Rethinking Global and Area Studies: Insights from Caribbeanist Anthropology

Abstract

Recently, there has been an upsurge in the critical attention directed toward the area studies research paradigms that were institutionalized after World War II. This upsurge comes at a time when anthropologists are also developing increasingly sophisticated accounts of the intersections of global and local processes. Yet there has been less engaged consideration of the agendas propelling global studies over area studies curricula. In this essay, we argue that an analysis of the Caribbean and Caribbeanist anthropology allows us to trace the global in the local, thus illustrating the benefits of local area analyses for understanding global dynamics. We draw on theoretical assertions regarding global-local interactions in order to assess the relation of anthropology to Caribbean studies and to explore the implications of analytical trajectories and theoretical developments within Caribbeanist anthropology for social and cultural processes on a global level. [

Americas, Sociocultural Overviews: Caribbean

“…Following Philpott's work, a large number of studies (see Slocum and Thomas, 2003) have documented the key role of migration in Caribbean culture and society. They have shown that most people do not view migration as a means of leaving home with the intent to settle in another place, but rather as a resource that makes it possible for them to explore various opportunities abroad and enjoy social mobility, while remaining part of their Caribbean home community of origin.…”

Introduction: Locality in Today's Global Caribbean: Shifting Economies of Nation, Race, and Development

“…Since Constance Sutton's declaration that the Caribbean community in New York represents a transnational sociocultural system (Sutton 1987;Thomas-Hope 1988), the flexibility and cross border movements of Caribbean peoples have come to represent an archetype for the contemporary moment of globalization (Cohen 1998;Hannerz 1996;Khan 2001;Slocum and Thomas 2003;Trouillot 1992;Yelvington 2001). Much of the groundbreaking work concerning the nature and dynamics of transnationalism progressed with insights gained from studies of Caribbean migration (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Szanton Blanc 1992;Basch, Glick Schiller, and Szanton Blanc 1994;Pessar 1997).…”

“…Within Caribbean Studies (and Caribbeanist anthropology more specifically), the body of literature on nationalism, independence, and postcolonialism in the Caribbean has indeed been extensive (see Slocum and Thomas 2003 for further elaboration of various dimensions of this research). Contemporary research has not only been attentive to the ways debt agreements and new global trade and labor arrangements have transformed nationalisms throughout much of the postcolonial Caribbean but have also analyzed how race and culture articulate within attempts to construct nationalist subjectivities identified as modern (Segal 1994;Carnegie 2002;Munasinghe 2001;Godreau 2002) and how these articulations are expressed through performance and popular culture both among Caribbean populations within the region and those in diaspora (Ramos-Zayas 2003;Thomas 2004).…”

“…For some scholars the Caribbean has become an area that 'repeats' (Benitez-Rojo 1992) or, as the argument goes, prefigures the more recent analytical attention given to colonialism, modernity, creolization, and globalization (Khan 2001;Maurer 2004;Mintz 1998;Sheller 2003;Slocum and Thomas 2003;Trouillot 2002). The region has been used, in Aisha Khan's words, as a 'master symbol ' (2001) that can tell us something about concepts that have become key terms in today's scholarly environment.…”

On Tourism and the Constructions of ‘Paradise Islands’ in Central America and the Caribbean

“…In the Caribbean, this situation is heightened by the region's global orientation throughout its history, particularly since the sixteenth century (Amit, 2001). Although Caribbeanist anthropology has been concerned with global/local articulations (Slocum and Thomas, 2003), a comparative approach to the study of island tourism specifically has been less explored (but see Ballerino Cohen, 1998).…”