Prix Recherche au Présent Maringouin : Etymology and Entomology of Contact in the French Americas

Maringouin, a Tupí-origin word for mosquito assimilated into French, serves as a vector for a decolonial reflection on the legacy of the colonial contact zone, extending Mary Louise Pratt’s paradigm to the literal and metaphorical penetration of skin by mosquitoes in the French Americas. The etymology of maringouin traces literary decoloniality, while entomology, the bug’s biology, suggests reading protocols that further question the ontology of the colonizing subject. Through readings of Jesuit missionary texts by Paul Lejeune and Jean-Baptiste du Tertre, as well as Louisiana folklore and public health discourse, maringouin emerges as a site of entangled linguistic, entomological, and colonial histories. The mosquito’s bite destabilizes colonial subjectivity, revealing porous boundaries between self and other, human and non-human. The maringouin functions as a decolonial agent, inscribing Indigenous knowledge onto colonial bodies and texts. Contemporary cultural artifacts, such as Louisiana folk songs and mosquito control publications, continue this legacy, illustrating how maringouin transmits excess meaning beyond colonial containment. Ultimately, the mosquito becomes both a literal and symbolic vector of alterity, troubling notions of sovereignty, language, and identity across time and space. The epistemic and ontological critique of French and Francophone studies achieved in framing the colonial contact zone through an Indigenous origin word like “maringouin” reveals that the discipline is always already fraught with ethical and moral stakes. Etymology and entomology provide pathways for registering colonial injustices, while also suggesting directions for decolonial justice in fields like French and Francophone studies.