Dany Bébel-Gisler
Photo: Île en île
Country: Guadeloupe
Location: Pointe-à-Pitre; Lamentin, Guadeloupe
ABOUT
Dany Bébel-Gisler (April 7, 1935 – September 28, 2003) was an Afro-Guadeloupean writer, linguist, activist and sociologist.
Biography by Jaedyn Griddine
Author, activist, sociolinguist and lifelong scholar, Dany Bébel-Gisler was a woman of many titles. She spent her life lifting up marginalized communities by validating their linguistic heritages and developing a greater understanding of Creole in academic spaces.
Dany was deeply connected to Guadeloupean history; she was raised on her grandfather’s sugarcane plantation in Pointe-à-Pitre by her father and mulatresse mother who worked on the land, which meant Dany lived amongst history. She would then go on to make history in her mother’s family as the first to earn her baccalauréat, the French equivalent to a high school diploma, for her classes préparatoires (prep classes) in Toulouse. She also earned an award, the Prix Spécial de Français, for her studies. In the 1960’s, she attended the École Normale Supérieure de Paris to study linguistics, sociology and ethnography; during this time, Dany also taught adult literacy groups in Paris, Nanterre and Aubervilliers to (particularly African) immigrants and working-class individuals.
These experiences mark the beginning of her work in Creole pedagogy; soon after, in 1976, she published her doctoral dissertation entitled ‘La langue créole, force jugulée: étude socio-linguistique des rapports de force entre le créole et le français aux Antilles’ [The Creole Language, Diminished Power: A socio-linguistic study of the balance of power between Creole and French in the Antilles]. This study problematized the standardization of French in French schools as a suppression of immigrant students’ ethnic identity and a promotion of social homogeneity. Instead of promoting Creole as an exclusive language for intellectual spaces, Dany sought to expand its use into classrooms for all ages as a second-language; her 1975 piece Kèk prinsip pou ékri kréyól also discusses this.
Photo © Thomas C. Spear. Retrieved from Île en île
Dany’s return to Guadeloupe in 1976 marked an expansion of her political activism; the Guadeloupean independence movement of the 1970’s-80’s was characterized by nationalist sentiments that embraced native culture, which included Creole. The language became a means of resistance against French assimilation and bolstered a sense of pride for the Guadelupean identity. Dany continued her educational work and, in 1979, founded the Centre d'Education Populaire Bwadoubout, funded by the French National Center for Scientific Research. She continued to theorize about Creole and Guadeloupean history, releasing her seminal book Léonora: l’histoire enfouie de la Guadeloupe [Léonara: The Buried History of Guadeloupe].
This book was conceptually rich; it can be classified as a testimonio, a very nuanced Latin-American style of testimonial literature. The book dissects the intersections of gender, socioeconomic status and language in Guadeloupe, uncovering how the use of the French language as a tool of socioeconomic oppression is gendered as well. Later down the road, her activism was recognized internationally, and she eventually led the Antilles branch of UNESCO’s La Route de l’Esclave [The Slave Route] project in 1996.
This project was an Africa, Europe and Caribbean-wide effort to uncover historical sites and monuments, and Dany helped uncover 18 within her region. She also released a number of books that parse through the legacy of slavery in the Antilles, including Grand'mère, ça commence où la Route de l'esclave? [Grandmother, where does the Slave Route begin?] in 1998, and À la recherche d’une odeur de grand’mère; D’en Guadeloupe une « enfant de la Dass » raconte… [In Search of Grandmother's Smell: Tales from a "child of the Dass" in Guadeloupe] in 2000. Until her death in 2003, Dany remained an intellectual champion of Guadeloupean culture.
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