Addresses the place of Carnival in the creation of a national cultural narrative in Trinidad and Tobago and examines the role that such a narrative plays in the formation of a coherent national cultural identity
Examines three ‘cosmopolitan’ traditions in the Caribbean. While the first tradition derives from the universalist intellectual tradition of the European Enlightenment, the other two are linked to vernacular, local Caribbean traditions.
The Caribbean space is characterized by its cultural pluralism and is the scene of one of the most complex processes of syncretism and transculturation in America. Music, as an element of integration and at the same time of regional differentiation, is deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of the people of the Caribbean and is strongly associated with the identity that defines the region.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
349 p, For many Trinidadians, Carnival is the quintessential expression of Trinidadian-ness. On one level, this thesis is an ethnographic "enactment" of one particular Carnival celebration in the circumscribed space and time of Port of Spain 1992. On another, this study explores the historical, systemic, political and hermeneutical linkages between Trinidad's "national" identity, its culture and its annual Carnival. Argues that Trinidad's Carnival is more properly understood, not as a rite of reversal, but as a performance which constitutes and expresses the Trinidadian Self.
