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 (cont’d.)

 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, it’s 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
Indies…then extended to things, habits and ideas…
opinions 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 other’s 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
European’s 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.