"While plotting out the journeys that paved the way for their creative and innovative work in Afro-Cuban and African American ethnography, this study will address their bifocal vision as insider-outsiders within the minority cultures they represent in folktales and within the 'foreign' cultures to which they traveled. Cabrera's and Hurston's roles as 'native ethnographers' will also be considered. In creating alternatives to traditional ethnographies, such as Franz Boas's Bella Bella Tales (1932), their collections can be understood as early examples of experimental and feminist ethnography." (author)
Birbalsingh discusses Indo-Caribbean culture, and the origins and influences of Indo-Caribbean short stories, beginning with the marriage of Indian and African oral traditions. Several authors from throughout Indo-CAribbean literature are profiled, including A. R. F. Webber, V. S. Naipaul, and Samuel Selvon.;
