Suchergebnisse

It was MG Smith (1965, 1984,1991) more than any other social scientist in the post-independence Anglophone Caribbean who stressed over and over again the political and social dangers of the culturally and racially plural nature of our societies, however theoretically and empirically problematic his own work. By directing full and sole attention to the ethnic cleavages in the society, Smith had hit the proverbial nail on the head but his critics, mainly Marxist in orientation largely dismissed his focus, since for them class and class conflict was seen as the mother of all conflict, contradiction and ultimately revolution (Cross 1971; Robotham 1980; Beckford and Witter 1984). In Trinidad and Tobago today, and since the implosion of the NAR in 1988, we can perhaps now understand the forebodings of Smith as the African-Indian cleavage has more than ever superseded the formerly dominant white! African cleavage of plantation vintage though the latter still lives and lurks in certain spaces.

Finds the dictum "perception is 100 percent reality" spoken to him by Wayne Hayde, "The Watchman", a very useful theme around which to build his contribution at this symposium on Carnival, Calypso, Chutney and Society in Contemporary Trinidad and Tobogo. His presentation under the heading Chutney and Chutney-Soca; Indian and Creole Perspectives, is entitled "People, Perceptions and Paranoia: A Personal Perspective". He says that, as a people, we must understand, accept and respect our differences while taking pride in each others' achievements and concludes by saying that racism and untouchability need to be displaced, so that all can maintain a respectful market share in the social and political milieu that is Trinidad and Tobago.

This chapter assumes that the globally resurging nationalism, identity politics and xenophobia may be explicated by the conceptual dichotomy Purity-Impurity. South Africa is an especially apt case for such analysis. Twenty-five years after the transition, its inhabitants are still divided according to the apartheid categories and very modest progress has been made in breaking former barriers and changing attitudes. Yet, whereas apartheid was one of the foremost applications of a "politics of purity", the Western Cape has also historically been one of the epicentres of creolisation. By means of an experimental cross-genre (literary and academic) approach, the apartheid vision of "separate development" is here interrogated as suppressed creolisation. The chapter is an abbreviated excerpt from a forthcoming diptych on creolisation vs. racialisation in South Africa. ; This chapter is an abbreviated version of a chapter in the forthcoming monograph Contaminations and Ethnographic Fictions : Southern Crossings

The present essay discusses how women calypsonians in the English-speaking Caribbean use Calypso performances as a theatrical platform to offer a gendered critique of the nation and engage in a dialogue, which despite exhibiting pride in the nation, questions its various exclusions in ways that seek to redefine dominant constructions of the nation as 'we'. Not only do they offer a vision of the nation and its cultural aspects that is more inclusive, they also speak out against cultural and political oppression. I analyse specific performances by Singing Sandra (Trinidad) and Queen Ivena (Antigua) from my position as an 'indigenous-outsider' and 'outsider within' in order to demonstrate that Calypso performance is a post-colonial form of theatre in the English-speaking Caribbean that is being used by women as a site for feminist action and agency.

In the past century, the multiple Caribbean islands that form part of a culturally diverse region called the West Indies were settled by many Europeans such as the British, Danish, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Caribbean region has not been the subject of much management research. We focus on one of the countries in the region, Barbados, and use an emic approach to analyze and understand the culture and its implications for the workplace. In the past thirty years, Barbados has grown to become a leading international centre in the Caribbean. We use the metaphor of Calypso music to examine Barbadian culture along some of the popular cultural dimensions used in management research. Music is an integral part of the West Indian culture and Calypso is a rich tool to examine Barbadian culture in particular.

Just after World War II, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation hired the Trinidadian calypsonian Lord Caresser to host a weekly program airing on its nationwide network and its fledgling International Service. His engagement, this essay argues, had less to do with "carry[ing] calypso to the world" (as a CBC press release put it) than with projecting to the world a particular image of Canada—as a modern, diverse, racially tolerant nation. That project was compromised, however, by Canada's fraught history with the West Indies. Reading Caresser's CBC career in the context of proposals for Canadian–West Indies "union" and the infamous West Indian Domestic Scheme of the 1950s, Eldridge uncovers some of the more obscure origins of Canada's imperfect multiculturalism.

Calypsonians had traditionally locked horns with political and social elites. In the past, "calypso wars" were waged with the colonial authorities and their social allies. In the period following independence, which was achieved in 1956, the "battles" were waged with the People's National Movement in general and its leader, Dr. Eric williams in particular. Between 1986 and 1991, the guns of the calypsonians were trained on the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) and its leader, ANR Robinson. In November 1995, the United National Congress (UNC) came to power. It was the first time that Trinidad and Tobago had to deal with a government that was dominated by Indo-Trinidadians. The calypsonians, most of whom were Afro-Trinidadians, were now faced with the task of plying their craft without appearing to be racist in what they did. Looks at the debate that took place between the political calypsonians and their critics, both Indo-Trinidadian and Afro-Truinidadian, during the period 1996-1998 in an attempt to determine the extent to whidh they succeeded in this task.