| Description: |
This article offers initial insights and reflections on a collaborative research project led by the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac and the Choctaw, Miami, Peoria and Quapaw Nations (Oklahoma, USA). As part of this project, the partners have been studying a corpus of maps of Louisiana produced by French cartographers under the Ancien Régime and now held by the French National Library, the National Archives and the Service historique de la Défense. Co-authored by French, Choctaw and Quapaw authors, the article presents the empirical and experimental methodology they have implemented to renew their questioning and thus contribute to the writing of these Native American societies’ histories before their removal to Oklahoma, from the 1830s onwards. The article starts by a general presentation of this methodology, followed by two specific examples that illustrate this approach. The first one focuses on the analysis of toponyms on a map of Choctaw country produced by the French officer Régis du Roullet in 1732. The second one centers on a field trip undertaken by the project team in Arkansas, on the homeland of the Quapaw Nation, in March 2024. Through these examples, the authors aim at demonstrating the value of a collaborative approach in exploring cartographic sources with a fresh eye, based on the plurality of points of view. ; Cet article propose un premier retour réflexif sur un projet de recherche collaborative mené par le musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac en collaboration avec les Nations Choctaw, Miami, Peoria et Quapaw (Oklahoma, États-Unis). Dans le cadre de ce projet, les partenaires se sont engagés dans l’étude d’un corpus de cartes de la Louisiane produites par des cartographes français sous l’Ancien Régime et conservées aujourd’hui à la Bibliothèque nationale de France, aux Archives nationales et au Service historique de la Défense. Co-écrit par des auteurs français, choctaw et quapaw, l’article présente la méthodologie empirique et expérimentale mise en place par ces derniers afin de renouveler ... |