Audrey Celestine Faculty Image

Audrey Célestine

Associate Professor of History (Institute of French Studies and History)

Education

Sciences Po Paris - MA (DEA) in Political Sociology and Public Policy, 2004
Sciences Po Paris - PhD in Political science, 2004-2009

Areas of Interest

Migration; memory; race and identity in France, the French Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe) and the United States, social movements, history and sociology.

Bio

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

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. 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.

Fellowships and Honors

  • 2020- Fellowships and Honors Member of the scientific council of the Centre National de la Musique/ Music National Agency in France
  • 2020- Member of the Memory and Transmission Commission of the City of Fort-de-France – Martinique
  • 2016-2021 Junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France
  • 2019- Member of the scientific council of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de l’Esclavage/ Foundation for the Memory of Slavery
  • 2018- Member of the scientific council of the Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration/ National Museum of the History of Immigration
  • 2013-2016 Member of the National Committee on the History and Memory of Slavery (Comité National pour l’Histoire et la Mémoire de l’Esclavage)
  • 2007 Talents de l’outre-mer Fellow, Casodom
  • 2006 George Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust Fellow (Fulbright Commision)
  • 2006 French Ministry of Foreign Affaires « Cultural Areas » Fellow
  • 2005-2008 Regional Council of Martinique Doctoral Fellow
  • 2005 Monique Fouet fellow of the International Association of University Women

Books

Selected Publications

  • Comment dire blackness en français ? Construire l’identité noire entre l’hexagone, la Martinique et les Etats-Unis 
    (How to say ‘Blackness’ in French. The Making of a Black Identity between Mainland France, Martinique and the United States
    Revue Française d’Etudes Américaines, 2023/1, n°74
  • Race migration. Transformation des identifications raciales en Martinique sous l’effet des migrations vers la France hexagonale
    (Race Migration. Migrations and The Transformation of Racial Identifications in Mainland France
    Critique Internationale, 2022/2, n°95
  • Yo soy Boricua! Travail identitaire et strategies d’élévation du groupe chez les Portoricains de New York
    Yo Soy Boricua! Identity work and Uplift Strategies of Puerto Ricans in New York
    Métropolitique, February 2022
  • In and Beyond the Field: Researching Black Lives Matter from France
    (with Nicolas Martin-Breteau)
    American Studies Journal, n°68
  • Entre bureaucratie et politique : cabinets et rapports de force intragouvernementaux sous Jean- Marc Ayrault et Manuel Valls
    (Between bureaucracy and politics: cabinets and intra-governmental power relations under Jean-Marc Ayrault and Manuel Valls) (with W. Beauvallet et A. Roger),
    Revue française d’administration publique, n°168, p.771-786
  • L’Etat outre-mer. La construction sociale et institutionnelle d’une spécificité ultramarine
    (The overseas state. The social and institutional construction of an ultramarine specificity) (with W. Beauvallet and A. Roger)
    Politix. Revue des sciences sociales du politique. 4/116
  • Introduction : the Lived Experiences of Black Selves
    (with S. Fila-Bakabadio)
    African and Black Diaspora : An International Journal
  • L’outre-mer à la croisée du national et du local. Construction, évolution et appropriations d’une catégorie sur trois terrains ultramarins 
    (The French Overseas Territories at the crossroads of the national and the local. Construction, evolution and appropriation of a category in three overseas territories) (with A. Roger)
    Terrains et travaux, n°24, pp.123-144