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American Heritage Dictionary:
Mar·ti·nique |
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Martinique |
For more information on Martinique, visit Britannica.com.
Frommer's 500 Extraordinary Islands:
Martinique |
The local Carib Indians called the island Madinina—"The Flower Island"—and if you are here between February and May, you will see Martinique in full bloom. Everything, from bougainvillea and hibiscus to lotus, will be flowering amid dense, intensely green vegetation. Even Christopher Columbus, a man who'd been around the block a time or two, couldn't stop gushing: "This land is the best, the most fertile, the most gentle, and the most charming in the world. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. My eyes never tire of seeing such greenery," he wrote in 1502.
The second-largest island in the West Indies, the 1,101-sq.-km (425-sq.-mile) Martinique is blessed with a hot and humid tropical climate, abundant precipitation, and loamy volcanic soil—all the ingredients for a voluptuous garden ecosystem. The landscape is equally voluptuous, swooping and dipping between volcanic peaks and fertile valleys, a terrain embroidered with fields of sugar cane and pineapple and banana plantations. Two-thirds of the island is protected nature park.
Like many islands in the West Indies, Martinique was colonized by France centuries ago, and today is an overseas department and region of France. The island remains trés French: French is the official language (although you'll hear many people speaking a Creole patois), the place names are French, and the food is a delicious marriage of French and Creole cuisines. The French settled the island in 1635, growing sugar cane and importing slaves from Africa to work the plantations. (Reportedly, Christopher Columbus introduced sugar cane to Martinique. Now 12 varieties of sugar cane are grown on 3,035 hectares/7,500 acres of land to make rum agricole.) Today, southern Martinique has many of the most popular beaches and gets much of the tourist business, but northern Martinique looks as it might have when the French first arrived, a wild, untouched landscape of rainforest, black-sand beaches, sinuous rivers, waterfalls, and exotic flowers.
Gardens are everywhere on Martinique. Named for its balata gum trees, Le Jardin de Balata has hundreds of vivid floral plantings planted by Jean-Philippe Thoze on his grandmother's estate (☎ 596/596/64-48-73; www.jardindebalata.fr) . Thoze has also been transforming the creek gardens of Habitation Latouche (☎ 596/596/78-19-19; , in Carbet, a plantation estate whose mansion was destroyed in the horrific 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée, which killed 30,000 people and has been described as the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century. On the Céron Plantation (☎ 596/596/52-94-53; , you can dine in an alfresco restaurant overlooking the ruins of an old mill and beautiful grounds; land that once grew coffee, cocoa, and bananas now grows fields of avocados. The 13-hectare (32-acre) Clément Plantation (☎ 596/596/54-62-07); has a lovely 18th-century Creole plantation house and grounds holding more than 300 plant species. It also has a rum distillery, where you can take a tour and sample the wares.
A note for art lovers: Before there was Tahiti (read more), there was Martinique—for painter Paul Gauguin, that is, who lived here for several months where he was inspired to do some 12 paintings of the island and its people, particularly around Carbet, his favorite village. A man who appreciated lush landscapes and rich, saturated color, Gauguin was able to capture the island in full, voluptuous flower.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Martinique |
Land, People, and Economy
Of volcanic origin, the island is rugged and mountainous, reaching its greatest height in Mt. Pelée. The mainly Roman Catholic population is largely of African or mixed descent. French and a creole patois are spoken.
Most agriculture occurs in the hot valleys and along the coastal strips; a large part of this area is devoted to sugarcane, which was introduced from Brazil in 1654 and which provides one of Martinique's chief exports, rum. Bananas and pineapples are also important agricultural products. The island's industries consist mainly of petroleum refining, sugar and rum production, and pineapple canning. Tourism, which has eclipsed agriculture as a source of foreign exchange, constitutes a major sector of the economy, and the majority of the people work in the service sector or administration.
History
Visited by Columbus, probably in 1502, the island was ignored by the Spanish; colonization began in 1635, when the French, who had promised the native Caribs the western half of the island, established a settlement. The French proceeded to eliminate the Caribs and later imported African slaves as sugar plantation workers. In the 18th cent. Martinique's sugar exports made it one of France's most valuable colonies; although slavery was abolished in 1848, sugar continued to hold a dominant position in the economy. A target of dispute during the Anglo-French worldwide colonial struggles, Martinique was finally confirmed as a French possession after the Napoleonic wars. In 1902 an eruption of Mt. Pelée destroyed the town of St. Pierre.
Martinique supported the Vichy regime after France's collapse in World War II, but in 1943 a U.S. naval blockade forced the island to transfer its allegiance to the Free French. It became a department of France in 1946 and an administrative region in 1974. Although the island has recovered from the extensive damage caused by a hurricane in 1980, France has continued its attempts to improve the economic life of the Martinique, which is plagued by overpopulation and a lack of development. A referendum on increasing the island's autonomy was defeated in 2010, in part because the proposal did not specify the extent of the change.
Gale Dictionary of Psychoanalysis:
Martinique |
Psychoanalysis is a relatively recent activity in Martinique. West Indian intellectuals studying in Paris in the 1930s nevertheless showed an early interest in it. Martinican students could thus declare, in the review Légitime defense (Legitimate defense): "As for Freud, we are ready to use the immense machine for dissolving the bourgeois family that he set in motion."
The poetic works of Aimé Césaire began to be published in 1939 and were hailed by André Breton as "The greatest lyrical monument of our time [. . .] a general abdication of the mind." There is a definite influence of a Surrealist version of psychoanalysis on a poetic project that set as one of its major goals the exploration of the depths of the black psyche.
Frantz Fanon, the Martinican psychiatrist, criticized psychoanalysis in 1952. He claimed that Freud, Jung, and Adler had not thought of blacks in their research. Similarly, he saw the Oedipus complex as being impossible in West Indian families. For more than twenty years the complex conflicts surrounding decolonialization in the West Indies were to make Fanon's critique the breeding ground for resistance to psychoanalysis in the name of a cultural determinism with uncertain principles. The few people who took any interest in psychoanalysis had no more than a bookish knowledge of it.
The first psychoanalytically-informed work in Martinique began in 1973: interpreting children's drawings, a seminar directed by the French child psychiatrist Bernard Bousquet. But the true beginning of psychoanalysis in Martinique dates from 1974. It derived from the presence of a Swiss couple, Pierre and Lucette Stittelmann, two non-physician psychoanalysts. Shipwrecked on their way to the Trobriand Islands (Papua New Guinea), they had to land on the island. Their stay was extended until 1980. The Stittelmanns had been trained by and were members of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society (affiliated with the International Psychoanalytical Association [IPA]). They thus provided analysis, training and supervision for all who wished to become psychoanalysts.
In October 1975 the first psychoanalytic group came into being: the Groupe antillais de recherche, d'étude et de formation psychanalytique (GAREFP; The West Indian Group for Psychoanalytic Research, Study and Training), the founding members being Héliane Bourgeois and Luce Descoueyte, along with Mrs. Marcel Manquant and Mrs. Raymond Saint-Louis Augustin. From 1975 to 1980 this group worked to secure theoretical training of its members with analysts from the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, affiliated to the IPA. Among the members were Florence Guignard, Jean Bégoin, René Diatkine, and Michel Neyraut. There was also an initial collaboration with Roberto Fontaine of Venezuela for transactional analysis. Dr Mauriello, a Martinican psychoanalyst living in Quebec, also contributed to the effort.
Following the trauma occasioned by the departure of the Stittelmanns in 1980, the GAREFP developed a Lacanian orientation that increased with time, some of the founding members having decided to withdraw from the group.
December 1990, saw the birth of another association, the Forum, the founding members being Benedetta Jumpertz, Marcel Manquant, and Guillaume Suréna. It organized the first Martinican symposium on psychoanalysis in March 1991. It organizes training for its own members and is not affiliated with any external psychoanalytic associations. Its members come from various different backgrounds but it sees Freud's work as its cornerstone. In this sense it could be said to identify with the IPA orientation, although it is not a member.
The absence of West Indian doctors and academics is easily noticeable. Twenty-five years after the introduction of psychoanalysis, there were only two Martinican psychiatrists practicing psychoanalysis there and the two existing associations had been founded by non-physicians. Psychoanalysis has no direct influence on either the medical or the academic world. The paramedical and in the psycho-educational sectors have displayed a certain amount of interest.
As of 2005, psychoanalysis does not yet play any significant role in West Indian culture. It is not present in questions of national identity, literary debates, or political aspirations. Martinican psychoanalysis has not yet created distribution networks. A very small number of individuals have written clinical and theoretical papers but there has been no substantial contribution to psychoanalytic theory.
This psychoanalysis is evolving in isolation in relation to the Caribbean, like Martinique itself. There are a few practitioners in Guadeloupe, but no organized movement. Our ignorance of what is happening in English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries is proportionate to the divisions established by five centuries of European rivalry in the Caribbean.
In conclusion, we can say that psychoanalysis exists in Martinique in spite of all. Changes coming from the inside will probably ensure the development of fecund psychoanalytic thinking.
—GUILLAUME SURÉNA
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Geography:
Martinique |
Island in the eastern West Indies; an overseas part of France.
Dialing Code:
French Antilles (Martinique) |
The international dialing code for French Antilles (Martinique) is: 596
Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'Martinique' |
Rhymes:
Martinique |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Martinique |
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This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the French Wikipedia. (August 2009) Click [show] on the right for instructions.
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| Martinique | |||
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| — Overseas region of France — | |||
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| Country |  France |
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| Prefecture | Fort-de-France | ||
| Departments | 1 | ||
| Government | |||
| • President | Josette Manin | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 1,128 km2 (436 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2007-01-01)[1] | |||
| • Total | 397,730 | ||
| • Density | 352.60/km2 (913.2/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | ECT (UTC-04) | ||
| GDP/ Nominal | € 7.9 billion (2008)[2] | ||
| GDP per capita | € 19,607 (2008)[1] | ||
| NUTS Region | FR9 | ||
| Website | Prefecture, Region, Department | ||
Martinique (French pronunciation: [maʁtinik]) is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of 1,128 km2 (436 sq mi). Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados. As with the other overseas departments, Martinique is one of the twenty-seven regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the Republic. The first European to encounter the island was Christopher Columbus in 1502.
As part of France, Martinique is part of the European Union, and its currency is the Euro. Its official language is French, although many of its inhabitants also speak Antillean Creole (Créole Martiniquais).
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The island was occupied first by Arawaks, then by Caribs. It was charted by Columbus in 1493, but Spain had little interest in the territory. It was claimed by France in 1635 and, despite several interludes of British occupation, once during the Seven Years' War and twice during the Napoleonic Wars, has remained a French possession. In 1946, the French National Assembly voted unanimously to transform the colony into an overseas department.
The inhabitants of Martinique are French citizens with full political and legal rights. Martinique sends four deputies to the French National Assembly and two senators to the French Senate.
Martinique is divided into four arrondissements, 34 communes, and 45 cantons.
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To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may require rewriting and/or reformatting. The current version of the article was imported from the CIA World Factbook. Please discuss this issue on the talk page. Editing help is available. |
Location: Caribbean, island in the Caribbean Sea, north of St. Lucia and south of Dominica
Geographic coordinates: 14°40′N 61°00′W / 14.667°N 61°W
Map references: Central America and the Caribbean
Area:
total: 1,100 square kilometres (420 sq mi)
land: 1,060 square kilometres (410 sq mi)
water: 40 square kilometres (15 sq mi)
The north of the island is mountainous and lushly forested. It features four ensembles of pitons (volcanoes) and mornes (mountains): the Piton Conil on the extreme North, which dominates the Dominica Channel; Mount Pelée, an active volcano; the Morne Jacob; and the Pitons du Carbet, an ensemble of five extinct volcanoes covered with rainforest and dominating the Bay of Fort de France at 1,196 metres (3,924 ft).
The highest of the island's many mountains, at 1,397 metres (4,583 ft), is the famous volcano Mount Pelée. Its volcanic ash has created gray and black sand beaches in the north (in particular between Anse Ceron and Anse des Gallets), contrasting markedly from the white sands of Les Salines in the south.
The south is more easily traversed, though it still features some impressive geographic features. Because it is easier to travel and because of the many beaches and food facilities throughout this region, the south receives the bulk of the tourist traffic. The beaches from Pointe de Bout, through Diamant (which features right off the coast of Roche de Diamant), St. Luce, the continent of St. Anne and down to Les Salines are popular.
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To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may require rewriting and/or reformatting. The current version of the article was imported from the CIA World Factbook. Please discuss this issue on the talk page. Editing help is available. |
The economy of Martinique is based on trade. Agriculture accounts for about 6% of GDP and the small industrial sector for 11%. Sugar production has declined, with most of the sugarcane now used for the production of rum. Banana exports are increasing, going mostly to France. The bulk of meat, vegetable, and grain requirements must be imported, contributing to a chronic trade deficit that requires large annual transfers of aid from France. Tourism has become more important than agricultural exports as a source of foreign exchange. The majority of the work force is employed in the service sector and in administration.
Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport serves the island.
| 1700 estimate |
1738 estimate |
1848 estimate |
1869 estimate |
1873 estimate |
1878 estimate |
1883 estimate |
1888 estimate |
1893 estimate |
1900 estimate |
1954 census |
1961 census |
1967 census |
1974 census |
1982 census |
1990 census |
1999 census |
2006 census |
2007 estimate |
2008 estimate |
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| 24,000 | 74,000 | 120,400 | 152,925 | 157,805 | 162,861 | 167,119 | 175,863 | 189,599 | 203,781 | 239,130 | 292,062 | 320,030 | 324,832 | 328,566 | 359,572 | 381,427 | 397,732 | 400,000 | 402,000 |
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As an overseas département of France, Martinique's culture blends French and Caribbean influences. The city of Saint-Pierre (destroyed by a volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée), was often referred to as the "Paris of the Lesser Antilles". Following traditional French custom, many businesses close at midday to allow a lengthy lunch, then reopen later in the afternoon. The official language is French.
Many Martinicans speak Martiniquan Creole, a subdivision of Antillean Creole that is virtually identical to the varieties spoken in neighboring English-speaking islands of Saint Lucia and Dominica. Martiniquan Creole is based on French, Carib and African languages with elements of English, Spanish, and Portuguese. It continues to be used in oral storytelling traditions and other forms of speech and to a lesser extent in writing. Its use is predominant among friends and close family. Though it is normally not used in professional situations, members of the media and politicians have begun to use it more frequently as a way to redeem national identity and prevent cultural assimilation by mainland France. Indeed, unlike other varieties of French creole such as Mauritian Creole, Martinican Creole is not readily understood by speakers of Standard French due to significant differences in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation, though over the years it has progressively adapted features of Standard French
Most of Martinique's population is descended from enslaved Africans brought to work on sugar plantations during the colonial era, generally mixed with some French, Amerindian (Carib people), Indian (Tamil), Lebanese or Chinese ancestry. Between 5 and 10% of the population is of Indian (Tamil) origin. The island also boasts a small Syro-Lebanese community, a small but increasing Chinese community, and the Béké community, descendants of European ethnic groups of the first French and British settlers, who still dominate parts of the agricultural and trade sectors of the economy. Whites represent 5% of the population.[3]
The Béké people (which totals around 5,000 people in the island, most of them of aristocratic origin by birth or after buying the title) generally live in mansions on the Atlantic coast of the island (mostly in the François - Cap Est district). In addition to the island population, the island hosts a metropolitan French community, most of which lives on the island on a temporary basis (generally from 3 to 5 years).
There are an estimated 260,000 people of Martiniquan origin living in mainland France, most of them in the Paris region.
Today, the island enjoys a higher standard of living than most other Caribbean countries. French products are easily available, from Chanel fashions to Limoges porcelain. Studying in the métropole (mainland France, especially Paris) is common for young adults. Martinique has been a vacation hotspot for many years, attracting both upper-class French and more budget-conscious travelers.
Martinique has a hybrid cuisine, mixing elements of African, French, Carib Amerindian and South Asian traditions. One of its most famous dishes is the Colombo (compare Tamil word kuzhambu for gravy or broth), a unique curry of chicken (curry chicken), meat or fish with vegetables, spiced with a distinctive masala of Tamil origins, sparked with tamarind, and often containing wine, coconut milk, cassava and rum. A strong tradition of Martiniquan desserts and cakes incorporate pineapple, rum, and a wide range of local ingredients.
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Coordinates: 14°40′N 61°00′W / 14.667°N 61°W
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Translations:
Martinique |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - Martinique
Français (French)
n. - Martinique
Deutsch (German)
n. - Martinique
Português (Portuguese)
n. - Martinique
Español (Spanish)
n. - Martinica
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
马提尼克
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 馬丁尼克
한국어 (Korean)
마티니크 (카리브해에 있는 프랑스의 섬)
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 | Mart. (abbreviation) |
| .mq (abbreviation) |
| French West Indies (French overseas departments of Guadeloupe) |
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Copyrights:
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Frommer's 500 Extraordinary Islands. Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Gale Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Copyright © 2005 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Geography. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Random House Word Menu. © 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier. Write Brothers Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Rhymes. Oxford University Press. © 2006, 2007 All rights reserved. Read more | |
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| Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Martinique. Read more |
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