Caribbean identity and social formation

OBJECTIVES

1. Define cultural diversity, social stratification, creolization and hybridization.

2. Describe the process of identify in the Caribbean.

3. Describe the process of social formation in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean is made up of a chain of islands that share distinct and similar experiences in terms of food eaten, clothes worn, customs/practices, religion, politics, etc. Caribbean people identify themselves as island nationals; for instance, Jamaicans, St Lucians and Dominicans. The debate has to whether or not the Caribbean itself has an identify is one that is ongoing. However, we have seen that Caribbean nationals toy with the idea of being a Caribbean and not Bajans, Cubans or Jamaicans when it comes on to sports e.g., track and field, and the West Indies cricket team (coming out of the federation).

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. As well as the more obvious cultural differences that exist between people, such as language, dress and traditions, there are also significant variations on the way societies organised themselves in their shared conception of morality, and in the ways they interact with their environment.

Cultural diversity emphasises differences among people. It is both a call to celebrate and recognise differences and at the same time to be aware that cultural differences is a potentially explosive situation. This is so because people of different ethnicities usually keep a distance from each other. For example, the Asian immigrants had friction with Negroes over women and labour issues during the indentureship period.

Cultural diversity in the Caribbean is also evident in racial differences. These include people of aboriginal stock, such as Tainos, Mayans and Kalinagos; European stock Mongoloid stock such as Chinese, and Indians and Negroid stock. Cultural diversity in the Caribbean is particularly marked because of the many races and racial groups present.

Similarly, cultural groups are identified using several criteria. These include race, colour, religion, heritage and language. Other cultural dimensions are also used to differentiate the groups. For example, wealth, kin (family relationships), education, rural or urban residence.

Diversity within the Caribbean region has been fueled by historical, sociological and anthropological issues. Historically, the Caribbean society was formed with the meeting a different groups who migrated here – some via the Bering Strait, others through exploration, the triangular trade and indentureship. Europeans, Africans, Indians, Chinese, and Amerindians all met and interacted within the context of European dominance and plantation. This brought about the mixing of cultures.

Sociologically, the groups who came to the Caribbean all varied in cultural orientation which eventually posed a problem for the organisation of the society. These varied cultural orientations were seen in religion (European-Christianity, Chinese – Buddhism, Indian – Hinduism and Muslim, Africans – ancestral worship), languages and customs. Over time, Caribbean society became stratified based on colour, race, class, wealth, prowess and education. In the post-emancipation era, education became the chief means of social mobility

The anthropologist focuses on understanding how people/groups in a society develop a sense of identity. For example, how a person perceives himself or herself is influenced by how his/her ethinic group experienced the transplanting process within the new societies of the Caribbean. The Indians who were considered to be at the bottom of the social ladder came with the cultural practices the Caribbean when they were brought here as indentured laboures. This they held on to when they faced hardship and oppression in a foreign land amid strange people who were long established. They clung to their customs and remained in the rural areas long after their contracts expired. Being social outcasts, they formed a virtually closed community. However, their children, born in the Caribbean, sought education and, soon after that, competition for the rewards of the society. They used any means – education, land, business and family contracts – to better their social and economic conditions.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY

POSITIVE

1.Variety of ethnic celebrations – members are introduced to foods, festivals, music and celebrations, fashion, handicraft and cultural expressions, such as dance.

2. People may appreciate other cultures and a range of perspectives by growing up in society for instance, being invited to celebrations and festivals.

3. Day-to-day living in such societies provided instances enabling one to reflect on the values and customs of others. For example, the reluctance of some Christians schools to admit Rastafarian students because of the dreadlocks hairstyle. This situation present opportunities for national dialogue which may not occur as civilised discourse – they are opportunities nonetheless.

4. Diverse and plural societies provide unique conditions under which experiments in cultural hybridization may take place to create different forms of music, art, literature and poetry.

5. A plural society provides opportunities for persons to learn from an early age that conflict is endemic (common) and that they need skills of negotiation, alliance-building and brokering peace to accommodate all the many issues that may arise.

NEGATIVE

1. There may be feelings of discrimination which may break out in social unrest, such as ethnic violence, labour riots, etc.

2. There may be overpopulation from people coming in where their culture is flourishing

3. Ethnic politics develops with political parities becoming polarized (divided into opposing groups). In such a situation, politics becomes a contest between ethnicities. The ethnic lines harden, and jobs, promotions and opportunities are limited to people of the same ethnicity.

4. Ethnic hate may arise out of feelings of ethnic superiority, (the ‘us versus then’ syndrome), compounded by the feelings that one group is getting more of the national pie than one’s own group

5. Ethnic prejudices are perpetuated through socialization within the family, which is reinforced interaction with friends and acquaintances. Many times, differences appear to be so profound that myths and misconceptions of the other race or ethnic groups are believed as facts.

Occupying the same space meant that accommodations have to be made between the different ethnic groups. For example:

In similar places where different groups had been brought in as labour, cultural pluralism was the form of accommodation that resulted. ‘Cultural pluralism’ is a term associated with the cultural diversity resulting from European colonization, when different groups share the same space but do not mix to a significant extent.

In the Caribbean, from the very first contact of Europeans and the Amerindians, hybridization, or the mixing of cultures and races to produced new or Creole forms, became the form of accommodation.

Another option also exercised from the beginnings of conquest was maroonage or running away and attempting to build a different society and culture.

In the contemporary Caribbean, different ethinic groups have began to live together through miscegenation, which is the mixing of different races. In Trinidad, then Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar developed a Cabinet comprising of a variety of races and religions. Their Housing Development Corporation builds houses in rural areas where they accommodate people of different races and religion, political and economic power and social visibility.