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ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to interrupt the dominant discourse on race, ethnicity, gender and class (intersectionality) globally, which has focussed on the experiences of ‘whites’ with their others, primarily in North America and Europe and shift it to the post-colonial multi-ethnic societies of the Global South. It draws on the historical experience of Trinidad and Tobago, the multi-ethnic nation-state comprising the two most southerly islands of the Caribbean archipelago to present the analytic of competing victimhoods as a mechanism for understanding inter-ethnic tensions and conflict in multi-ethnic post-colonial societies. This has the ability to make visible different groups’ interpretations of their histories of hardships and distinct colonial experiences by going beneath the surface of simple hegemony and subordination relations and to examine legitimate and/or illegitimate feelings of fear and insecurity. Such an approach moves our analysis from a focus on individual group identities to the interactions between, among and within groups and the ways in which these various levels of feeling intersect and shape behaviours, attitudes and ideologies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Race is used here to refer to social categorisations of people based on common phenotype or colour. Ethnicity on the other hand is used to refer to social identities constructed in contradistinction to others and based on religion, culture, nationality, geography, culture, phenotype, historical experience etc. For some ‘race’ is simply another form of ethnic division.
2 Here I refer to the conceptualisation of Antonio Gramsci on hegemony and dominance (Gramsci in Hoare and Howell Smith, Citation1971).
3 South Africa is of course an interesting combination of both realities.
4 Recent discussions by Sean McElwee (Citation2017) have explored this phenomenon in relation to recent developments in the USA.
5 Derived from Trinbago a term used to describe the single nation-state of Trinidad and Tobago.
6 Brereton suggests that this may be further divided into a Hinducentric narrative which associates ‘Indianity’ with Hinduism (Brereton, Citation2007, p. 187).
7 For example, Anil Persaud’s doctoral dissertation The Problem of Origin in the Politics of Indigeneity in Post-1830 ‘s British Guiana’, University of Delhi, 2008 and Shona Jackson (Citation2012).
8 This would apply specifically to those who actually identify as ‘French creoles’ although most are mixed.
9 Although the narrative of slavery serves as the starting point for both the Afrocreole and Afrocentric narratives according to Brereton, they differ in that the latter ‘rejects the trope of mixing and cultural fusion which is at the heart of the Creole one (Brereton, Citation2007, p. 185).
10 August 1, 1838 – the date of the Emancipation of enslaved Africans in British colonies.
11 Emancipation Day was commemorated in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1930s by the Marxist-oriented Negro Welfare, Cultural and Social Association. See Rhoda Reddock (Citation1988).
12 These include NJAC – The National Joint Action Committee; The Emancipation Support Committee and TANU – The Traditional African National Union.
13 Procrustean Bed – An arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced.
14 Lokaisingh-Meighoo uses the term mo(ve)ment to mark both the historic rupture with home as well as the historic move to diaspora (Lokaisingh-Meighoo, Citation1998, p. 14).
15 The First Indian Arrival Day Magazine in 1994 had the sub-title ‘Commemorating the 149th Anniversary of the Indian Presence in Trinidad’.
16 Shalini Puri reminds us of the mottos of many Caribbean nations present images of ‘nonconflictual diversity’ e.g. – Trinidad and Tobago – Together we Aspire, Together we Achieve; Guyana – One People, One Nation, One Destiny; Jamaica – Out of Many: One People (Puri, Citation2004, p. 48).
17 This of course is somewhat incorrect see Rhoda Reddock (Citation1994), Chapter 2.
18 North-South – This usage was introduced in the 1980 report of the Independent Commission on Independent Development Issues popularly known as the Brandt Commission, led by the late Willy Brandt, former Chancellor of West Germany. Although not geographically accurate, it was chosen ‘to emphasize the economic divide between the North (rich nations) and the South (poor nations) and to highlight the desirability of a North-South dialogue’ (Hulme and Turner, Citation1990, p. 8).
19 While working-class solidarities were an important aspect of inter-ethnic collaboration in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago during the first decades of the twentieth century (Abraham, Citation2007); these have tended to decline in significance with the waning power of trade unions and labour and socialist-oriented political traditions and some trade unions’ alliances with ethnically defined political parties. Class as an explicatory variable therefore, is often overridden by the powerful, emotive discourse of race or ethnicity while class divisions get understood in racialised terms.
20 Lynch however does not credit Affirmative Action policies with these changes.
21 In part a reflection of the internalisation of racist stereotypes and a closer affinity to native creolised forms.
22 A good example of this is the debate over the Trinity Cross as the highest national award. This has continued although the award has been replaced after a successful legal challenge.
23 Douglarisation – from the word ‘dougla; ‘dogla’ – in Trinidad and Tobago a person of mixed African and Indian parentage.
24 Interestingly for a number of reasons not examined here offspring of African and Indians are perceived as outside of Indianness and a name has emerged for such persons. On the other hand, the offspring of Indians and Whites are accepted and indeed no separate nomenclature has emerged. See Segal (Citation1993).
25 But even so much of Puri’s commentary was directed at her colleagues in the North and less to those based in the South who are carrying out such work.