Éditeur(s) : Université des Antilles Études caribéennes
Résumé : La prostitution est une problématique très intéressante d’une part parce qu’elle est transversale à tous les temps, à toutes les classes sociales, à tous les espaces, et d’autre part parce qu’il s’agit d’un fléau qui se conjugue le plus souvent au féminin. Il s’agit à mon sens du versant spécifique d’une problématique universelle dont personne ne peut s’affranchir sans mettre en jeu l’ensemble de la condition humaine. En effet, la prostitution est le lieu où convergent et se concentrent de façon exacerbée tous les maux d’une société. La femme est malgré elle au centre de ce système dans lequel on retrouve les frustrations, les rapports de domination, de pouvoir, la violence, la misère, la corruption, l’aliénation… La prostitution, tout comme le concept de genre, est une construction sociale, dans laquelle les femmes sont enfermées réellement et symboliquement.D’autre part, si les maux d’une société sont décuplés dans le système de la prostitution, nulle part ailleurs n’existe un tel abîme entre fantasme et réalité. C’est le lieu des fausses représentations et des euphémismes comme le montrent ces deux expressions édulcorées « zones de tolérance » et « femmes publiques ». A Cuba, malgré les tentatives d’éradication de la prostitution dans les premières décennies qui suivirent le triomphe de la Révolution de 1959, la chute du bloc soviétique et la période de pénurie qui s’ensuivit donnèrent lieu à un retour de cette prostitution, sous de nouvelles formes qui persistent aujourd’hui. Cependant, il fut une époque, celle de la première République (1902-1958) durant laquelle Cuba, rongée par un système néocolonial, connût une recrudescence de ce phénomène, dans des proportions jamais égalées. Une époque somme toute récente où les zones de tolérance, espaces où étaient regroupées les maisons closes, occupaient une grande partie de La Havane coloniale ainsi que des quartiers entiers à travers l’île. A l’intérieur de ces zones très lucratives dont profitaient à la fois les proxénètes, policiers, politiques et hommes d’affaires, les femmes cubaines, mais également, dans une grande proportion des Françaises victimes de la traite des Blanches, se trouvaient au cœur d’un système qui étaient à lui seul le symptôme de la frustration néocoloniale, mais également de l’exacerbation du patriarcat.Cette problématique, on ne peut plus actuelle, convoque la pluridisciplinarité, c’est pourquoi j’ai eu recours à des témoignages de prostituées depuis le début du siècle jusqu’à la Révolution, recueillis et publiés à Cuba. Je me suis penchée sur les différents discours sur la prostitution de l’époque, discours politiques et féministes. Les rapports de police, les plaintes déposées par des femmes, les comptes rendus de procès, et les descriptions des médecins-hygiénistes sont autant de sources qui viennent corroborer les témoignages.
The republican era in Cuba is a complex and difficult one for the Cuban population. 1898 remains engraved in people’s memories as being a time of great disillusion for a population who, having freed itself from Spanish colonial domination, was deprived of independence by the United States of America. Three years of American intervention sufficed to put power bases into place, guarantee maximal exploitation conditions and organize the legal framework of the American domination over Cuba by means of the Platt Amendment in 1901. The protectorate set up by the United States, followed by a neocolonial system in 1934, relies upon the collaboration of presidents and corrupt governments succeeding each other in power. Corruption, nepotism and violence are put in place in a society in which inequality is dramatically worsening and all moral values are disintegrating. In this context and in a Cuban society governed with patriarchal rules, women are the first victims of the system. After the wars of independence, the only options they have are marriage, work or prostitution. Legitimate marriage is only available to a privileged few. With regards to employment, only 9.8% of women have the opportunity to work and this percentage didn’t change until 1959. It was at this time that prostitution reached unprecedented levels. It wasn’t just the case of a few marginalized women but of thousands of mothers, wives, widows and working women who were trapped in this alienating condition, forced to sell their bodies. Legislation and violence are used to control and restrict the work space for prostitutes, removing these ‘streetwalkers’ from the public eye, grouping them together in tolerance zones with very strict rules, which are in reality in the hands of Cuban and French procurers, and subjecting them to constant inspections carried out by hygienists who physically and symbolically assault women’s bodies. What is more, speeches about prostitution, whether made by politicians, feminists, journalists, doctors or mere observers, contribute significantly to a certain representation of these women. While debates about prostitution have recently shaken public opinion, this work refers back to an episode of Cuba’s history which brings us to reflect upon the evolution of the phenomenon and on its protean nature.
Cuba

Droits : info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
urn:doi:10.4000/etudescaribeennes.6945
http://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/6945

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Ecological Society of America
Résumé : We investigated the relationship between habitat association and physiological performance in four congeneric species pairs exhibiting contrasting distributions between seasonally flooded and terra firme habitats in lowland tropical rain forests of French Guiana, including Virola and Iryanthera (Myristicaceae), Symphonia (Clusiaceae), and Eperua (Caesalpiniaceae). We analyzed 10-year data sets of mapped and measured saplings (stems 150 cm in height and <10 cm diameter at breast height [dbh]) and trees (stems 10 cm dbh) across 37.5 ha of permanent plots covering a 300-ha zone, within which seasonally flooded areas (where the water table never descends below 1 m) have been mapped. Additionally, we tested the response of growth, survival, and leaf functional traits of these species to drought and flood stress in a controlled experiment. We tested for habitat preference using a modification of the torus translation method. Strong contrasting associations of the species pairs of Iryanthera, Virola, and Symphonia were observed at the sapling stage, and these associations strengthened for the tree stage. Neither species of Eperua was significantly associated with flooded habitats at the sapling stage, but E. falcata was significantly and positively associated with flooded forests at the tree stage, and trees of E. grandiflora were found almost exclusively in nonflooded habitats. Differential performance provided limited explanatory support for the observed habitat associations, with only congeners of Iryanthera exhibiting divergent sapling survival and tree growth. Seedlings of species associated with flooded forest tended to have higher photosynthetic capacity than their congeners at field capacity. In addition, they tended to have the largest reductions in leaf gas exchange and growth rate in response to experimental drought stress and the least reductions in response to experimental inundation. The corroboration of habitat association with differences in functional traits and, to a lesser extent, measures of performance provides an explanation for the regional coexistence of these species pairs. We suggest that specialization to seasonally flooded habitats may explain patterns of adaptive radiation in many tropical tree genera and thereby provide a substantial contribution to regional tree diversity.
ISSN: 0012-9658

hal-01031746
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01031746