“Dann Ronpwin Zazalé”: The Yellow vests movement and the creolization of participation

On Réunion Island, the Yellow Vests movement led to the long-term occupation of a traffic circle in the south of the island, the Ronpwin Zazalé. The ethnographic study of this site—shaped by a process of creolization through the blending of different models of action, drawn from the Yellow Vest movement, cultural movements, and occupation movements—offers a novel perspective on the forms of participation tied to both the Yellow Vest movement and to those occurring in a (post)colonial context. Rooted in a mode of inhabiting space through collective resistance, this “third-space” gave rise to a broad and heterogeneous form of grassroots participation, structured around four pillars: kozé (to talk), sobat (direct action), bitasyon (the field) and kiltir (culture). The trajectory of this space, situated within a “marronage system”—that is, on the margins of official frameworks—also makes it possible to consider, through discursive and practical tensions, the autonomy of protests in relation to political institutions.