Ethnic Cleavage and Closure in the Caribbean Diaspora


Book Description

This collection of essays addresses the allegations of racism as one of the major themes in political commentaries in the multiethnic Caribbean and its Diaspora. In this context, several ethnic groups ply for scarce resources, so the principles of fairness and equality in resource distribution become critical to societal stability. The book advocates an understanding of inter and intra-ethnic class structure as a useful conceptual tool to address the issues of ethnic cleavage, racism, and discrimination, using a power-conflict framework that illustrates that inter and intra-ethnic class structure emphasizes economic stratification, caste, internal colonialism, and a diversity of class-based and Marxist theories.







Reproducing Domination


Book Description

Reproducing Domination: On the Caribbean Postcolonial State collects thirteen key essays on the Caribbean by Percy C. Hintzen, the foremost political sociologist in Anglophone Caribbean studies. For the past forty years, Hintzen has been one of the most articulate and discerning critics of the postcolonial state in Caribbean scholarship, making seminal contributions to the study of Caribbean politics, sociology, political economy, and diaspora studies. His work on the postcolonial elites in the region, first given full articulation in his book The Costs of Regime Survival: Racial Mobilization, Elite Domination, and Control of the State in Guyana and Trinidad, is unparalleled. Reproducing Domination contains some of Hintzen’s most important Caribbean essays over a twenty-five-year period, from 1995 to the present. These works have broadened and deepened his earlier work in The Costs of Regime Survival to encompass the entire Anglophone Caribbean; interrogated the formation and consolidation of the postcolonial Anglophone Caribbean state; and theorized the role of race and ethnicity in Anglophone Caribbean politics. Given the recent global resurgence of interest in elite ownership patterns and their relationship to power and governance, Hintzen’s work assumes even more resonance beyond the shores of the Caribbean. This groundbreaking volume serves as an important guide for those concerned with tracing the consolidation of power in the new elite that emerged following flag independence in the 1960s.




Caribbean Abstracts


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Ethnic Cleavage and Closure


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The Political-mass Media-racial Complex in Guyana


Book Description

The new millennium juxtaposes different generations who were witnesses to the genesis of turmoil in Guyana. Since the year 1992, in which democracy returned to Guyana, opposition elements continue to be unreceptive to electoral defeats. The disinclination to concede electoral loss since 1992 has become a normative historical behavior in the Guyanese context. International observers have validated the four national elections in 1992, 1997, 2001, and 2006 as being free, fair, and transparent. Today, electoral defeat has a relationship with the infamous political/mass media/racial complex that constantly pursues the destabilization of the state and undermines nation-building. Essentially, this complex is a community of irrationality, engaging in a persistent dissemination of despair. This book focuses on politics, media, and race. The two main objectives of the work are: demonstrating the modus operandi and the dysfunctional consequences of this community of irrationality through the political/mass media/racial complex, and showing the rational behaviors that have held the society together since 1992. In the interest of building a strong nation, it may be useful to work toward a transformation of this community of irrationality to a community of rationality. Book jacket.




Ethnicity in the Caribbean


Book Description

This collection of essays addresses the workings of ethnicity in the Caribbean, focusing on the significance of ethnicity for social structure and national identity. Temporally, the contributions range from the initial European colonization through to today`s post-colonial Caribbean. Topics discussed include the international repercussions of Haiti`s black revolution, the position of French Caribbean bekes and Barbadian redlegs, race in revolutionary Cuba, Jamaica`s post-independence culture, and the predicament of Dutch Caribbean decolonization. The essays provide a comparative perspective for the study of ethnicity as a crucial factor shaping both intimate relations and the public and international dimension of Caribbean societies.







Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora


Book Description

"Stuart Hall, in whose honour this volume is compiled, has made significant contributions to contemporary social and political discourse. Constantly praised for his scholarly prescience, he was at the helm of the forging and definition of the discipline of Cultural Studies and nurtured an entire cadre of young intellectuals who continue to make remarkable contributions in the fields of Cultural Studies and Social Criticism. The essays that constitute this collection, all, in different ways, contend with Hall's methodology, his philosophy, as well as many other dimensions of his rich and textured intellectual career. More importantly however, they serve to reconnect his work to the social context of his island of birth, Jamaica, and the wider Caribbean. "