Section 4. Cultrual Diversity and Social stuff

What are three positive effects of cultural diversity in the Caribbean?

Cultural enrichment (music, food, language, religion); economic opportunity through cultural tourism; resilience and adaptability from exposure to multiple worldviews.

What are three negative effects of cultural diversity in the Caribbean?

Inter-ethnic tension and conflict over resources; social fragmentation through ethnic loyalty; discrimination based on colour and ethnicity; cultural erasure of minority groups.

How do ethnic groups accommodate each other in terms of space?

Through ethnic enclaves — e.g., Indian communities in rural Trinidad, Chinese communities in urban centres.

How do ethnic groups accommodate each other in terms of political and economic power?

Ethnic-based political parties and power-sharing arrangements; economic niches (e.g., Chinese in retail, Indians in agriculture and business).

What is social visibility in the context of ethnic accommodation?

Some ethnic groups gain dominance in national culture and narratives while others are marginalised or rendered invisible.

What three factors defined social stratification in plantation society?

Race, colour, and money (wealth/land ownership).

How did the plantation system create a colour hierarchy?

A spectrum emerged between white and black. Mixed-race individuals occupied intermediate positions, and lighter skin conferred greater social advantage.

How did education become a basis for class formation after emancipation?

Formal education became the primary route to upward mobility for Afro- and Indo-Caribbean people, producing a professional middle class (teachers, lawyers, doctors) who used credentials rather than land or capital to claim social status.

What is the plantocracy?

The ruling class of white plantation owners who dominated colonial Caribbean society economically and politically.

What is the intelligentsia?

The educated intellectual class that emerged post-emancipation as a new elite through access to schooling; they eventually led independence movements.

What is the bourgeoisie in the Caribbean context?

Owners of the means of production — merchants and businesspeople who controlled capital.

What is the underclass?

Those structurally excluded from the formal economy — the chronically unemployed and marginalised poor.

What is a caste and what happened to it in the Caribbean?

A rigid, birth-based social hierarchy brought to the Caribbean through Indian indentureship. It weakened over time as the new environment made it difficult to enforce.

What is acculturation?

The process by which a minority group absorbs elements of a dominant culture, sometimes at the expense of its own (e.g., enslaved Africans being forced to adopt European languages and religions).

What is the plural society model and who developed it?

Developed by M.G. Smith (drawing on J.S. Furnivall). It describes Caribbean society as distinct ethnic groups coexisting within one political unit but maintaining separate cultural institutions — economic interdependence without cultural integration.

What is the main criticism of the plural society model?

It is too static and ignores the cultural blending that actually occurs between ethnic groups in the Caribbean.

How did Edward Kamau Brathwaite define creolisation?

A dynamic process of mutual cultural transformation — Europeans and Africans did not simply stay separate or assimilate; both transformed each other, producing a genuinely new Creole culture.

What are the two directions of creolisation according to Brathwaite?

Euro-creolisation (Europeans adapting to the Caribbean environment and African influences) and Afro-creolisation (Africans reinterpreting European forms while retaining African cultural memory).

What is douglarisation and who coined the term?

Coined by Rhoda Reddock. It describes the cultural and biological mixing between African and Indian peoples in the Caribbean (particularly Trinidad), pointing to a new hybrid Caribbean identity emerging from their interaction.

What is hybridisation?

The broad ongoing process of cultural mixing that produces identities that are fluid, multiple, and neither purely one thing nor another.

What does mulatto mean?

A person of mixed African and European ancestry.

What does mestizo mean?

A person of mixed Indigenous American and European ancestry; more common in the Spanish Caribbean

What does dougla mean?

A person of mixed African and Indian ancestry; primarily used in Trinidad and Guyana.

What does creole mean? (give all uses)

A person of European descent born in the Caribbean; a person of mixed ancestry; or broadly, anything born of and belonging to the Caribbean region. It is highly contextual.

What was the social function of racial mixture terminology (mulatto, mestizo, etc.)?

They were tools of social control — fixing people in a colour hierarchy and determining their access to privilege and social standing.

What is cultural erasure in the Caribbean context? Give an example.

The deliberate or structural destruction of cultural practices. Example: enslaved Africans were forbidden from speaking their languages or practising their religions; indigenous Amerindian cultures were destroyed through genocide and forced assimilation.

What is cultural retention? Give an example.

The survival of cultural practices despite attempts at erasure, often in disguised or adapted forms. Example: African spiritual systems (Vodou, Orisha/Shango) and Indian festivals (Divali, Phagwa) persisted in the Caribbean.

What is cultural renewal? Give an example.

The deliberate post-independence reclaiming and revival of suppressed traditions. Examples: Rastafari's reconnection with African identity; Négritude movement; Caribbean Artists Movement.

What is Edward Kamau Brathwaite known for in Caribbean Studies?

His theory of creolisation as a process of mutual cultural transformation between Europeans and Africans in the Caribbean

What is M.G. Smith known for in Caribbean Studies?

Developing the plural society model, which describes Caribbean society as ethnically distinct groups coexisting without full cultural integration.

What is Rhoda Reddock known for in Caribbean Studies?

Coining the term "douglarisation" to describe African-Indian cultural and biological mixing, and her contributions to Indo-Caribbean feminist thought.

What are Lloyd Best and George Beckford known for?

Analysing the plantation economy and its structural legacy on Caribbean development and social organisation.