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In this new edited volume, Holger Henke and Fred Reno build on
their important collection Modern Political Culture in the
Caribbean (2003) and revisit some of the themes in Caribbean
political culture explored some eighteen years earlier. The
contributors to New Political Culture in the Caribbean consider
more recent developments precipitating significant changes in the
political attitudes and discourses in the region. Even the
persistent themes in Caribbean political life - issues such as
race, ethnicity, sovereignty, civil rights, or poverty - allow for
new consideration, not only because of their longevity but also
because in their contemporary form they may speak to new dynamics
in society or find different forms of expression or political
impact. The quality of political discourse - in terms of its
content and forms of presentation - has significantly shifted over
the first decades of the twenty-first century, and the impact of
social media and a concomitant rise of political fringe discourses
have accelerated the fragmentation of the public and polity,
leading to sharper confrontations in the political sphere and
giving once again rise to crude forms of nationalism. There are
also various stressors and pressures that run counter to simplistic
notions of nationalism and point to a great urgency for more
transparent, sustainable, participatory and equitable modalities of
political engagement and discourses in the region.
Despite growing cultural and economic homogenization across the
globe, the visible presence of immigrant communities stands out in
many metropolises of the world. In almost all major cities the
cultural and physical presence of various ethnic or religious
groups is very much in evidence. Yet, until now, the academic
treatment of international migration has mostly been confined to
limited case studies, single ethnic groups, or single locations.
Crossing Over offers an alternative to this method, bringing
together a diverse group of academics charged with submitting new
research that juxtaposes experiences and draws on comparisons
between aspects of migration in Europe and the United States. The
essays focus on two main issues: security issues-heightened by
recent terrorist activities-and the question of citizenship,
identity, and host-guest interaction. The result is a collection of
accessible research essays that shed light on both the parallels
and differences that exist for immigrant groups across continents
and cultures.
The West Indian Americans captures the experiences of the diverse
groups of immigrants to the United States since 1965. These
English-speaking Caribbean immigrants have an increasing presence
in this country, particularly in New York City. The differences
between the various peoples of African, East Indian, or mixed
ancestry, usually unacknowledged, are described here. Henke clearly
relates who the groups are-from the Jamaicans to the Garifuna-why
they left their homelands, how they have adapted and impacted this
country, and the new challenges they face. Many notable West Indian
Americans are profiled. The West Indian Americans introduces
students and other interested readers to the diversity and cultural
individuality of a growing segment of the American immigrant
community. After an introductory chapter that describes the history
and people of Jamaica and the other English-speaking Caribbean
nations, their migration to the United States and patterns of
adjustment and adaptation are discussed. Next, the West Indian
cultural traditions, transferred to this country especially the
churches, literature, music, and festivals, are evoked. Another
chapter covers family networks, return migration, and remittances
to those members left behind in the West Indies. Final chapters
examine the new challenges for the West Indian Americans, such as
identity issues, education and job prospects, and gang and drug
problems, and the contributions of West Indian immigrants.
In this volume, the editors and authors strive to understand the
evolving Trans-Caribbean as a discontinuous, displacing and
displaced, transnational space. It considers the imagined community
in the islands as its psycho-social homeland, while simultaneously
pursuing different cultural strategies of redefining and resisting
colonial 'homeland' conventions (which Kamau Brathwaite
appropriately termed the 'inner plantation'). Thus, the
Trans-Caribbean is suspended in a double-dialectic, which opposes
both the hegemonic metropolitan space inhabited, as well as the
romanticized, yet colonialized, 'inner plantation, ' whose
transcendence via migration perpetually turns out to be an
illusion. Given this, cultural production and migration remain at
the vortex of the Trans-Caribbean. The construction of cultural
products in the Trans-Caribbean understood as a collection of
social and new migratory practices both reflects and contests
post-colonial metropolitan hegemonies. Following Arjun Appadurai's
distinction, these homogenizing and heterogenizing counter-trends
in Trans-Cariabbean spaces can be observed through cultural
transactions manifesting themselves as ethnoscapes, mediascapes,
technoscapes, financescapes, cityscapes, ideoscapes, etc. For the
purposes of this book the editors invited anthropologists,
sociologists, political scientists, linguists, liberal arts and
gender studies specialists, as well as cultural and literary
historians to begin drawing some of the diasporic trajectories on
the huge canvas of cultural production throughout the
Trans-Caribbean.Constructing Vernacular Culture in the
Trans-Caribbean will find its audience among scholars in cultural
studies, migration, literary theory, and cultural criticism who
have a special interest in Caribbean and Latin American Studies, as
well as among students and scholars of migration and
postcolonialism and postmodernity in general."
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