Sociological perspective on Caribbean societies

1. Models of Caribbean Society
Plantation - Best, Levitt, Beckford
Plural - M.G Smith
Creole - K. Braithwaite, E. Goveia
Class Stratified - Carl Stone

2. The Most Developed Models
 Plantation Society
 Plural Society
 Creole Society

3. Plantation Society Model
 A particular class of society with distinguishing
characteristics of social structure and political organization,
and laws of motion governing social change (Barrow and
Reddock, 2001).
 Demographic, political and socio-economic structures are
almost identical to those found within the individual
plantation community.

4. Plantation Society Model
 Backdrop: - Analytical significance & pervasive influence of
the plantation in the New World
 Two Variants -
- Weak (Horowitz, Patterson, Wagley)
Plantation communities characterized by unstable family units,
hierarchical class relations, low levels of community
integration, mobile populations often recruited for seasonal
work
- Strong : draws on analysis of structural dependency in the
Caribbean (Best & Levitt, Beckford, Witter)

5. Plantation Models Characterizing
Caribbean Economies
Best and Levitt argued that:
 Pure Plantation Economy of Slavery
 Plantation Economy modified after Emancipation
 Plantation Economy further modified after 1940 with
„Industrialization by Invitation‟
 They ignored the social forces that contributed to change
in the region

6. George Beckford’s Outline of
Plantation Society
 Distinguished between plantation as social system and plantation
as economic system
 Modern Plantation Society has roots in Slave Plantation system -
mercantile capitalism
 Societies produced commodities for sale in international
Capitalist markets
 Surpluses generated from exploitation of slave labour fueled
process of accumulation that gave rise to development of
Industrial Capitalism in Europe
 Slave Plantation society was an integral part of International
Capitalist System

7. Beckford cont’d.
 Future of Plantation Societies bound up with future of
International Capitalism
 That future will be determined by interaction of 2
opposing forces
 1. Continuing imperialist expansion of Capitalism in
new shapes & forms
 2. The strengthening of popular forces worldwide for
national liberation

8. Beckford cont’d.
 Hierarchical chain of command formed with White
Europeans as owners of the MOP
 That occupational structure instituted race in the process
of production & set up a particular class society
 Economic spin-off of the Plantation Society is the
production of commodities for export

9. Beckford cont’d.
 Trade marked by “unequal exchange” & keeps Plantation
Society backward relative to Industrial Capitalist societies. This
arises from existence of a reserve army of labour in Plantation
Society
 Post Emancipation - nonagricultural activities (tourism, mining,
light manufacturing) began. These diversified mix of
commodity production & complicated class structure
 Institutionalization of race & class remained with mode of
production

10. Beckford cont’d.
 Plantation Society is one in a state of constant crisis
 Capital - labour antagonism is central to all Capitalist
economies, but is heightened in Plantation Society due to
element of race
 Plantation Society is a plural society - different racial &
cultural groups brought together only in realm of
economic activity

11. Beckford cont’d.
 Plantation Society is dependent on Metropolitan economy
 Fortunes of all groups in Plantation Society bound up with
relations between Plantation Economy and Metropolitan
Economy
 Plantation Society will always exhibit underlying social
tension & internal crisis will be a recurrent feature
 Crises likely to involve racial divisions

12. Features of Plantation Society
 Culturally plural with races brought together mainly by
economic activity - rigid patterns of stratification
 Political power exercised on behalf of planter class, in spite
of, for example, black political parties.
 Development of local gov‟t. inhibited & highly centralized
state due to legacy of „loose & weak‟ local communities

13. Features of Plantation Society
 Brittle social order maintained through expansion of educational
opportunities for lowest strata, nationalism against the metropole
& energies of races themselves
 Examples : Privy Council abolition; Reparations debate,
Nationalism, etc.
Dependent industrialization (subservient partnership with
foreign capital)
Plantation Agriculture of diminished importance

14. Some Visible Elements of
Plantation Society
 1. Skin Bleaching / Preference for lighter complexion
 2. Dependency Syndrome - negotiation for preferential trading
arrangements
 3. Culturally Plural society - „mixing but not combining‟;
class/colour stratification (rigid in parts)
 4. Inequality & discrimination of poor, especially black
population (inner-cities)
 5. Price - taking / weak manufacturing; primary production
 6. Ill effects of globalization (economies threatened, as well as
companies)

15. Has Anything Changed?
 Tourism, Sports and Arts and Entertainment have been
able to move the Caribbean from being solely price-taking
to price-setting
 Manufacturing and Service driven sectors have grown
over the period
 Weakened rigidity of social order / social system through
increased opportunities for upward social mobility

16. Has Anything Changed?
 Kamau Brathwaite noted the rise and fall in the fortunes of
particular social groups and classes, and of their political,
cultural, economic and ideological practices and expressions
(Craig)
 Diminished significance of Agriculture, particularly the
Plantation Agriculture Sector
 Kumper noted, however, that capitalism has been reshaped
and morphed, evident now in partnerships that have some
subservient relationship by locals with foreign capital

17. Creole Society
 The problem of identity has always been an issue in the modern
Caribbean.
 One of the earliest lines of cleavage was that between whites and
mixed elements (creoles).
 Rivalry was succeeded between Afro-creoles and indentured
workers (TT, Guyana and Suriname)
(Selwyn Ryan, 2002: JACAS Symposium Series 15)

18. Creole Society
 The term has varying meanings in the Caribbean.
 Stuart Hall (1977: 164) states “ the term itself is hard to define,
it‟s ambiguity being itself an index of its complex articulation
with the structured form of the cultures and groups with which it
interacts.”
 Lowenthal (1972: 32-33) The term was originally used to define
African slaves born in the new world. Later extended to
“…anyone, black or white, born in the West Indies…then
extended to things, habits and ideas…opinions expressed”

19. Creole Society
 Nettleford (1997: 74) Whites born in the American colonies were
regarded as “creoles” by their metropolitan cousins.
 Jamaican born slaves were similarly differentiated from their
“salt-water negro” colleagues freshly brought in from West
Africa.
 Genuine Caribbean expressions are regarded as those that have
been “creolized” into indigenous form and purpose distinctively
different from the original elements from which those expressions
first sprang.

20. Creole Society
 Brathwaite (1974) Creolisation is the process through which the
various groups in the Caribbean society absorb each other‟s
cultural products.
 The Africans and Indians imitated or were forced to imitate the
Europeans.
 Europeans inadvertently but at times consciously absorbed some
of the cultural styles, languages and mores of the subordinate
groups.

21. Creole Society
 The Africans and Indians acculturated while the European‟s
process was defined as interculturation.
 The former is the result of the yoking of cultures by force and
example while the latter is an unplanned, unconscious and
osmotic relationship following from the yoking process.

22. Plural Society
 Alex de Tocqueville – the older and better known usage links
pluralism with situations in which competing views and
program are canvassed freely on issues and subjects or public
interest eg. religious, political or educational processes and
conditions.
 Presupposes the universalistic incorporation of all citizens.

23. Plural Society
 Furnivall- “…involves the differential incorporation of those who
participate freely in the juridical, civic and political institutions
…and others who do not.”
 “Each is in the strictest sense a medley, for they mix but do not
combine. Each holds by its own culture and language, its own
ideas and ways…There is a plural society, with different sections
of the community living side by side, but separately, within the
same political unit. Even in the economic sphere, there is a
division of labour along racial lines”

24. Plural Society
 M.G. Smith the most noted exponent
 Societies seen as culturally & socially homogeneous –
common system of basic institutions shared
 Heterogeneous societies – differing „alternative‟ and
„exclusive‟ institutions are practised
 Plural societies – basic institutions not shared by the cultural
sections that comprise them
 Because of institutional and value differentiation, such
societies are inherently unstable and monopoly of power
by one cultural section is important to the status quo
(Craig).

25. Some Criticisms of Plural Society
Model
 Lloyd Braithwaite argued that every society is to some
extent „pluralistic‟
 Failure to consider acts of inter-culturation, according to
Kamau Brathwaite (Creole Society)
 Static and failing to consider alliances between and
among groups
 Stone argued that it is not institutional but material
differences that define social groups