Theories of Caribbean society

1
Theories of Caribbean society

• SY26B
• Week 4-5

2
Plantation society

• Plantation society/economy
• Countrieswhere the internal and external
  dimensions of the plantation system dominate the
  countrys economic, social and political
  structure and its relations with the rest of the
  world. (Beckford)
• Where several plantations dominate most of the
  arable land in a predominantly agricultural
  country
• Social, economic systems resemble that of
  plantation system

3
Plantation society

• Caribbean society is a macrocosm of the
  plantation
• Plantation and legacy of slavery are the most
  important features of Caribbean life
• Plantation as total institution

4
Plantation society

• Legacy
• Internal characteristics
• Mono-crop culture
• Rigid stratification
• Poor cohesion
• Peasant marginality
• External characteristics
• Dependence on external economic systems
• Poverty, underdevelopment, powerlessness are
  result of internal characteristics of system and
  external element of dependence on metropolis and
  external financial/economic systems

5
Plantation society

• Legacy of plantation system (Thomas)
• Link between Caribbean economic system and
  metropole economic system and consumption habits,
  plus links between local and metropole
  bourgeoisie created roots of modern dependency
• No other cultivation allowed in sugar economies
  i.e. dependence on one crop for survival
• Very stratified workforce, whites controlling
  blacks
• Ideology and culture used to justify system
  white supremacy

6
Plantation society

• Thomas (cont.)
• Speculative approach to sugar interested in
  windfalls, not improving efficiency
• Production of primary exports using domestic
  resources consumption of imports
• No local technological advancement

7
Plantation society

• Beckford
• Unit of authority controlling every aspect of
  peoples lives
• Caste system people under system and relations
  between them dictated by plantation needs
• Plantations internal dimension - social system
• Plantations external dimension - economic system

8
Plantation society

• Social and political organisation in plantation
  economies in Third World resemble that of
  colonial period
• Lack of real development post-colonialism
• Peasant development constrained by legacy of
  plantation system

9
Plantation society

• Foregrounds legacy of slavery, racism, inequality
  and links that to present conditions
• Blame / responsibility assigned to the colonial
  powers
• Not enough focus on individual agency
• Too much focus on institution
• Individuals can carve out niches of autonomy
• People within system had own social organisation,
  values, beliefs

10
Pluralism (MG Smith)

• Based on Furnivalls study of Far East
• people of different ethnic groups come together
  but
• do not combine. Each group holds its own
  religion, its own culture and language, its own
  ideas and waysdifferent sections of the
  community living side by side, but separately
  within the same political unit. Even in the
  economic sphere there is a division of labour
  along racial lines.

11
Pluralism

• Furnivall (cont.)
• plural society seems calm because under pressure
  of force
• independence would lead to anarchy and
  interethnic strife in struggle for hegemony

12
Pluralism

• Plural society
• heterogeneity to the point of incompatibility
  between various sections/segments
• no cultural unity political only
• societies depend on regulation of inter-section
  relations by one of the cultural sections in
  order to operate as a single unit

13
Pluralism

• WI structurally peculiar
• society dominated by a small section with
  European (British) culture and allegiance, in
  cooperation with
• an intermediate local section of ambivalent
  culture over
• the majority of alien African culture

14
Pluralism

• Example of plurality religion
• Agnosticism of British society faith and skill
  in modern science dominant value is materialism
• Christianity
• African-type ritual forms (spirit possession,
  sacrifice, obeah, witchcraft, divination)

15
Pluralism

• Emphasis on culture welcome importance of
  individuals in society
• Debunks myth of cultural unity, racial harmony

16
Pluralism

• Criticisms
• Discuss race and class as well as / instead of
  culture in differentiating groups in society
• Society also held together by domination in
  various aspects of social life (customs,
  language)
• Cross-sectional snapshot no allowance for
  change

17
Creole society (Kamau Brathwaite)

• In Jamaica, fixed within the dehumanising
  institution of slavery, were two cultures of
  people, having to adapt themselves to a new
  environment and to each other. The friction
  created by this confrontation was cruel, but it
  was also creative.

18
Creole society

• Europeans and Africans both contributed to the
  development of a distinctive society and culture
  that was neither European or African, but Creole

19
Creole society

• black/brown/white, but infinite possibilities
  within these distinctions, and many ways of
  asserting identity
• representation of creolisation coloured as
  bridge between black and white, helping to
  integrate society

20
Creole society

• Creolisation is the result of
• Acculturation absorption of one culture by
  another
• socialisation, imitation, language, sex etc
• Interculturation more reciprocal, spontaneous
  process of mixture

21
Creolisation

• Tendency to imitate European, but African
  influence still important
• Uneven process, variation in degree of
  Euro-Creole vs Afro-Creole dominance

22
Creolisation

• Seen as defining feature of Caribbean society
  despite diversity
• Allows treatment of Caribbean as a unit
• Used to explain impact of globalisation/global
  flows

23
Creole society

• No attention to interaction of subordinate ethnic
  groups among each other
• Not enough attention to conflictual relations
  among groups
• Overemphasises unity?

24
Creolisation

• Jean Besson
• Creolisation as indigenisation/localisation
  (Mintz)
• Several creole identities in West-Central Jamaica
• Cultures of
• Afro-Creoles slaves (black coloured)
• Euro-Creoles white colonists
• Meso-Creoles free coloureds/peasants/middle
  class
• Rooted in plantations, maroon settlements, farms,
  towns, transnational networks

25
Creolisation

• Euro-Creoles (land, architecture)
• Planters (English, Scottish)
• Links established through
• Marriage, kinship, friendship
• Alliances against slave resistance
• Slave, land sales
• Managerial elite (plantation managers)
• Sports, social clubs
• Migration between UK and Jamaica
• Corporate plantations
• Diasporic care/renovation of heritage sites
  social events

26
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory (Walter
Rodney, Andre Gunder Frank)

• Europe did not discover the underdeveloped
  countriesshe created them.
• Modern underdevelopment expresses a particular
  relationship of exploitation.All of the
  countries named as underdeveloped in the world
  are exploited by others and the underdevelopment
  with which the world is now pre-occupied is a
  product of capitalist, imperialist and
  colonialist exploitation.

27
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• History of underdeveloped countries in the last 5
  centuries history of consequences of European
  expansion
• International economy created underdevelopment
  and then hindered efforts to escape it
• Metropoles develop and satellites underdevelop
• Developed countries blocked or distorted the
  development of poor countries

28
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• Underdevelopment is caused by
• Capture of wealth
• Restrictions on capacity to maximise economic
  potential
• Structural dependence
• Dependent on economies of Euro-American countries
• Dependency perpetuated/exacerbated through
  policies/incentives
• Attempts to resist dependence result in actions
  by developed countries

29
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• Underdeveloped countries features
• Export of surplus
• Low national income
• Stagnation/slow rates of growth
• Low levels of industrialisation
• Savings exported/wasted
• Poor health indicators
• Low levels of basic food consumption
• etc

30
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• Assumptions of stage theories of development
• Past and present resemble earlier histories of
  developed countries
• Development through assuming metropoles capital,
  institutions, values
• Dual society thesis
• one affected by economic relations with outside
  world
• the other isolated, pre-capitalist, thus
  underdeveloped

31
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• In fact
• Underdeveloped countries past and present dont
  look like any stage of the developed countries
  past
• Developed countries were never underdeveloped
  possibly undeveloped
• Underdevelopment is product of past and
  continuing economic and other relations between
  underdeveloped countries and the metropole
• Economic development can only happen
  independently of diffusion of capital etc
• Capitalist system has penetrated all of society,
  even the underdeveloped part

32
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• Satellites develop most when ties to metropole
  are weakest
• e.g. during the WW and the Depression
• Most underdeveloped countries now had strongest
  ties to metropolis in past and were eventually
  abandoned by metropolis
• greatest exporters of primary products, biggest
  sources of capital
• e.g. Caribbean had typical capitalist export
  economy
• when market for sugar declined, abandoned by
  metropolis
• no autonomous generation of economic development

33
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• Solutions
• Import substitution
• Promotion of national industry and manufacturing
  for domestic consumption
• Nationalisation
• Prohibition of foreign investment

34
Underdevelopment/Dependency theory

• Criticisms
• Some of poorest countries have not been subject
  to European influence (economic
  contacts/colonisation)
• Solutions would lead to corruption and lack of
  competition