Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Models of Caribbean Society
Models of Caribbean Society
Models of Caribbean Society
Plantation Society
Plural Society
Creole Society
Plantation Society Model
A particular class of society with distinguishing
characteristics of social structure and political organization,
and laws of motion governing social change (Barrow and
Reddock, 2001).
Two Variants -
- Weak (Horowitz, Patterson, Wagley)
Plantation communities characterized by unstable family units,
hierarchical class relations, low levels of community
integration, mobile populations often recruited for seasonal
work
- Strong : draws on analysis of structural dependency in the
Caribbean (Best & Levitt, Beckford, Witter)
Plantation Models Characterizing
Caribbean Economies
national liberation
Beckford contd.
Hierarchical chain of command formed with White
Europeans as owners of the MOP
One of the earliest lines of cleavage was that between whites and
mixed elements (creoles).
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.
Each is in the strictest sense a medley, for they mix but do not
combine. Each holds by its own culture and language, its own
ideas and waysThere is a plural society, with different sections
of the community living side by side, but separately, within the
same political unit. Even in the economic sphere, there is a
division of labour along racial lines
Plural Society
M.G. Smith the most noted exponent
Societies seen as culturally & socially homogeneous
common system of basic institutions shared
Heterogeneous societies differing alternative and
exclusive institutions are practised
Plural societies basic institutions not shared by the cultural
sections that comprise them