent to the traditional so-called new economics of labor migration. The multipolar migration system account (Zéphirin 2016, 2018) fully seizes the complexity of urbanization-migration and return migration logics on various interconnected geographical scales. The old migration field (Simon 1985) approach is not theoretically equipped enough to face new challenges of integration and reintegration combined with the systemic interconnected various scales of territories of mobility and settlements. Moving from bipolar to multipolar migrations creates transnational network cities, new urban–rural territories and patterns of human settlements on geographical scales. Now, aside from blending the specific patterns of French Guyanese urbanization-migration with the wider theoretical literature on the topic, it matters to put in perspective and explore the problematic of political demography and urban governance in terms of national security, securitization, international relations, economic globalization, transnational migrations, territorial governance, sustainable development, network cities and city diplomacy in the Americas.

100

R. ZÉPHIRIN

Bibliography Domenach, H., & Guengant, J.-P. (1981, Octobre). Chômage et sous-emploi dans les DOM. Economie et statistique, 137, 3–23. Gurieva, L. K., & Dzhiooev, A. V. (2015, December). Economic Theories of Labor Migration. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(657), 101. Harris, J. R., & Todaro, M. P. (1970). Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis. The American Economic Review, 60(1), 126–142. He, C. (2013). Urbanization and Migration. In I. Ness (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration (pp. 1–4). Oxford: Blackwell. Krissman, F. (2005). Sin Coyote ni Patron: Why the Migrant Network Fails to Explain International Migration? International Migration Review—IMR, 39(1, Spring), 4–44. Ledent, J. (1982). Rural–Urban Migration, Urbanization, and Economic Development. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 30(3), 507–538. Lee, C. I. (2008). Migration and the Wage and Unemployment Gaps Between Urban and Non-Urban Sectors: A Dynamic General Equilibrium Reinterpretation of the Harris–Todaro Equilibrium. Labour Economics, 5(6), 1416–1434. Lerch, M. (2016). Internal and International Migration Across the Urban Hierarchy in Albania. Population Research and Policy Review, 35(6), 851–876. Lewis, W. A. (1954). Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour. The Manchester School, 22(2), 139–191. Massey, D. S. (1993). Theories of International Migration. Population and Development Review, 19(3), 431–466. Massey, D. S., Alarcon, R., Durand, J., & Gonzalez, H. (1987). Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press. Norton, W. (2007). Human Geography (6th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Piore, M. J. (1979). Birds and Passage: Migrant Labour and Industrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ravenstein, E. G. (1885). The Laws of Migration. Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 48(2), 167–235. Simon, G. (1985). L’espace des travailleurs tunisiens en France: structures et fonctionnement d’un champ migratoire international (G. Simon, Ed., 426p). Poitiers: Université de Poitiers. Smith, R. C. (2001). Current Dilemmas and Future Prospects of the InterAmerican Migration System. In A. R. Zolberg & P. M. Benda (Eds.), Global Migrants Global Refugees—Problems and Solutions (pp. 121–167). New York: Berghahn Books.

6

CONCLUSION : BLENDING THE SPECIFIC FRENCH GUYANESE’S …

101

Stark, O., & Bloom, D. E. (1985). The New Economics of Labour Migration. The American Economics Review, 75(2), 173–178. Stiglitz, J. E. (1974). Alternative Theories of Wage Determination and Unemployment in LDCs: The Labor Turnover Model. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 88(2), 194–227. Todaro, M. P. (1969). A Model of Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed Countries. The American Economic Review, 59(1), 138– 148. Zelinsky, W. (1971). The Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition. Geographical Review, 61(2), 219–249. Zéphirin, R. (2005). Le Champ migratoire haïtiano-guyanais: étude des causes et effets politiques, socio-économiques et spatiaux. – Multipolarité et réversibilité dans le système migratoire interaméricain. Thèse de Doctorat, Université AixMarseille III-IAR, Aix-en-Provence, France. Zéphirin, R. (2014). ‘Exploring Migrants’ Remittances in the UN Nation Building and Development Management in Haiti. Development in Practice, 24(3), 1–14. Zéphirin, R. (2016). Les réseaux de migrants haïtiano-guyanais dans l’espace américain. Avant-Propos de Mark J. Miller - Préface de Hervé Domenach. Paris: L’Harmattan. Collection “Questions Contemporaines”. Zéphirin, R. (2017). The Politics and Policy Implications of Widespread Immigrations in French Guyana. In S. Rodriquez (Ed.), Migrants: Public Attitudes, Challenges and Policy Implications (pp. 59–110). New York: NOVA Science Publishers. Collection “Immigration in the 21st Century: Political, Social and Economic Issues”. Zéphirin, R. (2018, June 1). ‘The Americas’ Multi-Polar Displacements as a New Pattern in Haitian-French Guyanese Migrations. International Migration Journal—IOM . Available online https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12470. Zéphirin, R., & Piantoni, F. (2009). Les stratégies d’accès au logement des Haïtiens dans l’agglomération de Cayenne Comme facteurs de restructuration urbaine. Revue L’Espace Politique, 6(3), 1–12. mai. En ligne. www.l’esp acepolitique.revues.org.

Index

A Affordable housing, 48, 51, 54, 55, 57 Age and sex structures of the population and demographic transition, 92 Age pyramid, 18, 21

B Basic needs, 49, 53, 82 Birth rates, 1, 3, 10, 14, 25, 81, 87 Border crossing, 15 Brazil, 6, 16, 30, 31, 37, 45, 86

C Cayenne agglomeration, 3, 5, 6, 30, 32, 38, 44–47, 55, 56, 63, 80, 82–84, 87, 91, 93, 94, 98 Civil society, 47, 59, 72, 84 Community and society, 30 Costs of needs, 53, 55

D Death rates, 1, 3, 9, 12, 19 Decentralization, 2, 54, 83, 95 Demographic change, 3, 5 Demographic engineering, 30, 36, 63, 70 Demographic explosion, 6, 34, 63, 80 Demographic growth, 5, 9, 30, 87 Demographic transition, 9, 18–21, 26, 87 Departmentalization, 36, 65–67, 82, 95 Development policy, 48 Discrimination, 34 E Economic development, 54, 80, 86, 92, 96, 97 Economic development policy, 7 Electorate, 84 Ethnic composition, 41 Ethnic diversity, 50 Ethno-cultural claim, 3, 40, 80–83, 86

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 R. Zéphirin, Political Demography and Urban Governance in French Guyana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3832-2

103

104

INDEX

Ethno-cultural practices, 83

F Fecundity, 21 Fertility, 11, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 26 Foreign policy, 4 France, 2, 4, 6, 12, 23, 26, 35, 36, 40, 49, 80, 83, 85, 86, 90, 95, 98 French Guyana, 1–6, 9–19, 22–24, 26, 29, 30, 34, 35, 37, 40, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 53–59, 66, 67, 71, 74, 80–87, 89–91, 93–95, 97–99 French overseas department, 2, 6, 48, 50, 54 French state, 4, 35, 46, 48, 50, 51, 53–55, 57, 58, 73, 81, 84

G Geopolitics, 6 Guyana, 10–20, 22, 24–26, 30–38, 40, 45, 48, 49, 53, 54, 64–66, 69, 71–74, 81, 85, 87, 98

H Haiti, 6, 10, 14–16, 18, 23, 30, 31, 37, 45, 85, 86 Human settlements, 7, 64, 83, 87, 89, 90, 99

I Immigration, 4–6, 9, 10, 14, 17–19, 21–23, 29, 30, 33–35, 37, 40, 66, 71, 73, 80, 81, 83, 85, 86, 92, 95, 96, 98 Immigration policy, 3, 4, 23, 30, 97, 98 Immigration society, 29, 32

Immigration-urbanization, 95, 97 Inclusive social policy, 40, 43, 48 Income expenditures, 43, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 83 Incrementalist public policy, 58, 59 Independence, 32, 35, 84, 85 Influxes and stocks, 30, 33 Infrastructural constructions, 2, 80, 81 Institutionalist public policy, 56, 82 Integration-reintegration, 30 Inter-American multipolar migration system, 99 Interethnic relations, 31 International migration network, 92, 93, 95 International migration theories, 87, 98

L Latin America, 2, 7, 84, 85 Local elections, 84 Local municipalities, 41, 54 Local politics, 30, 83

M Marriages, 17, 18, 24, 25 Migrant network, 37, 92 Migrant policy, 3, 30, 59 Migration field, 95, 98, 99 Migration patterns, 7 Migration project, 14 Migration-urbanization theories, 97 Mobility transition, 87, 89, 90 Multi-ethnic socio-political mobilization, 40

N Natural movement, 9, 14, 15 Need-based measurements, 55

INDEX

O Overseas department, 40 P Paradigm shift, 53–55, 83 Policy, 2, 4–6, 13, 23, 34–36, 39, 40, 43, 47–52, 54–59, 67, 68, 71–74, 80, 83, 84, 86, 90 Political consensus, 81 Political contention, 80, 81 Political demography, 1–7, 30, 33, 39, 40, 70, 71, 80–82, 84–86, 99 Political forces, 35, 37 Political incorporation, 32 Political map, 4, 5, 30, 37 Political participation, 39, 49 Political system, 2, 4, 35, 71, 73, 81, 84 Politics, 2, 4–6, 58, 80, 81, 84–86 Politics of scale and integration-reintegration, 99 Population composition, 30, 41 Population composition/recomposition, 2–6, 30, 58, 64, 85 Population distribution, 3–5, 30, 45 Population growth, 6, 9, 14, 15, 18, 30, 33, 34, 41, 57, 64, 67, 70, 80, 87 Population mosaic, 29, 80 Population policy, 33, 40, 70, 73, 74 Poverty and inequality, 3, 40, 48, 49, 52, 83 Poverty and inequality reduction strategy policy, 5, 43, 54–57, 59, 83 Poverty based measurement, 54 Public policy, 2–4, 6, 30, 43, 47, 56–58, 63, 64, 82–84, 92, 93 public policy efficiency and political geography, 3, 80

105

R Redistricting, 38 Repatriation and geopolitics, 18

S Self-segregated urban neighborhood, 50 Social and ethnic exclusion, 34 Social movements, 40 Social structure, 26, 29–31, 33, 58 Socioeconomic conditions, 26 Socio-sanitary infrastructures, 10 Socio-spatial movements, 37, 40 Socio-spatial structure, 58 Spatial distribution, 2–6, 29, 36, 40, 41, 46, 64, 70, 83, 89 Standard dwellings, 48 Substandard houses, 46, 47 Suriname, 6, 10, 15, 16, 30, 31, 37, 38, 45, 94

T Transnational migrations, 99

U Urban design, 74 Urban governance, 2, 5–7, 80, 82, 84, 86, 99 Urban governance and Cayenne agglomeration, 6 Urban hierarchy, 41, 71, 74, 87, 91, 93, 94 Urban housing policy and urban poverty reduction, 2, 58 Urban infrastructure, 98 Urbanization, 2, 5, 6, 12, 38, 45, 66, 67, 70–73, 82, 87, 92, 95, 97 Urban migration theories, 90, 97 Urban planning, 3, 4, 6, 12, 30, 58, 64, 67–69, 72, 82

106

INDEX

Urban politics, 86 Urban project, 64, 66–74 Urban public housing policy, 6, 71, 81 Urban relocation, 3, 6, 50, 58, 63, 87, 93 Urban schema of coherence, 84 Urban settlement, 2, 5, 32, 67, 98, 99

Urban structure, 5, 73, 89, 98 Urban territorial coherence project, 74 Urban zoning, 6, 98, 99

W Well-being, 49, 52, 59 Working-class, 50