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.