Florence “Flo” Turiaf ’17 has been awarded Hamilton’s Bristol Fellowship for her project “Removed Yet Within: An Exploration of Identities Within Non-Sovereign Territories.”
The Bristol Fellowship is designed to encourage Hamilton students to experience the richness of the world by living outside the United States for one year and studying an area of great personal interest. Turiaf, one of three Bristol Fellowship recipients this year, will receive a $30,000 award and travel to the Falkland Islands, Western Sahara, Mayotte, Hong Kong, and American Samoa.
Major: World Politics
Hometown: Morne-Vert, Martinique
High School: Marymount High School
Turiaf explained in her project proposal: “Today, more than 10 million people live in non-sovereign territories around the world and are governed from a distance far from their local communities. I propose to explore how the history, culture, geography, and political circumstances of five different territories influence people’s definitions and expressions of their identity.”
Her goal is to share experiences and perceptions to better understand the nature and extent of the influence of colonialism on conceptions of personal and collective identity. Turiaf plans to engage with people in a range of cultures, by stepping into spaces where concepts of ethnicity, religion, age, gender, and regionalism are being defined, expressed and challenged.
A world politics major and Dean’s List student, she studied in Senegal during the fall 2016 semester through Council on International Education Exchange. Turiaf founded CariBeyond, aimed at creating innovative collaborative spaces to expand the impact of the Caribbean region and its people. She was development intern at ImagiNation Afrika in Senegal last year.
At Hamilton she is a research assistant for the IPRA Foundation where she surveys literature on paramilitary forces in 10 countries, and is staff manager for the Student Activities Office.
The Bristol Fellowship was begun in 1996 as part of a bequest to the college by William M. Bristol Jr., (Class of 1917). The purpose of the endowment, created by his family, is to perpetuate Mr. Bristol’s spirit and share it with students of the college that was such an important part of his life.
