Melanie Bavaria

Melanie is a doctoral candidate at New York University in the History Department and the Institute of French Studies. She works on the French Antilles at the intersection of two orbits: that of the French empire under the Third Republic and of an interconnected and increasingly radical Black Caribbean. In exploring how Martinique and Guadeloupe shaped and were shaped by shared regional developments such as the expansion of U.S. imperialism, Caribbean labor migration, a declining sugar industry, and an active transimperial Black press, her research shows how Antilleans evaluated their political options and debated their futures as both participants in the Black Atlantic and French multicultural citizens. By doing do, Antilleans expanded the boundaries of their juridical status as French colonial citizens and the shape of their sense of national belonging.