How Would You Characterise the Contemporary Caribbean, Taking Into Consideration the Issues of Inequality, Multi-Culturalism and Poverty.
Question: How would you characterise the contemporary Caribbean, taking into consideration the issues of inequality, multi-culturalism and poverty.
Often enough the Caribbean is portrayed as the untouched paradise, with its’ crystallised waters, hidden getaways and lavish landscapes with enriched flora and fauna.
However, the image projected is not without a tumultuous past. It is a past based on colonialism, slavery, indentureship, assimilation, the mixing and diffusion or borrowing of many cultures which have characterised the region as one that is in flux. One may even stake the claim that the constructs of contemporary Caribbean is largely or significantly as a result of nearly five centuries of European policies. These policies legitimized the imperial’s power and control that enforced domination and exploitation that have given rise in many ways to the perceived Caribbean structure from a socio-cultural and economic level.
As a result there have been theoretical attempts written in the 1970s that have highlighted or sought to explain the repercussions such as inequality, the advent of multiculturalism and poverty that seem to add to the characteristics of contemporary Caribbean. Many view the mention characteristics are as a result of a lingering concept referred to as “Plantation Legacy.”1 This can best be explained as a case in which plantation-esque institutions still prevails and is manifested in the socio-cultural, economic and political structure of the Caribbean. In comparison with the plantation society, every aspect of the socio-culture was dictated by the plantation owners that created distinction of inequality in the Caribbean. In that every levels of the social hierarchy were separated from one another and the characteristics of inequalities such as race, class, skin colour, status, sex, gender and economic power determined a person’s social position in the hierarchy. In the contemporary Caribbean, academics contend that the upper class
Often enough the Caribbean is portrayed as the untouched paradise, with its’ crystallised waters, hidden getaways and lavish landscapes with enriched flora and fauna.
However, the image projected is not without a tumultuous past. It is a past based on colonialism, slavery, indentureship, assimilation, the mixing and diffusion or borrowing of many cultures which have characterised the region as one that is in flux. One may even stake the claim that the constructs of contemporary Caribbean is largely or significantly as a result of nearly five centuries of European policies. These policies legitimized the imperial’s power and control that enforced domination and exploitation that have given rise in many ways to the perceived Caribbean structure from a socio-cultural and economic level.
As a result there have been theoretical attempts written in the 1970s that have highlighted or sought to explain the repercussions such as inequality, the advent of multiculturalism and poverty that seem to add to the characteristics of contemporary Caribbean. Many view the mention characteristics are as a result of a lingering concept referred to as “Plantation Legacy.”1 This can best be explained as a case in which plantation-esque institutions still prevails and is manifested in the socio-cultural, economic and political structure of the Caribbean. In comparison with the plantation society, every aspect of the socio-culture was dictated by the plantation owners that created distinction of inequality in the Caribbean. In that every levels of the social hierarchy were separated from one another and the characteristics of inequalities such as race, class, skin colour, status, sex, gender and economic power determined a person’s social position in the hierarchy. In the contemporary Caribbean, academics contend that the upper class
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