Addresses the workings of ethnicity in the Caribbean where, from the early days of empire through today's post-colonial limbo, it has arguably remained in the centre of public society as well as private life.
Race and biologized conceptions of ethnicity have been potent factors in the making of the Americas. They remain crucial, even if more ambiguously than before. This collection of essays addresses the workings of ethnicity in the Caribbean, a part of the Americas where, from the early days of empire through today's post-colonial limbo, this phenomenon has arguably remained in the center of public society as well as private life. These analyses of race and nation-building, increasingly significant in today's world, are widely pertinent to the study of current and international relations.
The ten prominent scholars contributing to this book focus on the significance of ethnicity for social structure and national identity in the Caribbean. Their essays span a period from the initial European colonization right through today's paradoxical balance sheet of decolonization. They deal with the entire region as well as the significance of the diaspora and the continuing impact of metropolitan linkages. The topics addressed vary from the international repercussions of Haiti's black revolution through the position of French Caribbean békés and the Barbadian 'redlegs' to race in revolutionary Cuba; from Puerto Rican dance etiquette through the Latin American and Caribbean identity essay to the discourse of Dominican nationhood; and from a musée imaginaire in Guyane through Jamaica's post independence culture to the predicament of Dutch Caribbean decolonization.
Taken together, these essays provide a rare and extraordinarily rich comparative perspective to the study of ethnicity as a crucial factor shaping both intimate relations and the public and even international dimension of Caribbean societies.
- GERT OOSTINDIE is Director of the KITLV/Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology in Leiden and Professor of Caribbean Studies, Utrecht University. He has written widely on slavery, ethnicity and politics in the Caribbean. Among his most recent publications are Decolonising the Caribbean. Dutch Policies in a Comparative Prespective (2003, with Inge Klinkers) and Paradise Overseas. The Dutch Caribbean: Colonialism and its Transatlantic Legacies (2005).
Race and biologized conceptions of ethnicity have been potent factors in the making of the Americas. They remain crucial, even if more ambiguously than before. This collection of essays addresses the workings of ethnicity in the Caribbean, a part of the Americas where, from the early days of empire through today's post-colonial limbo, this phenomenon has arguably remained in the center of public society as well as private life. These analyses of race and nation-building, increasingly significant in today's world, are widely pertinent to the study of current and international relations.
The ten prominent scholars contributing to this book focus on the significance of ethnicity for social structure and national identity in the Caribbean. Their essays span a period from the initial European colonization right through today's paradoxical balance sheet of decolonization. They deal with the entire region as well as the significance of the diaspora and the continuing impact of metropolitan linkages. The topics addressed vary from the international repercussions of Haiti's black revolution through the position of French Caribbean békés and the Barbadian 'redlegs' to race in revolutionary Cuba; from Puerto Rican dance etiquette through the Latin American and Caribbean identity essay to the discourse of Dominican nationhood; and from a musée imaginaire in Guyane through Jamaica's post independence culture to the predicament of Dutch Caribbean decolonization.
Taken together, these essays provide a rare and extraordinarily rich comparative perspective to the study of ethnicity as a crucial factor shaping both intimate relations and the public and even international dimension of Caribbean societies.
- GERT OOSTINDIE is Director of the KITLV/Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology in Leiden and Professor of Caribbean Studies, Utrecht University. He has written widely on slavery, ethnicity and politics in the Caribbean. Among his most recent publications are Decolonising the Caribbean. Dutch Policies in a Comparative Prespective (2003, with Inge Klinkers) and Paradise Overseas. The Dutch Caribbean: Colonialism and its Transatlantic Legacies (2005).
