Ruminations

On The Concept

Of Caribbeanness

By Marsha Pearce"Do we only understand who we are through difference, through

division, through separation? Does Caribbeanness, therefore, mean not French,
not Canadian, not American, not British, not German?"

“Caribbean” is a root word. “Caribbean” is also a “route” (Stuart Hall) word – it can
offer one way to travel; one path in practices of self-articulation. When you add
the suffix “-ness” to the root/route, the resultant word is one that compels you to
confront a condition of being – that condition or quality of “being Caribbean.”
What then is Caribbeanness? What characterises or constitutes being Caribbean?

The Discourse of Cultural Identity

To begin to seek answers to such questions, it is necessary to acknowledge that

any consideration of notions of Caribbeanness happens within discourses. Which
discourse serves as a suitable point of departure? Which discourse shapes the
way we talk about and define what it is to be Caribbean? I first look to the
discourse of cultural identity: Hall sees this as “…a very clear and powerful
discourse…[which promotes the idea] that the culture of a people is at root…a
question of its essence, a question of the fundamentals of a culture.”[1] Hall
observes that within this discourse, these “fundamentals” become “a kind of
ground for our identities, something stabilised, around which we can organise…
our sense of belonging.”[2] The Caribbean has certainly been distilled to
fundamentals determined by Euro-American ways of seeing. The Caribbean has
been caught in what Mimi Sheller declares might be called “a politics of the
picturesque,”[3] whereby writings and visuals have foregrounded certain
“fundamentals,” which have framed and determined how the region is conceived
and experienced.

Tourism Discourse

Within the discourse of cultural identity, there exists a subset: the tourism
discourse, and, it is here that I look to next. The suffix – that “-ness” – is amplified
in travel writing and imagery in ways that conjure up the Caribbean through such
descriptors as: a paradise fantasy; tropical oasis; unspoiled, carefree islands
“where life is sweet…where the people and the sun will embrace you.”[4]
Caribbeanness is evoked in such icons as white sand, waving coconut palms and
memorable sunsets – all bordered by the pristine, brilliant blue waters of the
Caribbean Sea. Tourism discourse is an important step in a progression of thought
about Caribbeanness because tourism discourse offers a view of the Caribbean
from outside. Is an outsider view valid? Does the view from outside encapsulate
the true (and the question of truth naturally enters issues of identity) Caribbean?
What about the view from inside? Hall tells us that “far from only coming from the
still small point of truth inside us, identities actually come from outside, they are
the way in which we are recognised and then come to step into the place of the
recognition which others give us. Without the others there is no self, there is no
self-recognition.”[5] The view from outside, therefore, allows Caribbean people to
consider the identities thrust upon them; the outsider perspective compels
Caribbean people to accept/admit/acknowledge what is “seen” in them on the one
hand, and to challenge identities with counter/insider perspectives, on the other.

Authenticity: A Question of Truth

The issue of truth is complex – truth according to whom? In what context is

something true? “Truth,” therefore, begs for further consideration. What is that
“real” Caribbean quality? What does it mean to be truly Caribbean? Does being
truly Caribbean imply a separation from other cultures? After all, Veerle Poupeye
observes, “authenticity in Caribbean art is measured by its independence from
the Western artistic canons.”[6] Does this measurement apply to the people? Do
we only understand who we are through difference, through division, through
separation? Does Caribbeanness, therefore, mean not French, not Canadian, not
American, not British, not German? This marking of difference is evident within
the region, at the level of language: The region is divided into the French-
speaking, Spanish-speaking, Anglophone and Dutch-speaking areas. Difference is
also seen at the level of nationalism: O. Nigel Bolland refers to what Jamaican
historian Franklin Knight calls “fragmented nationalism” as he writes: “…people
identify strongly as Haitians or Cubans or Jamaicans, but rarely as ‘Caribbeans.’
”[7] Can we, then speak of a French sense of being Caribbean in contrast to a
Spanish Caribbeanness? Are we only truly Barbadian or only authentically
Vincentian (authentically made only through sharp divisions)? Is there an
overarching sense of Caribbeanness – one that transcends language, geographical
borders and site-specific socio-cultural nuances, flags and coats of arms?

A Sense of Caribbeanness

One Sense:

Cuban intellectual Antonio Benítez-Rojo emphasises connections/relations rather

than separation in a proposal for Caribbeanness. He uses Chaos theory to
advance the notion that there is some Caribbean constant (Chaos theory involves
an adherence to rules within a system despite an apparent randomness or lack of
order). Benítez-Rojo sees the Caribbean as a “meta-archipelago” without
boundaries or centre. He sees the Caribbean as defying place but always holding
to a rhythm, a particular response or “certain kind of way” that is Caribbean. For
him, the Caribbean seems to copy itself wherever it is found (America, New
Zealand, China, Russia), creating different copies each time – each copy
comprising connections between seemingly disparate cultural elements – but
always maintaining “Caribbeanness.” According to Benítez-Rojo, that
“Caribbeanness,” that “kind of way,” that rule that is obeyed, is improvisation.
Another Sense:

Again, I look to Benítez-Rojo, for while his notion of the meta-archipelago gives
free space; a boundlessness; an openness to what it might mean “to be
Caribbean,” he also takes us back to a very specific location; a particular place in
history – in Caribbean experience. Benítez-Rojo suggests that the plantation is
that persistent quality of our being; he declares “the plantation…lies within the
memory of the people of the Caribbean. It is what inspires…[our]
performance.”[8] He proposes that the Caribbean propensity for producing
different copies of itself; for producing spontaneous concoctions in which varying
cultural fragments are pulled apart, reformed, combined, repelled and yet
attracted, began on the plantation. He calls the plantation “the black hole”[9] that
draws Caribbean expressions. Benítez-Rojo writes: “…hidden within the samba
there are the ancient pulsations brought by the African diaspora, the memory of
sacred drums and the words of the griot. But there are also the rhythms of the
sugar mill’s machines, the machete stroke that cuts the cane, the overseer’s lash
and the planter’s language, music and dance. Later there came other rhythms,
from India, from China and from Java…finally, all these rhythms mixed with one
another to form a…complex polyrhythmic orchestration…”[10] Is Caribbeanness
without centre and, at the same time, forever expressed from a centre?

To Be or Not to Be: Is that the Question?

To ask whether “being Caribbean” is possible with and without a centre puts a
spotlight on what Jamaican scholar Rex Nettleford describes the Caribbean as
having: a paradox of being.[11] Nettleford observes that the region continues in a
“process in which contradictions battle to forge new synthesis.”[12]
Caribbeanness is everything and yet, something. Nettleford writes: “the typical
Caribbean person is…part-African, part-European, part-Asian, part-Native
American but totally Caribbean.”[13] Benítez-Rojo concurs. He observes – as he
discusses Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat – that “her identity is in the
hyphen, that is, in neither place: Danticat is a Caribbean writer.”[14] The issue of
Caribbeanness is not, therefore, a question of either/or positions; the question: “to
be or not to be?” is not relevant here. “Being Caribbean” may perhaps best be
seen as a condition of forever “becoming” – a synthesis between nothing and
being. Yet, how do we faithfully articulate, visualise, verbalise an in-between state
without choosing “this” and rejecting “that?” How do we capture, document or
express a paradox? How do we depict or portray a hyphen?

Notes

[1] Stuart Hall, “Myths of Caribbean Identity,” The Birth of Caribbean Civilisation:
A Century of Ideas about Culture and Identity, Nation and Society. Ed. O. Nigel
Bolland. (Kingston and Miami: Ian Randle Publishers; Oxford: James Currey
Publishers, 2004) 578.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Mimi Sheller, Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies. (London
and New York: Routledge, 2003) 61.

[4] Martinique advertisement, Islands Apr/May 2006: 51.

[5] Hall, op. cit., 582-583.

[6] Veerle Poupeye, Caribbean Art. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1998) 10.

[7] O. Nigel Bolland, “Introduction,” The Birth of Caribbean Civilisation: A Century

of Ideas about Culture and Identity, Nation and Society. Ed. O. Nigel Bolland.
(Kingston and Miami: Ian Randle Publishers; Oxford: James Currey Publishers,
2004) xvi.

[8] Antonio Benítez-Rojo, “Three Words Toward Creolization,” The Birth of

Caribbean Civilisation: A Century of Ideas about Culture and Identity, Nation and
Society. Ed. O. Nigel Bolland. (Kingston and Miami: Ian Randle Publishers; Oxford:
James Currey Publishers, 2004) 165.
[9] Ibid., 163.

[10] Ibid., 165.

[11] Rex Nettleford, Caribbean Cultural Identity The Case of Jamaica: An Essay in
Cultural Dynamics. (Kingston and Miami: Ian Randle Publishers; Princeton: Markus
Wiener Publishers, 2003) xvi.

[12] Ibid., 144-145.

[13] Ibid., xii.

[14] Benítez-Rojo, op.cit., 167.

Bibliography

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Civilisation: A Century of Ideas about Culture and Identity, Nation and Society. Ed.
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Publishers, 2004, 161-169.

---. The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective. 2nd ed.
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Bolland, O. Nigel. Introduction. The Birth of Caribbean Civilisation: A Century of

Ideas about Culture and Identity, Nation and Society. Ed. O. Nigel Bolland.
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xvi-xxvii.

Hall, Stuart. “Myths of Caribbean Identity,” The Birth of Caribbean Civilisation: A

Century of Ideas about Culture and Identity, Nation and Society. Ed. O. Nigel
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---. “The Spectacle of the Other,” Representation: Cultural Representations and

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Nettleford, Rex. Caribbean Cultural Identity The Case of Jamaica: An Essay in

Cultural Dynamics. Kingston and Miami: Ian Randle Publishers; Princeton: Markus
Wiener Publishers, 2003.

Poupeye, Veerle. Caribbean Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 1998.

Sheller, Mimi. Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies. London and
New York: Routledge, 2003.