Professor Célestine is a historian and social scientist whose work focuses on migration, memory, race and identity in France, the French Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe) and the United States. Her first book, La Fabrique des Identités is a historical comparison of the collective trajectories of Puerto Ricans in New York and French Caribbeans in Paris since the mid-20th century. It was published in 2018 by Karthala and is currently being translated. She also published "Une famille française. Des Antilles à Dunkerque en passant par l'Algérie" (Textuel, 2018) on the impact of migration, exile, colonization, race and identity in the individual trajectories of 4 generations of an "ordinar" French family. Her latest book entitled Des Vies de Combat. Femmes, Noires et Libres, brings together portraits of Black women from the 19th to the 21st century.
New Faculty Spotlight
Audrey Célestine
Associate Professor of History
RECENT RESEARCH ENDEAVOURS
Currently, Professor Célestine is following two lines of research investigating circulations of people and ideas between the Americas and France. The first one is a collective project, funded by the French National Research Agency, on the policy of organized migration between Martinique, Guadeloupe to mainland France and its impact on public policies but also the families and professional trajectories of French Caribbeans (https://migrindom.hypotheses.org/). The second deals with the definitions and forms taken by "identity politics" in France, the U.S. and the French Caribbean. She is the deputy director of CIRESC, the research center on slavery and post-slavery (https://esclavages.cnrs.fr/).
FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS
2019-2024 : Research grant of the French National Research Agency
2016-2021: Junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France
BOOKS
2020, Des vies de combat. Femmes, noires et libres, Paris, L’Iconoclaste.
2018, La fabrique des identités. L’encadrement politique des minorités caribéennes à Paris et New York. Paris, Karthala.
2018, Une famille française. Des Antilles à Dunkerque en passant par l’Algérie. Paris, Textuel.