Migration, Material Culture and Tragedy: Four Moments in Caribbean Migration1

1. I would like to thank all my informants in successive research projects in Trinidad, Jamaica and South London. I would also like to thank Heather Horst and Fiona Parrott who jointly conducted the research in Jamaica and South London respectively. I would also like to thank Paul Basu and Simon Coleman for their editorial comments on this paper, as well as comments from the audience when it was originally presented at Sussex University

Abstract

This paper looks at four moments in the history of Caribbean migration to the UK through an analysis of the home interiors. A study of contemporary living rooms in Trinidad, an exhibition of Caribbean migrants to the UK between the 1950's and 1970's, a study by Horst of migrants returning to Jamaica from the UK, and a study of two specific migrants from the Caribbean in London today. The paper ends with a consideration of how material culture exposes a potential tragic aspect of the migration process. Tragic in the sense that individuals find themselves enacting a larger sense of fated trajectory rather than their own agency. In particular it considers how migrant cultural aspirations that suited their place of origin may have quite negative consequences in the very different context they arrive in. Something material culture can speak to in a way words may not.

Keywords:

• Caribbean
• material culture
• migration
• homes
• possessions
• tragedy

Notes

1. I would like to thank all my informants in successive research projects in Trinidad, Jamaica and South London. I would also like to thank Heather Horst and Fiona Parrott who jointly conducted the research in Jamaica and South London respectively. I would also like to thank Paul Basu and Simon Coleman for their editorial comments on this paper, as well as comments from the audience when it was originally presented at Sussex University

2. Parrott (2005, 2007) is using this material to write a PhD on the topic of photographs, and I used it for a book on material culture and what I call the aesthetic of order in these households (Miller, 2008). Later on, we intend to combine in order to write on this topic of loss, which was the original topic of this research (e.g. Miller & Parrott, 2007).

3. Mrs Stone and Marcia appear as portraits in The Comfort of Things, (Miller, 2008); Marcia also is discussed in much detail but with respect to quite different issues in Miller (2007).