Caribbean Society and Culture

The Role of Historical Experiences

Influences

Experiences with Plantation Slavery - (Europe, Africa, Caribbean) Experiences with Indentureship Colonialism Indigenous Populations

The Result
Caribbean culture is a rich amalgam of European, African, East Indian, Asian, Plantation, Colonial and Indigenous influences, heritages and cultures

Caribbean Theorizing - Creole (process of interculturation), Plural (mixing but not combining), Plantation Society (dependent economies; enclaves of Metropole)

Manifestations of Influences

Language, Street names, Parishes

Music, Games, Sport (cricket, football)

Religion

System of Social Stratification & Population Structure

Food

Legal/judicial, Political & Educational Systems

Economic Arrangements

Other Legacies of Plantation & Colonial Heritages

Economic Structure

Dependence on metropole Economies adjuncts of metropolitan economies Producers of primary products/raw materials Heavy dependence on imports (debt) Maintenance of preferential trading arrangements (bananas, sugar) Likeness for things foreign

Other Legacies of Plantation & Colonial Heritages (contd.)

Treatment of Class, Race, Colour

Light complexion, European physical features & beauty Notions of good and bad hair

Pride of Caribbean Identity

Music & Festivals

Rastafarianism Language W.I. Cricket Team (Chanderpaul, Lara, Powell, etc.)

Resistance to Colonialism & Eurocentrism

Rastafarianism
Garveyism Black Nationalism Retention of Cultural forms of Countries of Origin

Creolization

The problem of identity has always been an issue in the modern Caribbean.
One of the earliest lines of cleavage was that between whites and mixed elements (creoles). Rivalry was succeeded between Afro-creoles and indentured workers (TT, Guyana and Suriname) (Selwyn Ryan, 2002: JACAS Symposium Series 15)

Creolization

The term has varying meanings in the Caribbean.

Stuart Hall (1977: 164) states the term itself is hard to define, its ambiguity being itself an index of its complex articulation with the structured form of the cultures and groups with which it interacts. Lowenthal (1972: 32-33) The term was originally used to define African slaves born in the new world. Later extended to anyone, black or white, born in the West Indiesthen extended to things, habits and ideasopinions expressed

Creolization

Nettleford (1997: 74) Whites born in the American colonies were regarded as creoles by their metropolitan cousins.
Jamaican born slaves were similarly differentiated from their salt-water negro colleagues freshly brought in from West Africa. Genuine Caribbean expressions are regarded as those that have been creolized into indigenous form and purpose distinctively different from the original elements from which those expressions first sprang.

Creolization

Brathwaite (1974) Creolization is the process through which the various groups in the Caribbean society absorb each others cultural products. The Africans and Indians imitated or were forced to imitate the Europeans.
Europeans inadvertently but at times consciously absorbed some of the cultural styles, languages and mores of the subordinate groups.

Creolization

The Africans and Indians acculturated while the Europeans process was defined as interculturation.

The former is the result of the yoking of cultures by force and example while the latter is an unplanned, unconscious and osmotic relationship following from the yoking process.

African Retention

One of the main proponents of the African retention school is Melville Herskovits
Slavery did not totally destroy the African culture

African culture has survived in various forms in the Caribbean

African Retention

African cultural forms survived in three main ways:

1. Survivals- cultural forms that closely resemble the original African forms. For example, the practice of burying the umbilical chord of a child and planting a fruit tree over it

African Retention

2. Syncretisms- the practice of identifying elements in the new culture with parallel components of the old. An example is the practice of identifying Catholic saints with African deities
3. Reinterpretations- This is seen where African culture is reinterpreted to suite the new environment. An example of this is the reinterpretations of African polygamy as progressive monogamy.