Beyond the inherent risks of our geographies and the interweaving of our colonial and post-colonial histories, the French-speaking Caribbean are plural and are rich territories of meaning and diversity, of polyphonic narratives. The richness of their space, of their landscape prepares to the production and the realization of leisure practices, and of the ludic traditions resulting from their insularity and from the transnationality of the circulation of games and traditional toys using their environment, rooted in their culture, their imaginary and in sociohistorical relations which link them with other territories by the sound, the language, the modalities, the contexts of production, the transmissions of ludic phenomena etc. In a sense, anchored in their Caribbean, African, North American, European and Amerindian origins, the traditional games and toys, the leisure activities of these territories (far from certain processes of occidentalization and inscribed in a discourse of return to the source, to semiotic and historical, cultural roots) are important to indulge in and to think about. ABeyond the territories, our plural singularities are in our common history, our languages and bilingual languages (Creole, French), our tropical landscapes, our literatures, we have traditional games and toys, leisure practices that link us, identify us, give us and refer to temporalities and events of our lives from our period of infancy to different periods of our biological life (funeral wake, baptism, marriage) and social (school, family, professional) from the urban environment to the rural environment.
We all play in a different way with everyday elements, material objects (wood, plastic), through body languages, gestures and languages that participate in the process of ludification and “making leisure” of what we possess as a playful heritage so exceptional.
If some of our games and leisure activities are subject to moral and religious prohibitions, our playful and festive commitments, sacred, individual and / or collective, allow us to see our lives as forms of resistance and subversion to fear, social and economic insecurity, climate change and natural hazards, we use leisure activities to live. And, we live through our hobbies, our traditional games and playful practices. This living is a living-together that makes our lakou, our communities spaces of playful and cultural significance, heritage towards those who participate in this social organization of life, our environments and our Earth. Haiti and the other Caribbean countries (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Saint-Martin) are in great need of a discursive, pedagogical and federative space where traditional games and toys and leisure activities can be emulated in a transnational and regional itinerant celebration.
And for the very first edition of the International Festival of Caribbean Games and Leisure (FIJLoC), powered by the Thamani Foundation, is meant to do so. Thus, Haiti is the host country of this event and Martinique the guest country.
Finally, after years of pandemics, acts of debunking historic statues, protests over Chlordecone cases, the strangest hurricane seasons of the 21st century in the West Indies (French overseas departments) and other Caribbean territories, social movements and peyi lòk in Haiti, the FIJLoC, through its annual theme: “Responsible leisure for inclusive and sustainable communities” invites you from August 6 to 16, 2023 to think, to share, to co-construct leisure that hold to promote inclusion, diversity and the preservation and sustainability of our human, digital and cultural communities, alive.
Playfully yours!
Théophilo Jarbath
