Dub, Utopia and the Ruins of the Caribbean

2021 ◽  
pp. 026327642110257
Author(s):  
Joe P.L. Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Original Version ◽  
Alternative Futures ◽  
Traumatic History ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

The weathered stone, collapsed lintels and hollow roofs of the ruin have long evoked a sense of pathos, standing as monuments to the disastrous contours of history and the possibility of alternative futures. In this article, I ask: What is the meaning of the ruin in the postcolonial context of the Caribbean? There are few physical ruins in the Caribbean, resulting in a feeling of lack: the architectural landscape fails to speak to the catastrophes of slavery and colonialism. Dub, a subgenre of Jamaican reggae, responds to this sense of deprivation. The dub producers of the 1970s decomposed reggae songs, creating ruinous constructions where crucial elements of the original version are missing. Fragmented dub compositions act as icons of the traumatic history of the Caribbean and a utopian pique to the imagination, forcing the listener to fill in the gaps and imagine the world remade.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
William Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
The Political ◽  
The World ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Historical Past

V.S. Naipaul is one of the most internationally acclaimed twentieth-century writers from the Caribbean region. Yet it is usually assumed that he was neither much influenced by the Caribbean literary and intellectual tradition, nor very influential upon it. This chapter argues that these assumptions are wrong. It situates Naipaul’s life and work within the political, social, and intellectual history of the twentieth-century Caribbean. Naipaul’s work formed part of a larger historical debate about the sociology of slavery in the Caribbean, the specificity of Caribbean colonial experience, and the influence of that historical past on Caribbean life, culture, and politics after independence. The chapter closes with a reading of Naipaul’s late, retrospective book about Trinidad, A Way in the World.

Telemental Health in Latin America and the Caribbean

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammi-Marie Phillip
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Mental Health Treatment ◽  
Telemental Health ◽  
Health Treatment ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Gap ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Technological Means

This chapter presents an in-depth look at the potential for telemental health within the diverse region of Latin America and the Caribbean. A review of history of mental health and the current needs and limited available services in the Caribbean and Latin America will be provided. The chapter will use the example of, yet primitive, experience of implementing telemedicine or telehealth in the region to infer the potential utility of technological means in bridging the existing mental health gap. Although this mode of treatment has not been implemented yet, horizons for implementation of telemental health are open in this region, as it promises increased access to mental health treatment to those who need it the most. Future steps will have address cost-effectiveness and cultural acceptability unique to this part of the world.

The Challenge of the New

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Pagden
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Canary Islands ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
History Of Europe

Europe's incursion into the Atlantic — the ‘occidental break out’ — after the mid-fifteenth century created many challenges and generated many kinds of ‘newness’ for all of those caught up in it. For the peoples of the African littoral, of the Canary Islands, of the Caribbean, and of the American mainland, the contact with Europeans throughout this period was inevitably, if not always initially, violent. Both Africa and America had been the site of large political structures which the Europeans called ‘empires’, Zimbabwe and Benin, Aztec Mexico and Inca Peru, before the fifteenth century. The discovery of America had seriously undermined both classical geography and the traditional Christian accounts of the creation and subsequent peopling of the world. It offered, however, other, less direct, challenges to the ancient understanding of the world which in the end, were to be even more devastating for the subsequent history of Europe.

Eating the World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candice Goucher
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Dinner Table ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Indigenous Foods

This essay follows the iguana, an indigenous genus of herbivorous lizards, to the Caribbean dinner table, from the fifteenth century to the present. Inspired by historian Jerry Bentley’s scholarly contributions to questions of cultural encounters, the essay argues for the importance of indigenous foods in complex, often ambiguous, and consistently nuanced processes of cultural interactions between indigenous peoples and transplanted Europeans, Asians, and Africans. The story of how and why the iguana consistently appeared in the region’s foodways provides a critical perspective on the history of globalization in the Atlantic world. Mapping the variety of these culinary experiences can also reveal insights into the Caribbean’s changing ecology and the role of indigenous beliefs and African interpretations in the eco-cultural encounters that reshaped the flavors and choices of the region.

The Global Refuge

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen Stanwood
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Key Skills ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Edict Of Nantes

Huguenot refugees were everywhere in the early modern world. Exiles fleeing French persecution, they scattered around Europe and beyond following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, settling in North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, and even remote islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. This book offers the first global history of the Huguenot diaspora, explaining how and why these refugees became such ubiquitous characters in the history of imperialism. The story starts with dreams of Eden, as beleaguered religious migrants sought suitable retreats to build perfect societies far from the political storms of Europe. In order to create these communities, however, the Huguenots needed patrons, and they thus ran headlong into the world of politics. The refugees promoted themselves as the chosen people of empire, religious heroes who also possessed key skills that would strengthen the British and Dutch states. As a result, French Protestants settled around the world—they tried to make silk in South Carolina; they planted vines in South Africa; and they peopled vulnerable frontiers from New England to Suriname. Of course, this embrace of empire led to a gradual abandonment of the Huguenots’ earlier utopian ambitions. They realized that only by blending in, and by mastering foreign institutions, could they prosper in a quickly changing world. Nonetheless, they managed to maintain a key role in the early modern world well into the eighteenth century, before the coming of Revolution upended the ancien régime.

Abolitionist Mediascapes

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-109
Author(s):  
Jerome Tharaud
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Spatial Imagination ◽  
The U.S

This chapter traces how American abolitionists took up evangelical media strategies in the mid- and late 1830s, launching circulating antislavery libraries that adapted evangelical space to the geographies of slavery. It mentions that the American Anti-Slavery Society urged readers to extend their “ethical horizon” beyond the local. It also details how the Society used events in the Caribbean and elsewhere to refocus evangelical zeal from Asia to the U.S. South, which transformed the world missionary enterprise into a model for national reform in the process. The chapter shows how abolitionists adapted traditional sacred geographies to chart the global contours of modernity's cruelest and most insidious institution. It maps the cosmic contours of the abolitionist spatial imagination and intervenes in scholarly debates surrounding the history of abolitionism, religious reform movements, and American literary and cultural studies.

Hope for Haiti How media narratives can transform a destination in despair

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Wise
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Destination Image ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Travel Articles ◽  
Media Narratives

Haiti has been beset by a series of natural disasters over the past decade, notably the 2010 7.0 magnitude Haiti Earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which caused catastrophic flooding. However, in addition to the natural disasters, Haiti is the poorest economy in the western hemisphere and has a history of politically turbulent events, each of which have contributed to despair and a negative destination image (Séraphin, 2018; Séraphin et al., 2017). This is a troubling combination for a tourist destination. Haiti, as a destination in the Caribbean, has a strategic advantage with its expansive coast and natural attractions, but the underdevelopment of tourism in Haiti is linked to shadows of natural disasters, economic dependence on foreign aid and political uncertainty (see Séraphin et al., 2017; Wise and Díaz-Garayúa, 2015). The power of nature has placed much media attention on Haiti, and it has gained much negative attention in recent years in the media, but the images of a ‘beautiful destination’ is now changing the narrative to a destination on the rise (Caribbean News Now, 2017a; The World Bank, 2018). However, tourism in a developing country comes with numerous obstacles, as extensive investments are needed to allow tourism to thrive in the increasingly competitive Caribbean market. This is where the media plays a crucial role in transforming how a destination is portrayed. This chapter will assess narratives sourced from newspaper travel articles published in 2017 to understand how presentations of tourism in Haiti are constructing a new image of the country as an emerging tourism destination—an attempt to overcome the range of negative connotations. However, while the chapter focuses on image recovery in relation to the recent natural disasters in Haiti, it must also be noted that Haiti is also a destination with longstanding image issues given the extent of poverty, violence and political corruption (Séraphin, 2018).

The Constitutional Framework of the French Caribbean

2020 ◽  
pp. 271-299
Author(s):  
David Marrani ◽  
Sacha Sydoryk
Keyword(s):  
General Framework ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
French Caribbean ◽  
Unitary State ◽  
Saint Martin ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

France is a unitary State. As such, it only has one unique parliament, one unique government, and one unique constitution, which lays down the framework for the governance of its territories around the world. Included amongst these territories are Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy, which are located in the Caribbean. This chapter focuses on the general framework of their functioning within the French Constitution. It begins by discussing the history of the French Caribbean. It then considers how the different territories are currently governed as an integral part of the State. It argues that the French Caribbean should not be regarded as a mere replica of the functioning of the administrative subdivisions of mainland France. The four French Caribbean territories are, to various degrees, more independent from the State’s interference than the other administrative subdivisions in mainland France.

Freedom Roots

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Dubois ◽  
Richard Lee Turits
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Military Occupations ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Racial Slavery

“To tell the history of the Caribbean is to tell the history of the world," write Laurent Dubois and Richard Lee Turits. In this powerful and expansive story of the vast archipelago, Dubois and Turits chronicle how the Caribbean has been at the heart of modern contests between slavery and freedom, racism and equality, and empire and independence. From the emergence of racial slavery and European colonialism in the early sixteenth century to U.S. annexations and military occupations in the twentieth, systems of exploitation and imperial control have haunted the region. Yet the Caribbean is also where empires have been overthrown, slavery was first defeated, and the most dramatic revolutions triumphed. Caribbean peoples have never stopped imagining and pursuing new forms of liberty. Dubois and Turits reveal how the region’s most vital transformations have been ignited in the conflicts over competing visions of land. While the powerful sought a Caribbean awash in plantations for the benefit of the few, countless others anchored their quest for freedom in small-farming and counter-plantation economies, at times succeeding against all odds. Caribbean realities to this day are rooted in this long and illuminating history of struggle.

Culture and Social Structure in the Caribbean: Some Recent Work on Family and Kinship Studies

1963 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond T. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

The territories of the circum-Caribbean region contain some of the most complex societies in the world. Their complexity lies not in their size, degree of internal differentiation or technological development, but in the dependent and fragmented nature of their cultures, the ethnic diversity of their populations, the special nature of their dependent economies, the peculiarities of their political development and the apparent incoherence of their social institutions. It has been suggested that many Caribbean societies have no history of their own but should be viewed as an extension of Europe. Dr. Eric Williams, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, has recently written in reference to his country:On August 31st 1962, a country will be free, a miniature state will be established, but a society and a nation will not have been formed.

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