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    Topic 1.4:

    Identity and Social Formation

    Models of Caribbean Society:

    Plantation

    Plural

    Creole

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    Introduction

    The models of Caribbean society:

    Plantation Plural Creole

    These models are not mutually exclusive.

    The plantation model is primarily socioeconomic while the plural and creole models are

    sociocultural.

    While the plantation model is generally accepted as the definitive economic model (at least

    up to the end of the 20th century, the sociocultural model remains highly contested.

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    Plantation Society

    Definition:

    a society which exhibits the

    rigidly stratified social and

    economic relations enforced on

    plantations in the Americas.

    ● Socioeconomic model – 

    Lloyd Best, Kari Levitt, GeorgeBeckford.

    ● Sociocultural model – R.T.Smith (building on Goffman’s

    ‘total institution’), Orlando

    Patterson, Vera Rubin.

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    Background to the plantation

    society model

    ● Proposed by Lloyd Best as part

    of an economic analysis of

    Caribbean society. He built on

    the work of previous scholarsincluding economists such as

    Herman Merivale and H.J.

     Nieboer, historians including

    Eric Williams and Lowell

    Ragatz and sociologists such as

    Erving Goffman, Raymond

    Smith, Charles Wagley and

    Elena Padilla.

    ● Goffman’s ‘total institution’ a

    key concept – an institution in

    which all aspects of the life of

    individuals within the

    institution are subordinate to

    and controlled by the

    authorities within the

    organisation.

    ● The totality of the institution

    created similar economic and

    social conditions in societies

    stretching from north-eastern

    Brazil through the Caribbeanto the southern United States.

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    The plantation economy

    ● Analysis first proposed by Lloyd Best in 1968, building on work of Eric Williams

    (1944) in Capitalism and Slavery. Became the foundation for the work of the New

    World Movement, centred on the University of the West Indies and including, apart

    from Best, George Beckford, Norman Girvan, Edwin Carrington and others.

    ● Best’s analysis centred on the historical reality of slavery and the plantation in the

    Caribbean which produced an economy based on ‘production for trade.’ He claimed

    that, after emancipation, the mercantilist-based institutions of society continued to

    create ‘highly import-intensive patterns of consumption’, a corresponding neglect of

    the domestic agricultural sector and a continued dependence on the metropole.

    ● Beckford extended Best’s analysis to explain the continued under-development of the

    region,suggesting that the plantation was, and remains, a ‘total institution’ dominating

    not only the economy but all aspects of Caribbean society as well.

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    Characteristics of the plantation

    economy (Best)● It is inextricably linked to the metropolitan economy

    through its monocrop production for export.

    ●The plantation is a total institution with regard to the

    economy i.e. it affects the entire economic life of all those

    involved in it.

    ● It possesses a level of ‘incalculability’ because of price

    indeterminacy since supply and demand decisions are

    made at the metropolitan and not local level.

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    Characteristics of the plantation

    economy (Beckford)●The plantation economy (and society) was part of a

    ‘plantation system’, essentially coercive and

    exploitative, that resulted in persistent poverty and

     powerlessness in the dependent economy at the hands ofthe metropolitan economy.

    ● New foreign-owned, multinational corporations engaged

    in mining and manufacture operate within theinstitutional framework of the plantation system and

    therefore do not produce the necessary economic

    transformation to break the cycle of dependency.

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    Characteristics of the plantation

    economy (Beckford)●The real dynamic for growth in the local economy lies

    with the peasant class but the growth of this sector is

    stifled by the plantation system.

    ●The ‘totality’ of the system extends beyond the economy

    to the entire society, to the political and socio-cultural

    institutions of society.

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    Characteristics of plantation society

    (R.T. Smith, Patterson, Rubin)

    ● Institutionalization of stratification based on race and class

    resulting in a brittle or fragile society constantly on the verge of crisis

    due to the capital – labour antagonism.

    ●A plural society with little mixing between groups except on the

    economic level and the consequent development of parallel

    institutions and the possibility of fragmentation.

    ● Political power exercised on behalf of the plantocracy although by black nationalist parties. Power maintained through the expansion of

    educational opportunities, the appeal to ethnic solidarity and to

    nationalism against the metropole. Power highly centralised 

    continuing the plantation tradition of weak local communities.

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    Characteristics of plantation

    society (cont’d)● A concern for lightness of skin and a preference for the foreign. The

    orientation of the society is outwards towards the metropole.

    ● The development of hybrid cultural forms through interculturation

    although the society remains plural. The dominance of European

    values also results in the acculturation of subordinate groups.

    ● Social stratification remains rigid with race as the determining

    ascriptive factor. Some variations introduced as a result of

    industrialisation, immigration, and a result of the growth of the

    tourism, sport, and arts and entertainment sectors.

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    Criticism of the plantation model

    ● The claim of totality ignores the creative contribution made by

     peasant farmers and the changes in the social structure brought about

     by their activities including the upward mobility of their descendants.

    ● Although Beckford referred to “the emergence of the vertically

    integrated corporate plantation enterprise”, this ignores the real

    differences between the ‘old’ plantation sector and the ‘new’ mining,manufacturing and service sectors of the economy. The latter have

     promoted the introduction of modern technology, new patterns of

    economic organisation, and new social classes including an urban

    industrial working class and a local managerial class.

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    Criticism of the plantation model

    (cont’d)●Beckford’s analysis of plantation society has little to say

    about the workings of the plural society and its

    relationship to the plantation. In particular, he is silent on

    the dynamics of Caribbean society with regard to ethnic

    and cultural differences and how these differences may

    result in social change. As a result, his model is believedto be too simplistic with regard to social reality. It

    describes what is but cannot explain how change will

    occur.

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    Plural Society

    Definition:

    A society in which

    different ethnic groups

    live parallel to each

    other, each with a

    similar set of

    institutions, meetingonly in the market place

    and under the political

    domination of the

    colonial state.

    ●Apart from plural

    societies, it was argued

    that there were

    homogeneous societies

    (e.g. Northern Europe or

    Central Asia) or

    heterogeneous societies

    (e.g. the U.S.).

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    Background to the plural society

    model●Theory originated with J.

    S.Furnivall writing about

    colonial societies in

    Southeast Asia. Focusedon their differentiated

    economies.

    ●Adopted by M.G.Smith inthe 1960’s to describe

    Caribbean society

    (specifically Grenada).

    ●For Smith, the cultural

    diversity of the groups

    was key. He distinguished

     between pluralism which, according to

    Lloyd Brathwaite, existed

    in most modern societies,

    and the plural society which was rarer and to be

    found in the southern

    Caribbean especially

    Trinidad, Guyana andSuriname.

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    Characteristics of the plural

    society● A complex of parallel institutions (family, religion, language, the

    arts, education).

    Society inherently fragile due to the lack of common values and the

     potential for conflict in the competition for cultural space.

    Order maintained by the domination of political power by the colonial power and, later, by one group. Political instability frequent, often

    degenerating into violence.

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    Characteristics of the plural

    society●Dislocations and inequities created by the process of

    economic development, particularly the urban/rural

    divide, often seen in ethnic terms.

    ● Interculturation, while always present, often resisted

    as the first steps towards acculturation. Hybrid

    cultural forms not always welcomed.

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    Criticism of the plural model

    ●All societies, especially in the modern world, are

     pluralistic.

    ●The cultural differences between groups in societies like

    Jamaica and Grenada appear to be based largely on class,

    their position in relation to the power structure of the

    society.

    ●Carl Stone argued that class was the determinant of the

    social structure but Smith suggested that class was

    subsumed into the racial and cultural divisions.

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    Criticism of the plural model

    ●The model takes no account of the processes of

    interculturation and hybridization and the implications of

    these for the institutions of society.

    ●Any analysis of Caribbean society must acknowledge the

    relative lack of racial violence and political instability inthe region despite the pluralism of the society.

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    Creole Society

    Definition:

    A society created by a process of hybridization

    based upon the response of individuals and the

    White/Black groups in the society to theirenvironment and to each other.

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    Background to the creole society model

    The term ‘creole’ is a contested concept. It can be defined as 

    ● Anyone or anything born or created in the Caribbean. This is the

    original sense in which the word was used by slaves in Brazil to

    describe their offspring born in the region rather than in Africa.

     

    ● A person of European stock born in the Caribbean but with the

    implication that they may be of mixed race.

     

    ● A language which is a hybrid of European and largely African

    elements.

     

    ● A person of African descent in the Caribbean (used by whites and

    Indians, sometimes in a pejorative sense).

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    Background to the creole society model

    ●Creole society model first proposed by Kamau

    Brathwaite in a study of Jamaican society, building on the

    work of Elsa Goveia in her work on the Leeward Islands.

    ●Variations on the Creole model have been developed by

    Orlando Patterson, Rex Nettleford and Mervyn Alleyne

    among others.

    ●This model has grown in popularity due to the

    widespread interest in hybridization in cultural studies as

    a result of globalization and the emergence of plural

    societies in the developed world.

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    Characteristics of Creole Society

    ●Created through a deliberate two-way process of

    interculturation and accommodation.

    ●Contains hybrid persons, institutions, and cultural

    products both material and non-material.

    ●One society is dominant (the European) but two culturalforms developed and now co-exist: the Euro-Creole with

    European forms dominating and the Afro-Creole 

    retaining African cultural patterns.

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    Characteristics of Creole Society

    ●With independence, the intelligentsia

    adopted some Afro-Creole forms in

    resistance to the coloniser but remainedEuro-oriented. Brathwaite calls them Afro-

    Saxons while Patterson calls the process

    ‘synthetic creolisation’.

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    Criticisms of the Creole model

    ● The model ignores the conflict inherent in the creolisation process.

    Creolisation results not in homogenisation but in further

    fragmentation since individuals and groups negotiate different hybrid

    forms.

    ● Brathwaite’s description of two cultural groups seems to turn the

    model into a version of the plural society with all the implications for

    fragility and conflict.

    ● The model ignores the question of class and the hegemony of

    European cultural forms. Creolisation may ultimately result in the

    disappearance of African retentions in favour of the Western global

    culture.

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    Criticisms of the Creole model

    ● The model offers no solution to the plural socities of the southern

    Caribbean: Trinidad and Guyana. For East Indians, creolisation is

    douglarisation, the destruction of their traditional culture and their

    assimilation into Western culture.