“Essentially cyclonic:” Race, gender, and disaster in modern mauritius

“Essentially Cyclonic” argues that tropical cyclones were a constituent and proportional force for historical change in twentieth century Mauritius. Whether as moments of acute catastrophe and as specters of future destruction, this dissertation shows that landfalling storms, the months of reconstruction efforts that followed, and the policies meant to mitigate cyclones’ effects were moments and processes that shaped ideas about racial belonging, gendered personhood, and diasporic community. Drawing upon French, English, and Mauritian Creole-language sources ranging from meteorological and soil studies, to oral histories collected in Mauritius, popular newspapers, songs, and the papers of state bureaucracies, this dissertation shows that these storms transformed the lives of everyday Mauritians: they changed how small Indo-Mauritian agriculturalists planted sugar, where Afro-descendant Mauritians lived, and how the late-colonial state surveilled women’s bodies in response to Malthusian anxieties over population control and ecological stability.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Rouphail, Robert M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Brennan, James
• Burton, Antoinette
• Barnes, Teresa
• Wilson, Roderick
• Allen, Richard

• African History
• Indian Ocean History
• Environmental History
• Mauritius

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Robert Rouphail

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105602

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105602