Caribbean History: From Colonialism to Independence
AM217
Lecture 19: The Caribbean and the making of the modern
world
As we move towards the end of the course, we will begin to look back over the major
themes in Caribbean history. In this lecture, we will consider the Caribbean as a
highly, historically globalised region.
Lecture structure
1.
2.
3.
4.
Defining and unpacking globalisation
Historical parallels
Historical continuities
Previous rounds of globalisation and their legacies
Historical globalisation
Historically, the Caribbean is perhaps the most globalised world region. Since the
1500s it has been controlled by outside powers, based economically on imported
labour, cleared to create monocultural landscapes of sugar cane, bananas or other
crops, and reliant on the import of virtually everything else needed to sustain local
populations…Caribbean sugar cane processing was industrialised before European
production was. Because all dimensions of Caribbean society were exogenously
constructed and transplanted there, the culture of Afro-Caribbean people from the
outset has been detached from its historical and geographical roots, and therefore
modern and global. In other words, the organisation of Caribbean societies and their
associated production systems have for half a millennium been devoted to distant
markets and profit-making demands.
R. Potter et al., The Contemporary Caribbean, p. 387-8.
Globalisation and Caribbean cultures
During centuries of colonial rule, Caribbean culture emerged as a unique and
distinctive result of the myriad contributions of a wide range of African and Asian
traditions, West Indian adaptations, and many foreign influences introduced by
Europeans or picked up during circular migration for work in other parts of the
hemisphere and in Europe…
R. Potter et al., The Contemporary Caribbean, p. 388.
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