The Hakkas of Mauritius. Language practices and diasporic trajectories

Discover the winning 2024 project ‘The Hakkas of Mauritius. Language practices and diasporic trajectories' from the Louis Dumont Fund, which supports research in social anthropology.

This research project focuses on one of the communities of the Republic of Mauritius, defined as such in the constitution, that of the ‘Sino-Mauritians’, the vast majority of whom are of Hakka origin. Using an ethnographic and sociolinguistic approach, it aims not only to study the current situation of the Hakkas in Mauritius, but also to contribute to the debate on the relationship between the local and the global, based on a specific but significant post-colonial context. From an anthropological point of view, the aim is to contribute to the study of Chinese diasporas - in particular the Hakka - using the Mauritian case as a starting point, a case that has so far received little scholarly attention, but which resonates with research carried out since the 1990s in other contexts and forms part of what can be defined as an ‘anthropology of diasporas’.

The long-term ethnographic study envisaged allows for immersion in family life and privileged access to private practices, rituals, cooking, etc., as well as to life stories - including language biographies - from members of a community defined as reluctant to reveal itself. The aim is not only to determine which languages are used in which contexts by Chinese-Mauritian speakers, but also to use the case of Chinese-Mauritian speakers to understand the social dynamics between local anchoring and global circulation. The approach based on language practices is a relevant entry point insofar as it highlights implicit elements, such as indexicality.