Caribbean hybridity shaped distinct ideologies of exclusion and incorporation

Evidence

Percy C. Hintzen takes up a part of the globe that was transformed in the aftermath of European expansion and exploitation through the system of plantation slavery. The role of race has been integral to the forging of Caribbean identity and ethnicity from its initial moments. Hintzen’s account is organized around two key arguments. First, he argues that as a result of the very manner in which the populations of the Caribbean were created in the aftermath of European expansion and forms of colonial domination, construction of forms of hybridized Creole identity became a constitutive feature in the various parts of the Caribbean. Second, he suggests that the very reality of hybridity and creolization meant that ideologies of exclusion and incorporation took particular forms in the Caribbean. He touches in some detail on the differential patterns of incorporation of Afro-Creoles and East Indians in Trinidad and in Guyana, highlighting the important role of various forms of cultural nationalism in shaping much of political debate in the Caribbean. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3109

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in creolization and hybrid identity — resonates with earlier passages on hybridity (3037) and with Douglas’s work on cultural formation.
• QUESTION: Suggests asking how the Afro-Creole / East Indian divide in Trinidad and Guyana maps onto today’s ethno-nationalist politics.