1. Marronage and the politics of heritage in postcolonial Mauritius

Uninhabited until European settlement, Mauritius was shaped by layered histories of forced and voluntary migration during three successive colonial periods: Dutch (1638), French (1715), and British (1810). After independence, the multicultural model came to be shaped by communalism, a common political phenomenon in South Asia, referring to tensions structured around ethnic identity through which majorities assert hegemony.Footnote ⁷ The Franco-Mauritian minority elite maintained economic power, while the Indo-Mauritian majority assumed political power. Rather than instituting a new governance framework post-independence, the Indo-Mauritian political elite maintained the British-drafted constitution and electoral process, perpetuating colonial-era demographic classifications based on race and religion. In the 1972 census, the diverse Mauritian population was reduced to a set of ethnic categories—Hindu, Muslim, Sino-Mauritian, and the General Population. The General Population category includes Creoles and the Franco-Mauritian minority, and is often critiqued as a residual classification that delegitimizes those who cannot be placed within the other diasporic groups, particularly those of African and mixed ancestry.Footnote ⁸ This ethnically stratified system reinforces differences by privileging diasporic identities over hybrid identities within a multicultural model promoted as “unity in diversity.”Footnote ⁹ In a landscape of competing claims to legitimacy and belonging, shaped by the enduring stigma of slavery and by pigmentocratic, racial, and ethnic hierarchies, the Creole population remains marginalized and stigmatized. It is within this contested terrain that maroon heritage emerged as both a cultural resource and a political strategy.Footnote ¹⁰

By definition, maroons were enslaved people who escaped from plantations, rejected subjugation, and often found refuge in hostile and isolated environments. No slaveholding society was immune to maroon resistance, including Mauritius. Marronage has traditionally been understood as physical flight from the plantation, and some maroon communities were able to survive at the margins of colonial settlements through treaties and agreements with colonial authorities.Footnote ¹¹ Contemporary maroon societies still exist in Jamaica, Suriname, and Guyana. Although some confine maroon practices to the legal conditions of slavery, thereby treating marronage as having ended with abolition or as limited to communities with pre-abolition maroon origins, Bledsoe argues for its contemporary relevance and imperative.Footnote ¹² He argues that if legacies of slavery persist materially and ideologically, then “marronage becomes a social and spatial praxis that not only can continue to emerge today, but must necessarily do so.”

The rebellious and emancipatory nature of marronage has played an essential role in the cultural, political, and intellectual imaginaries of many post-colonies after independence. From the maroon monuments in Suriname and Guyana to “Nanny of the Maroons” printed on the five-hundred Jamaican dollar bill, these examples illustrate how maroon heritage was incorporated into national symbols and landmarks for the reclamation of history, memory, and identity.Footnote ¹³ In postcolonial Mauritius, evoking maroon heritage across oral history, literature, music, and political discourse to commemorate the history of resilience has been a powerful counter-hegemonic narrative to reclaim silenced histories and foster an empowered identity, particularly among those who identify with enslaved descent.Footnote ¹⁴ In the early 2000s, Creole organizations actively invoked maroon legacies to celebrate community achievements, presenting them as rooted in ancestral strength, while others interpreted the persistent structural marginalization of Creoles as a continuation of maroon struggles in the contemporary context.Footnote ¹⁵ Le Morne’s UNESCO inscription is arguably the most significant heritage project implemented in Mauritius to commemorate maroon heritage. However, the extent to which the heritage project uplifted the communities within the cultural landscape raises questions about how maroon legacy is leveraged, and for whose benefit, within contemporary heritage economies.

2. Symbolic recognition but structural marginalization

Located on the southwestern coast, Le Morne Brabant has long been recognized as a historic maroon hideout in collective memory. According to a local but disputed legend, a group of maroons were pursued by soldiers on Le Morne in 1835 and made the fateful decision to jump off the mountain’s cliffs. Unaware that the troops were coming to announce the abolition of slavery, the maroons tragically chose death over re-enslavement. The mountain gained renewed public attention in 1999, when cultural intellectuals, historians, and Creole civil society organizations opposed a proposed cable car project on the mountain. Efforts to protect the mountain were led by organizations such as the Rassemblement des Organisations Créoles (ROC), L’Association Socioculturelle Rastafari (ASCR), Mouvman Militan Kreol Afrikin (MMKA), and Plateforme Patriotique Pou Sov Le Morn.

Le Morne’s UNESCO inscription in 2008 unfolded within a broader political landscape shaped by local debates about Mauritian identity and emerging global interest among state and non-state actors in the heritage–development nexus, according to UNESCO’s 1980s conceptualization of heritage.Footnote ¹⁶ In many postcolonial states, heritage-making was embedded within nation-building agendas as cultural heritage was increasingly framed as a key instrument for fostering collective identity and national unity.Footnote ¹⁷ From the late 1990s to the early 2000s in Mauritius, growing interrogations of Creole identity and the influence of Hindu nationalism influenced many heritage projects and the emergence of cultural institutions.Footnote ¹⁸ This period was further marked by the state’s attempt to appease ethnic tensions following the 1999 riots triggered by the death of the Creole artist Kaya while in police custody.Footnote ¹⁹ To many, Kaya was seen as a symbol of anti-colonial resistance, resisting through music as a form of marronage.Footnote ²⁰ His lyrics called upon Mauritians to build solidarity to contest ethnic divisions, systemic racism, and state violence.Footnote ²¹ His legacy, and the unrest that followed, exposed the hypocrisy behind the Mauritian myth of the “rainbow nation.” Riots quickly spread across the island as Creoles saw Kaya’s death as yet another example of anti-Black state violence.Footnote ²² Among efforts to address social injustice, civil society and cultural leaders argued that repeated claims of Creole victimhood reproduced marginalization, prompting efforts to reframe the history of slavery from narratives of victimhood to narratives of resistance through a focus on maroon legacy.Footnote ²³

However, the state’s approach to Le Morne’s UNESCO inscription reflected a narrative of closure rather than an engagement with the more divisive aspects of colonial history and legacies.Footnote ²⁴ At the same time that debates around Le Morne were intensifying, the state submitted an application to UNESCO to recognize Aapravasi Ghat—the immigration depot in Port Louis—as a WHS, commemorating the “beginning” of Indian immigration to Mauritius.Footnote ²⁵ According to Swift, although Aapravasi Ghat had been promoted as an important site for Indo-Mauritians since the visit of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1970, it was not until a series of state-led awareness-raising initiatives during the UNESCO nomination process that it was transformed into a “cultural property” of the Indian diaspora.Footnote ²⁶ The application for Aapravasi Ghat was submitted in 2005, and the site was inscribed in 2006. Many within the Creole community perceived the rapid nomination of Aapravasi Ghat as a strategy to divert attention from the growing Creole struggle, to appease the Indo-Mauritian majority, and to consolidate the legitimacy of Indo-Mauritians within the heritage landscape.Footnote ²⁷

In this process, two distinct diasporic memories were incorporated into the national cultural landscape: Le Morne, a symbol of marronage, became associated with Creole communities and slavery, while Aapravasi Ghat, representing the history of indentured labor, was constructed as an emblem of Indian heritage. This dual inscription aligned with rising Hindu nationalist inclinations, which sought to distance Indo-Mauritians from Creole identity by disassociating their ethnic group’s history with slavery.Footnote ²⁸ Heritage-making, in this case, reinforced a state-led narrative of multicultural governance that reproduces ethnic difference by erasing intersecting and heterogeneous histories and identities, functioning as an essential strategy for sustaining ethno-racial divisions and hierarchies.

Le Morne’s UNESCO inscription also served state objectives by leveraging the heritage project for economic interests. By nominating it as a “mixed” site—both cultural and touristic—the Mauritian government sought to capitalize on its commercial value through cultural tourism.Footnote ²⁹ Since independence, tourism has replaced sugar as a key economic pillar, but the prevailing model of enclave tourism—marked by exclusive, all-inclusive resorts—has placed growing pressure on coastal resources. Recognizing the need to diversify the tourism sector, the National Development Plan of 1992–1994 put forward by the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, advocated for inland activities and cultural tourism.Footnote ³⁰ As an alternative, environmentally friendly and “Creole-style” activities were suggested for the southwest regions of Le Morne, Chamarel, and La Gaulette. These proposals were shaped by international development agendas that increasingly positioned culture as a driver of economic growth. During the United Nations’ World Decade for Cultural Development (1988–1997), particular emphasis was placed on cultural tourism as a development strategy for Global South countries, promoted as a profitable, low-cost industry capable of generating income and employment.Footnote ³¹ In this context, cultural initiatives were not only about heritage-making, but also about tapping into global markets under the guise of sustainable development. Such intersecting cultural-economic strategies could operate within the ethnically structured political framework, in which heritage became both a tool for balancing recognition across communal identities and an economic asset.

By the early 2000s, tourism developers were already experimenting with the commercial potential of heritage narratives to attract “conscious” or “ethical” tourists. Historical or cultural value came to signify prestige, as seen in projects like the Heritage Golf and Spa Resort, developed on Bel Ombre sugar estate.Footnote ³² Le Morne and the neighboring mountain of Chamarel, valued for their picturesque landscapes and cultural aesthetic of “Creole authenticity,” quickly became targets for tourism-led development. Prior to Le Morne’s UNESCO inscription, two major tourism projects had already provoked local resistance: in 1998, Les Pavillons Hotel was prevented from appropriating a large section of the public beach, and in 1999, as mentioned earlier, a proposed cable car project was halted following community-led protest.Footnote ³³

Integral to the Le Morne heritage project, Le Morne Heritage Trust Fund (LMHTF) was established in 2004 to manage the cultural landscape and support the strengthening of economic development objectives in the village, given the residents’ central role in the site’s cultural value. The Local Development Plan for Le Morne 2011 outlined ambitious initiatives to address poverty reduction and infrastructural development in Le Morne village, alongside heritage preservation and environmental management of the site.Footnote ³⁴ While the UNESCO status has contributed to protecting the mountain’s core zone from further development, the surrounding areas have seen a proliferation of eco-tourism ventures. Today, Le Morne is marketed as a destination for the “conscious” tourist, with resorts capitalizing on the region’s cultural and historical significance through curated “authentic” experiences, including hikes, recreational boat trips, eco-activities, and traditional Creole cuisine. Beyond resort-based tourism, Le Morne has also been transformed into a global sport tourism destination for activities such as kitesurfing and windsurfing, with water sports schools often operating in collaboration with resorts.

While these diversified forms of tourism expand Le Morne’s visibility, the benefits are unevenly distributed. Communities in Le Morne and the broader southwest coastline remain among the most marginalized and stigmatized in Mauritius, partly due to the high concentration of social housing estates and informal settlements (locally known as cités), largely inhabited by Creole populations.Footnote ³⁵ From sugar estate camps to ghettoized housing, Couacaud traces how successive land reforms displaced Creole communities in the southwest—many of whom did not own land—a process which was compounded by decades of state neglect, economic exclusion, and uneven development. Couacaud also notes that low rainfall levels, geographical remoteness, and land scarcity linked to the region’s mountainous landscape have historically constrained economic development and limited inhabitants’ ability to purchase land.Footnote ³⁶ Ironically, it is precisely this mountainous coastal landscape that contributes to the region’s ecological distinctiveness within Mauritius, making it particularly valuable for tourism ventures.

In Le Morne, more than 2,000 people live in precarious conditions marked by recurring water shortages, limited public transportation, inadequate health services, and the expansion of informal settlements.Footnote ³⁷ Couacaud further suggests that the stigmatization of these neighborhoods is shaped not only by material conditions, but also by their racialized association with Creoles.Footnote ³⁸ These conditions point to the limits of heritage-making projects when they are not aligned with reparative justice. The stark contrast between luxury hotels, gated communities, and ghettoized neighborhoods along the southwest coast exposes the intersecting colonial legacies across racial, political, economic, and spatial relations.

3. Heritage: A place, a tradition, or the community?

The historical injustices faced by Le Morne’s inhabitants are rooted in what Teelock calls patterns of “cultural dispossession” and a “heritage of displacement” that have shaped the broader southwest region, including L’Embrazure/Le Cap, Coteau Raffin/La Gaulette, and Case Noyale/Chamarel.Footnote ³⁹ According to oral histories and archival sources, the main historical populations in these areas include enslaved people, free Colored populations, French settlers, and later Marathi indentured laborers.Footnote ⁴⁰ Intermarriage was not uncommon among the laboring class, and many families remain interrelated today.Footnote ⁴¹ Before 1945, the original settlement of Le Morne village was located in Trou Chenille. After a cyclone destroyed the village in 1945, the landowner, Mr. Cambier, displaced the inhabitants to La Boisière to reclaim his lands. A second displacement occurred after Cyclone Carol in 1960, when the community was again forced to relocate, with some settling in present-day Le Morne village and others in Coteau Raffin, L’Embrazure, Dilo Pouri, Danzak, La Gaulette, Case Noyale, and Chamarel.

These repeated displacements remain a painful memory of older generations, particularly due to the enclosure of lands previously used for subsistence activities.Footnote ⁴² Old footpaths formerly allowed residents to engage in economic exchange and social interaction.Footnote ⁴³ Storytelling, culinary traditions, medicinal practices, music, and semi-autonomous lifestyles fostered shared social practices across intertwined geographies. Le Morne village is also known for its role in the revitalization of Mauritian sega. In earlier periods, dancers, musicians, storytellers, and brewers in Le Morne attracted visitors from neighboring villages on weekends.Footnote ⁴⁴ In 1964, Le Morne hosted the first folk music event in the Indian Ocean, bringing together more than 300 artists.Footnote ⁴⁵

The cultural production that emerged from the community’s relationship with the land is integral to the UNESCO application dossier and central to its justification. Under Criteria III, IV, and VI, the dossier recognizes the evolution of a “slave-related” culture within Le Morne’s landscape.Footnote ⁴⁶ Researchers who worked on the dossier quote Article 2 of UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to contextualize Le Morne’s intangible cultural heritage as such: “transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.”Footnote ⁴⁷ Through this lens, continuity and transmission become as important as the site itself, if not more so, with the communities surrounding the heritage site presented as a constitutive element of the cultural landscape, whether as direct descendants of enslaved people or maroons, or as cultural guardians of that heritage.

In 2011, the Truth & Justice Commission (TJC) recognized the intrinsic connection between the semi-autonomous ways of life, cultural practices, and intersecting geographies at the heart of Le Morne’s intangible heritage. Established in 2009, the TJC was one outcome that emerged from the intensifying debates on colonial legacies in the early twenty-first century. Its mandate was to investigate the historical structural inequalities stemming from slavery and indentured labor and to propose measures for reparations. Overseen by Alex Boraine of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the TJC submitted a comprehensive six-volume report to the state in 2011, containing over 300 recommendations. Following its submission, the state was expected to spend three years evaluating and implementing the recommendations.

The Commission recommended that residents of Le Morne and surrounding areas be granted agricultural land that would be jointly owned for subsistence activities to enhance autonomy and strengthen economic development.Footnote ⁴⁸ The recommendations stated that the principles of restorative justice must be applied to Le Morne village through reparations in the form of land, considering the historical structural inequalities and repeated displacements experienced by the community. Land dispossession and the failure of land reform have been contentious topics of debate since independence, and they were revived by the TJC. However, the difficulty of addressing the recommendations due to diverging views on reparations and their complex legal dimensions has been highlighted, as has the limited implementation of substantial structural changes following its publication.Footnote ⁴⁹ A few cases of land dispossession were brought to court but proved difficult to settle. The only notable initiative was the opening of the Intercontinental Slavery Museum in 2020. The issue of land dispossession remains a lingering trauma among many Mauritians, especially in Creole communities.Footnote ⁵⁰

In 2014, a land dispute emerged between some residents and a private landowner in Le Morne village. Over the past decades, overcrowding in the village had become a persistent issue, with expansion severely constrained by its location—locked between privately owned land and the sea. Given the growing population and limited space for expansion, approximately 200 families began occupying land behind the village.Footnote ⁵¹ In the same year, the private landowner announced plans for a real estate project and demanded that the informal settlers vacate the land.Footnote ⁵²

Residents submitted appeals to the state contesting their displacement and claiming ancestral rights to the land, arguing that their ancestors had previously cultivated it. The Local Economic Development Plan (LED Plan), conducted by LMHTF in 2010, had already identified skewed land ownership and land scarcity as cross-cutting obstacles impacting food security and the village’s local economy. The report confirmed that older generations had cultivated the land behind the village and that former Prime Minister Seewoosagur Ramgoolam had promised to grant them the land.Footnote ⁵³ LMHTF’s unpublished LED Plan for 2014-2019 also identified access to land as essential to improving living conditions.

In 2015, the court ruled in favor of the landowner and issued an eviction order against the informal settlers. According to activist organizations such as Kolektif Vilaz Morne (KVM), these displacements violated the very cultural values for which Le Morne had been recognized and posed a serious threat to its intangible heritage.Footnote ⁵⁴ The eco-socialist party Rezistans ek Alternativ (ReA) joined KVM’s campaign, arguing that the situation provided an opportunity for the state to implement the TJC recommendations. In 2019, KVM and ReA submitted a second petition to the Housing and Land Use Planning Minister, demanding state intervention in the land struggle.Footnote ⁵⁵ Another petition was submitted in 2020, copied to the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Arts and Cultural Heritage, LMHTF, and other state actors.Footnote ⁵⁶

After repeated unsuccessful appeals to the state, KVM and ReA turned to UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in 2022, submitting a letter urging these international bodies to intervene with the Mauritian state on behalf of Le Morne’s residents. The letter emphasized the residents’ legitimate claims to the land, asserting their integral role within the cultural landscape. As stated in the letter:

No response was received from UNESCO and ICOMOS. The eviction order was upheld, and the police were sent on-site in May 2022 to carry out the forced removals of inhabitants.Footnote ⁵⁸ ReA has been part of the government since the 2024 Mauritian general election, after joining the Alliance for Change political coalition. Although one of their conditions for joining the coalition was a review of the TJC recommendations, no updates have been issued regarding the land dispute. The sequence of events reveals the limits of heritage governance, where international recognition does not translate into local accountability.

Since Le Morne’s UNESCO inscription, the state has organized several annual ceremonies in Le Morne to commemorate the abolition of slavery. Many residents still refuse to attend, as they view the ceremonies as empty symbolic acts.Footnote ⁵⁹ Civil society groups and activists often criticize the state-sponsored festivities, stating that they serve as token gestures aimed at electoral gain. These groups and activists thus reiterate the need to address reparations for colonial legacies.Footnote ⁶⁰ In 2021, the non-governmental organization (NGO) Groupe Réflexion Emmanuel Anquetil (GREA) described the festivities as follows: “Enn kote, ena tam-tam, lot kote mizer nwar,” meaning, “celebration on one side and black misery on the other side.”Footnote ⁶¹ Contested public perceptions of annual state-led commemorations are also reflected in social media discourse, where users express a range of views—from support for state initiatives to critiques of their political performance, and, at times, the articulation of communalist and anti-Black sentiments.Footnote ⁶²

The paradox of the heritage project in Le Morne lies in its global recognition as a symbol of anti-colonial resistance, contrasted with the persistence of colonial legacies on the ground. Legitimate beneficiaries of the heritage project are left behind despite national and international guidelines on the management of the site that emphasize the need to center local communities. The state’s inaction reflects a broader reluctance to engage with historic legacies and the enduring power of elite landowners in Mauritius. Instead of advancing a decolonial framework, heritage-making provided a performative narrative through which the state enacts reconciliation and reinforces Mauritius’ international image as a successful multicultural society. While some residents initially “played the political game” in hopes of overcoming economic exclusion, many were already skeptical about whether these heritage initiatives would bring tangible benefits. As captured by a resident of Le Morne 20 years ago: “Ou capave mange patrimoine ou?” (“Can you eat heritage?”).Footnote ⁶³

Despite Le Morne’s application dossier acknowledging the socio-ecological relationships that shape intangible heritage, in practice, the concept of cultural landscape has been reduced to the mountain itself. Boswell cautioned in 2006 that such reductive framing of heritage risks erasing the entangled significance of the sea, forests, and intergenerational social relations central to heterogeneous Creole identities, histories, and memory.Footnote ⁶⁴ The ongoing alienation of local communities from their land, coupled with the silencing of their voices, calls for a deeper interrogation of the state’s underlying agenda and invites critical reflection on how heritage is defined, managed, and contested in Mauritius.

More importantly, communities in Le Morne are not mere bystanders in the politicization of their cultural landscape. They mobilize and actively reclaim ownership of their identity and heritage. How, then, might their resistance be interpreted other than as evidence of the enduring relevance of maroon heritage in a postcolonial context—a framework that must continue confronting structures reproduced by the state and economic elites?

4. Maroon-inspired experiences for the conscious tourist

What began as a subaltern struggle—most notably civil society mobilizations to protect Le Morne mountain from real estate development—has since been appropriated by state and non-state actors, particularly to the benefit of stakeholders in the tourism industry. By presenting sanitized and romanticized narratives of the island’s colonial past and commodifying Creole culture, tourism entities appeal to cultural and eco-conscious travelers seeking idealized experiences.

The construction of “authenticity” through the aestheticization of Creole life and landscape was already documented about twenty years ago in Le Chamarel, a mountain and village neighboring Le Morne, which was promoted as an eco-destination.Footnote ⁶⁵ The village’s portrayal as wild and authentic reproduced negative Creole stereotypes that echoed colonial constructions of Blackness and eco-savagery.Footnote ⁶⁶ Creoles of Chamarel were perceived and represented as primitive and marginal, but close to nature for precisely these reasons. These constructions are seen in contemporary tourism branding, given the growing interest in eco-activities. In Le Morne, marketing narratives for the five-star hotel LUX* Le Morne demonstrate how cultural heritage and eco-aesthetics are entangled. On their social media page, the hotel features a post about Vik, the Guest Experience Manager—also known as the “Sea Urchin Master”—who dives for sea urchins and, from his “humble fisherman’s shack,” hosts a Mauritian-style apéro with sea urchin tasting.Footnote ⁶⁷ Representations of practices often associated with Creole culture accentuate notions of simplicity and primitivism but are packaged as premium experiences, disconnecting them from their historical and cultural origins in plantation economies or from contemporary realities. This echoes Boswell’s observation that the identity and culture of Chamarel’s residents were commodified and constructed as being close to nature to meet tourism demands in the early 2000s.Footnote ⁶⁸

The hotel also markets its “Sunset Aperitivo” experience on the mountain for EUR 1,100 per couple, with the following description: “A big part of who we are is Le Morne mountain, the UNESCO Heritage Site which stands tall over our resort. We invite you to cloud-watch, stargaze, and go deep within the lush and wild jungle of Le Morne.”Footnote ⁶⁹ Framed in eco-conscious language, the co-optation of Le Morne’s historical significance lends cultural prestige to the hotel’s identity. The site’s history of slavery and marronage is entirely omitted from this narrative, producing a heritage narrative detached from the violence and resistance that constitute its historical foundations, as well as their present-day legacies. Taken together, these examples show how “authentic” cultural experiences are curated through an orientalist and eco-savagery language of wilderness and culture. From guided mountain hikes and scenic boat tours to wildlife encounters and stylized food tastings, such offerings package culture and nature into consumable experiences that obscure the island’s deeper histories while simultaneously masking enduring structural inequalities and power asymmetries.

In Mauritius, tourism and the real estate sector increasingly function as extensions of the plantation system, reproducing spatial enclosures through the proliferation of gated communities, private villas, luxury hotels, and smart cities.Footnote ⁷⁰ The negative socio-economic and environmental impacts of enclave tourism models and upmarket residential schemes targeting foreign investors, such as the Integrated Resort Scheme (IRS), have been widely critiqued.Footnote ⁷¹ Rather than fostering development centered on local knowledge, culture, and participation, these developments—marketed as sustainable and inclusive—accentuate spatial segregation, ecological degradation, and local displacement.Footnote ⁷² By virtue of its geographic beauty, the southwest was one of the first destinations for IRS projects since the early 2000s. Building on pre-existing patterns of land reforms, IRS developments gentrified the region with luxury accommodations, expat sporting clubs, malls, and private schools for both foreigners and the local upper-middle class, while fencing off land formerly used by local communities.Footnote ⁷³

Although experiences of spatial marginalization from hotels and real estate projects will vary across the island, their impacts are more visible along the southwest coast, where densely populated settlements exist in proximity to high-end tourism and real estate projects. To some extent, many have experienced upward economic mobility through these developments and view them positively; however, there is a growing awareness among affected communities due to the disproportionate disparities.Footnote ⁷⁴ For many communities along the southwest, chronic economic instability and spatial marginalization evoke the condition of marronage not as a historical past, but as a lived and ongoing reality. According to one resident in Le Morne, “We’re still running–from the police, from the beach, from the lagoon. We’re still running.”Footnote ⁷⁵

Spatial injustice is reproduced as power asymmetries shifted from colonialism to neoliberal capitalism, and from sugarcane monoculture to tourism and real estate. For instance, The Lux Collective Ltd, which manages LUX* Le Morne and three other LUX* hotels in Mauritius, is part of IBL Ltd, one of Mauritius’ largest corporate groups with a long history of involvement in the island’s commercial and economic affairs dating back to the colonial period.Footnote ⁷⁶ Branded as sustainable luxury, the hotels’ environmental accreditations, Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, and alignment with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals can easily conceal their embeddedness in historically rooted structures of accumulation and the persistence of plantation logics in contemporary models of land control.

Alongside large corporate actors, smaller but increasingly influential stakeholders are also using heritage concepts to market cultural and eco-tourism, reflecting the full-fledged embrace of this approach in Mauritius. Located at the foot of Le Morne mountain in Cotteau Raffin, The Green Village hosts eco-friendly activities such as creative workshops and farm visits, rents out its venue for events, and offers rental eco-cabins for accommodation. One of its main initiatives is the weekend-long festival Nou Le Morne (“Our Morne”), which was held in 2018, 2019, and 2022. Residents of Le Morne are often employed during the festival, and a portion of the profits is donated to the NGO Action Développement Le Morne (ADM).Footnote ⁷⁷ With sponsorship or partnership from local banks, hotels, and other NGOs, the festival was jointly organized by ADM, The Green Village, and 4Aces Entertainment–three entities with ties to the private landowner involved in the land dispute discussed earlier.

Nou Le Morne festival features full-day programs of multidisciplinary artistic performances in music, dance, and street art, alongside activities such as walking trails, permaculture, drumming, and recycling workshops. Strategically held around August 23rd—the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition—the festival explicitly embeds the historical memory of slavery and marronage within its branding narrative. This is evident in the description of the inaugural 2018 edition, which states:

In 2019, the festival introduced the “Trail de la Liberté” (“Freedom Trail”), offering two hiking routes branded as “grand marronage” (20 km) and “petit marronage” (10 km).Footnote ⁷⁹ These terms, however, carry significant historical weight. In the colonial context, petit marronage described short-term escape of less than thirty days, and grand marronage referred to long-term flight from enslavement. These classifications were embedded within the institutionalized system of slavery governed by the Code Noir, which prescribed brutal punishments for maroons—from ear mutilation to execution—depending on the duration or recurrence of escape. Colonial patrols organized into the inhumane détachements were tasked with hunting down maroons and operated within a system of rewards that varied according to whether an escape was classified as petit or grand marronage.

Reappropriating policing categories once used to criminalize enslaved resistance to label hiking trails for festival-goers is not only historically tone-deaf, but also profoundly disrespectful. This narrative romanticizes histories of colonial violence and anti-colonial resistance into marketable cultural experiences within the heritage economy, exposing how heritage can be sanitized, commodified, and depoliticized. Although these trends are not unique to Le Morne, they are comparatively more visible there due to the site’s international status and the co-optation of a historical memory that originally existed to resist the very structures these initiatives operate in.Footnote ⁸⁰

Leveraging concepts of marronage into corporate narratives reveals how state and non-state stakeholders capitalize on heritage as a cultural, political, and economic asset. To some extent, these tourism projects have rekindled regional economic activities, improved Le Morne’s visibility, and created cultural platforms for artists. Besides targeting foreign tourists, Nou Le Morne festival promotes local tourism through collaboration with local booking platforms, attracting middle-class Mauritians and elites who travel to attend the performances and book a short stay.Footnote ⁸¹ However, how Le Morne residents perceive these developments remains contested. According to a social media post by ADM, the NGO spearheading some of these projects, many residents view them positively—particularly in light of the state’s chronic neglect of the village.Footnote ⁸² The post cites a local resident who, despite acknowledging criticism of the private landowner’s racial and economic privilege, defends their involvement by claiming that the landowner “puts themselves in Black skin” when among the community.

This sentiment is far from unanimous. Other residents have explicitly critiqued the landowner as emblematic of inequalities experienced in the village. In 2019, The Green Village hosted the screening of the documentary Les routes de l’esclavage (“The routes of slavery”) by Fanny Glissant, niece of Caribbean scholar Édouard Glissant. The decision to hold the event at a venue owned by a private landowner actively involved in an ongoing land dispute drew criticism from some residents, some of whom requested to meet the filmmaker to express their discontent.Footnote ⁸³ A resident living near The Green Village publicly objected to the screening, arguing that a documentary on slavery should not be screened in collaboration with stakeholders perceived as benefiting from the marginalization of local communities. Many villagers were not invited to the screening event.

This article does not seek to assess the intentions or dismiss the economic opportunities generated by these cultural initiatives. Earlier fieldwork by Boswell in Chamarel shows that Creole communities have long experienced exclusion from tourism development and expressed a desire to be included in cultural tourism, indicating awareness of the economic value of cultural heritage.Footnote ⁸⁴ However, developments in Le Morne demonstrate the power asymmetries in the cultural tourism economy and raise critical questions about how cultural memory is represented, by whom, and for whom. These dynamics reveal that existing disparities become more entrenched when heritage-making becomes entangled in development agendas that bypass the very communities they claim to represent.

In Le Morne, the state has largely ceded infrastructural and socio-economic development responsibilities to private corporations and NGOs. Attempts, poor for the most part, to improve water infrastructure in Le Morne were financed by corporations in 2008 and 2018.Footnote ⁸⁵ Persistent water insecurity in Le Morne contrasts with the abundance of resources in nearby five-star resorts, highlighting the reproduction of systemic inequalities in the tourism-driven development model. Without sustained state investment in economic and social infrastructure, many residents rely on tourism-related work, NGO initiatives, and subsistence practices that are increasingly constrained by tourism activities.

In 2021, Le Morne was nevertheless listed among the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s “Best Tourism Villages,” an initiative aimed at promoting the safeguarding of the natural and cultural diversity of rural villages through tourism. But the eco-cultural tourism model implemented in Le Morne demonstrates how the value produced by international recognition is unevenly distributed across state, private, and local stakeholders.

5. Marronage beyond memory and toward decolonial imaginaries

Without an adequate framework to hold state and non-state stakeholders accountable for heritage management and to protect affected communities, UNESCO’s concept of cultural landscape can be easily appropriated and commodified. As prestigious as it may be, the UNESCO inscription was a comfortable compromise that aligned with the state’s development and multicultural approach through a tangible political “win” for Creole communities without dismantling structural inequalities. These tensions prompt us to critically reflect on how heritage and historical memory are constructed, mobilized, and contested in the production of political and social legitimacy, and the extent to which processes of heritage-making are shaped by and operate within the communalist structures through which Mauritian identity has been historically negotiated.

In this uneven process, heritage projects in Le Morne continue to reproduce highly unequal patterns of land ownership and wealth generation, with private stakeholders disproportionately benefiting from the site’s value as global trends increasingly favor cultural and eco-tourism. As communities just a few steps away live in ghetto-like conditions, Creole culture, history, and heritage have been repackaged into depoliticized consumable experiences. The reproduction of spatial and social asymmetries reveals that not everyone is an equal player in the process of nation-building and heritage-making, underlining the urgency to reclaim heritage-making as a decolonial project. This is neither to underestimate nor reject the potential of the heritage economy, but to invite reflection on how heritage-making can and must be reoriented toward the communities it aims to serve. It remains imperative to contest how heritage is co-opted by contemporary elites and acts as an extension of existing disparities. Decolonizing heritage-making must move beyond symbolic inclusion toward structural change. A renewed discourse must rethink how heritage is conceptualized: is it a place, a tradition, the community, or the relational entanglements between all of the above?

As heritage remains controversial in Mauritius, Le Morne residents continue to demonstrate resilience within their politicized landscape as they refute the reductive heritage frameworks imposed upon them. In 2020, KVM and ReA organized a protest and cultural activities at Le Morne to raise awareness of the land struggle as a counter-event to the state’s conventional abolition day ceremonies. A banner held by a resident read: “Patrimoine li pa zis enn ross!!! Ena enn descandans kine fer ross la gagne valer” (“Heritage is not only a rock!!! The descendants gave value to that rock”).Footnote ⁸⁶

Beyond Le Morne, communities along the southwest coast continue to contest their spatial exclusion and the appropriation of their cultural landscapes—a reminder that land justice must remain fundamental to the unfinished processes of decolonization. In 2018, the NGO Enn Losean Vivab launched an awareness campaign opposing a hotel development proposed on Île aux Bénitiers, an important site for economic activities in the southwest.Footnote ⁸⁷ Interlocutors in the campaign are not against tourism—as their own livelihoods are intertwined with it—but instead emphasize that Le Morne’s cultural landscape extends beyond the mountain itself, foregrounding the need to preserve spaces for community autonomy. More recently, Bann Vag Laliberte, a documentary released in 2025 by Christopher Amurat and the Association Le Pont du Tamarinier, follows Fabian Pierre Louis, a young resident of cité Carré D’As, and explores the community’s experiences of gentrification and marginalization in the southwest.Footnote ⁸⁸ The film opens and closes with invocations of maroon resistance, illustrating how marronage continues to inspire and shape aspirations for resilience. Maroon heritage, in this sense, is not confined to Le Morne as a site, but is an ever-evolving imaginary of resistance.Footnote ⁸⁹ These counter-hegemonic claims reaffirm the ongoing political and social relevance of marronage.

Rethinking marronage, therefore, compels us to confront the enduring logics of racial capitalism and their role in fragmenting, suppressing, and eliminating semi-autonomous geographies and solidarities. From the perspective of the Plantationocene, ecological violence and social injustice are not byproducts but fundamental tools for colonial domination. Emerging from Anthropocene discourse, the term Plantationocene contextualizes the origins of contemporary ecological crises within the plantation system, foregrounding racialized socioecological hierarchies, as both the domination of human and non-human life were entangled in extractive plantation economies.Footnote ⁹⁰ This analysis is particularly urgent in Mauritius, where race is an interrelated factor that shapes experiences of spatial marginalization, despite contemporary forms of spatial inequalities being framed as apolitical processes. Neoliberal development, cloaked in greenwashed rhetoric, risk reproducing the same extractive logics that marronage historically resisted.

A renewed lens on marronage must unmask these structures and affirm that social and ecological injustice are not separate but deeply intertwined processes. Drawing on Caribbean scholar Malcolm Ferdinand, who emphasizes that maroons turned to nature not only for refuge, but as a site of world-making, we are reminded that relational, place-based ecologies are essential to emancipatory futures.Footnote ⁹¹ Put differently, reimagining relationships to land becomes a necessary condition for social justice. The legacy of marronage, therefore, offers more than symbolic resistance. It can nurture a decolonial imaginary in ongoing interrogations of the persistence of plantation logics, while also prompting the expansion of tools of resistance against extractivism, neoliberal expansion, and racial hierarchies.