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Following two talks in the Jacques Kerchache Reading Room, in 2019 et 2020, and participation in a seminar Radicalismo marittimo organised by the Sapienza Università di Roma, the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac is dedicating a study day to current scientific news surrounding Libertalia, in conjunction with the symposium David Graeber’s political anthropology (1961-2020), organised by the EHESS.
In his last book, Les Pirates des Lumières (Editions Libertalia, 2019) Graeber looked at the controversy surrounding the “reality” of the pirate utopia attributed to Daniel Defoe. For Graeber, Libertalia is not found in the “vestiges” of western history – archives, archaeological digs – but in the Malagasy memory of the Betsimisaraka federation.
The speakers will discuss this hypothesis based on ethnographic and historic data, and will analyse the impact of pirates studies, of which Marcus Rediker was one of the initiators, on the work dedicated to the history of empires, maritime trade, and slavery. 
Alexandre Audard, author of Libertalia, une république des pirates à Madagascar. Interprétation d'un mythe (XVIIe - XXIe siècle)