PEOPLES AND CULTURES OF THE CARIBBEAN
Anthropology/ International Studies 262
Professor Leslie G. Desmangles
leslie.desmangles@trincoll.edu
Office: McCook 211
Telephone: 297-2407
Course Description
An ethnographic study of Caribbean cultures.We will focus on the pre-Columbian history of the
region, slavery, race, social class, gender, ethnicity and cultural diversity in the Caribbean. We
will also examine the impact of tourism of the cultures of the region, as well as specific
institutions such as the family, economics and the politics, as well as religion.
Goals of the Course
To acquire some basic understandings of the culture, the society, the history, and the worldview
of Caribbean peoples.
To familiarize ourselves with the geography, the topography, and the climate of the Caribbean
and its effects on the cultures of the region.
To gain some understanding of slavery as an institution, the practice of indenturing laborers, the
plantation systems, and to study their effects on the contemporary social structures in Caribbean
society.
To understand the means of production and economic structures that help shape Caribbean
societies.
To acquaint ourselves with the nature of marriage patterns as well as family structures in the
region. Emphasis is given to gender roles and the rearing of children in the Caribbean family.
To understand the impact of the tourism on Caribbean societies.
Requirements
Read all the assignments in their entirety and in the order in which they are listed.
Attendance is mandatory for all classes and will be taken regularly. More than three absences
will result in the lowering of your course grade by one letter.
Class time is important and essential to the learning process. So as not to hinder the learning of
others, please turn off all cellular phones, palm pilots, tape players, PDAs, blackberries, MP3
players, disc players, beeping watches and all other electronic noise producing devices before
coming to class.
You should refrain from walking unnecessarily in and out of the classroom during the class
sessions. It distracts both your instructor and your classmates. Moreover, it is improper and
impolite.
In this course no Incomplete will be given as a final course grade. You will submit all your
written assignments; take all examinations and quizzes on the due date, and during the semester
in which you take the course.
Many of you will plan to fly home at the end of the semester, or during the semester. Plan
accordingly; make your reservations early during the semester, and plan to travel on days other
than those on which the college is officially in session. If you plan to fly home at the end of the
semester, make your plane reservation for a time after the final examination for this course. Be
assured that the instructor will not give the final examination on any day other than the scheduled
day.
Plagiarism is a major form of academic dishonesty and will be pursued with the Academic
Affairs Committee to the fullest extent allowed by the college. The Student Handbook defines
plagiarism as presenting as one’s own, the words, the work, or the opinions of someone else. Be
assured that the instructor will visit various web sites to look for plagiarized work.
Below are the schedules of examinations and the dates on which the papers are due:
Examinations:
Map Quiz
First Examination
Second examination
Third Examination
Final Examination
Scheduled by the Registrar’s Office
The examinations will count as 75% of your passing course grade and the periodic quizzes 25%.
Note: A passing final course grade is possible in this course only after completing all
assignments by the end of the semester. This includes all of you who are taking the course
on a pass-fail basis.
Texts
Desmangles, L.
Faces of the Gods. Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1992.
Gmelch, G. & Gmelch, S.B. Parish Behind God’s Back. The Changing culture of Rural
Barbados. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1997.
Kincaid, J.
A Small Place. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988.
Lewis, W.
Soul Rebels. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1993
Mintz, S.
Sweetness and Power. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
Murphy, J.
Santería:. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.
Rogozinski, J.
A Brief History of the Caribbean. New York: Penguin, 1999.
*Other Readings
Barrett, R.
Bush, B.
Berkhoffer, R.
The meaning of Culture, in Culture and Conduct.
Slave Women in Caribbean Society 1650-1838. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1990 (selections).
Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1991.
The White Man’s Indians. New York: Vintage Books, 1989
(Part 1).
Hillman, R and D’Agostino,
T. ed.
Understanding the Contemporary Caribbean. Kingston:
Jamaica Ian Randle Publishers, 2009.
Nichols, D.
“Lebanese of the Antilles: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and
Trinidad.” In The Lebanese in the World: A Century
of Emigration. Hourani, Albert H. and Sheladi, Nadim, eds.
London: I. B. Tauris 1993, pp 339-358.
Richardson, B.
“Caribbean Migration” in The Modern Caribbean. Palmer C.
Knight and C. Palmer, editor. Chapel Hill: The University of
North
Carolina Press, 1989, pp 208-228.
Rouse, Irving.
Prehistory of the West Indies Bobbs-Merrill Reprints #A335
Slater, M.
The Caribbean Family. New York: St. Martin Press, 1989.
(selections)
Wolf, Eric
Types of Latin American Peasantry Bobbs-Merrill Reprints #S544
*Available on blackboard
COURSE OUTLINE
A. Introducing the Course.
Video: The Caribbean
*Read: Barrett
Hillman
The Meaning of Culture and The Creative
Rationale …, in Culture and Conduct.
Introduction in Understanding the
Contemporary Caribbean
B. Caribbean: Geography and Geological History.
Read: Rogozinski:
Chapter 1
Boswell
The Caribbean: Geographic Preface in
Understanding the Contemporary
Caribbean. Chapter 2
Mc Gregor
The Environment and Ecology in
Understanding the Contemporary
Caribbean
Chapter 7
Gmelch
Chapter 1
You should acquire a map of the Caribbean, study it and memorize the names and the locations
of the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles. This map should be kept handy for reference
purposes during the remainder of the semester. You should also be familiar with the brief
geological history of the Caribbean.
C. Brief History of the Caribbean.
1. The Taino of the Pre-Columbian Era.
Read: Rogozinsky
*Rouse
*Berkhoffer
Randall
Chapters 1-2
“Pre-History of the West Indies”
“The Idea of the Indian”
Historical Context in Understanding the
Contemporary Caribbean Chapter 3
2. Columbus, piracy and the early formation of European settlements
Read: Rogozinsky
Chapters 3-8
3. The Sugar Empire
Read: Rogozinsky
Gmelch and Gmelch
Chapters 9-12
Chapter 2
4. Women, Slavery and Sugar
Read: Bush
Chapters 2-6
Video: The Middle Passage To The New World
5. The End of Slavery
Read: Rogozinsky
Desmangles
Chapters 13-15
The Faces of the Gods, Chapters 1 and 2
D. The Legacy of Sugar
1. Sugar and its impact on European and Caribbean societies
Read: Rogozinsky
Chapters 10-14
Mintz
Sweetness and Power
Gmelch and Gmelch
Chapter 3 and 4
Video: Sugar Cane Alley (Rue Cases Nègres) (TC Main)
2. Race, social class and ethnicity in the Caribbean
Read: *Brereton, B.
“Society and Culture in the Caribbean” in
F. Knight and C. Palmer, eds. The Modern
Caribbean, pp. 85-110.
Baronov and Yelvington
*Nichols. D.
Ethnicity, Race, Class and Nationality in the
Caribbean in Understanding the
Contemporary Caribbean Chapter 8.
“The Lebanese of the Antilles: Haiti,
Dominican Republic, Jamaica and
Trinidad.” In The Lebanese in the World:
A Century of Emigration.
E. Caribbean Cultures
1. Religion
Read : Desmangles, Glazier and Murphy
Religion in the Caribbean in
Understanding the Contemporary
Caribbean Chapter 9
a. Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti: theory of religious symbiosis
Read: Desmangles
The Faces of the Gods Chapters 1-2
Desmangles
The Faces of the Gods Chapters 3-6
Videos: The Unexplained
The Legacy of the Spirits
b. Santeria: Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico
Read: Murphy
Santeria
Video: The Healers
Fieldtrip: Visits to Botanica in Hartford (in small groups)
c. Rastafarianism
Read: Chevannes
Rastafari (selections)
Video: Before Reggae Hit the Town (TC main)
Guest Lecturer: Ras Tayo Omari I
2. Caribbean Peasantry and economic development
Read: *Wolf “Peasants” chapter 1
Wolf
“Peasants” chapters 2 and 3
Pantin and Attzs
Economies of the Caribbean in
Understanding the Contemporary
Caribbean
3. Community life and tourism
Read: Gmelch and Gmelch
The Parish Behind God’s Back, Chap. 5-8
Kincaid
Small Place
(What to do and not to do if you are visiting a country in the Caribbean)
4. The Caribbean Family
*Read: Slater
Bolles
The Caribbean Family
Women and Development in Understanding
the Contemporary Caribbean
5. Linguistics: The Caribbean Creoles languages
*Read:
“Culture, Language and Society”
6. Life in the diaspora: Caribbean Transnationalism in the United States.
Read: *Richardson, B.
“Caribbean Migration”
Kincaid
Small Place
Video: Peoples of the Caribbean (TC Main)
STANDARD FOR PAPERS
Prof. Leslie G. Desmangles
Tel. 297-2407
Mc Cook #212
e-mail: leslie.desmangles@trincoll.edu
A. Quotations
You may use as many as four words in succession from an author only if the words are not a
special mark of the author's style. If one word alone is peculiar to the author's work from which
you are quoting, you must use quotation marks and footnote it accordingly. If you use that word
several times in your paper, it may become part of the terminology and the content of your paper
and, after footnoting it the first time, you need not footnote it or put in quotation marks each time
thereafter.
A footnote must be given for every quotation immediately at the end of a quote. For further
details regarding quotations, please refer to the section entitled Criteria for Evaluating your
Paper, section #1, below in this document.
B. Footnotes
1. Footnotes are employed when quotations are used and when ideas, outlines, charts,
organization, or "facts" are borrowed.
2. You will make no mistake if you assume that you cannot footnote too much in your
paper although you can footnote too little.
3. You may use either of the forms suggested: the "traditional" format or the
anthropological and social science format. The latter is probably less familiar to you and hence
deserves illustration.
The anthropological format entails the insertion of the footnote reference within the body of the
text of your paper, directly after the quoted or paraphrased passages from a book. This format
consists of three different stylistic variants, each appropriate to the function that it fulfills within
the text that precedes it.
a. If you've quoted or summarized a passage from a book that needs to be
footnoted you will do so as follows: “Charisma is a quality transmitted by heredity; thus it is
participated in by kinsmen of its bearer, particularly by its closest relatives” (Weber 1969, 250).
Notice the order: no period after quote, open parenthesis, citation, close parenthesis, period.
b. If the name of the author appears in the text, you need not mention the name in
the footnote entry: Max Weber notes that “charisma is a quality transmitted by
heredity; it is transmitted” (1969, 365).
Notice that everything remains the same as in a, except that the author's name is omitted.
c. If you have used two books by the same author published in different years,
you mention the author's name only if it is not included in the text immediately
preceding the quote or the summary of the author's text. But you must always
mention the year to distinguish one book from the other.
For example: "Charisma is a quality of an individual that is transmitted through
heredity; it is transmitted” (Weber 1965: 365). Weber also notes that "charisma is
participated in by kinsmen of its bearer, particularly its closest relatives” (1969,
250).
d. If you are using two or more books authored by the same person and written in
the same year, you will add a letter (such as a, b, or c) after the year of publication
to distinguish one book from the other. Letters placed in the citation after the year
of publication should also be entered in the bibliographical entry for the same
work in the same way (see “Bibliographical Entries” below). For example: Weber
notes that "charisma is a quality of an individual that is transmitted through
heredity; it is transmitted” (1965a, 365) and that it is a "common phenomenon
found especially in societies that have few political and social institutions that
serve as mechanisms for airing out their peoples' frustrations "(1965b, 10).
4. You may use the "traditional" or the anthropological formats illustrated above. But
you must be consistent in your use of them; use one or the other.
C. Bibliographical Entries
Like the footnote entries, you may use either of the formats. The anthropological/social science
format is illustrated below.
1. For a book, do the following:
Weber, Max. 1969. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. London: Oxford
University Press.
Notice that margins change, and the date of publication is first after the name of the author, and
that the second line of the citation is indented.
2. For two or more books authored by the same person during the same year, do the
following:
Weber, Max. 1965a. Sociology of Religion. New York: The Free Press.
Weber, Max. 1965b. History of Social and Economic Organizations. New York:
The Free Press.
Notice that the letter after the date of publication is the same for the same work cited in the
footnote reference in the text of your paper.
3. For a journal entry, do the following:
Flannery, Karen. 1973. "The Origins of Agriculture," in American Anthropologist 63:
7983.
4. For an anthology:
Flannery, Karen. 1974. "The Uses of the Plow in Agricultural Societies of
Siberia," in The Ecology and Political Economy of Siberian Peoples. New York:
Academic Press.
You will add a or b after the date of publication to designate the article to which you are
referring in the text if you are using different articles from an anthology or from different journal
entries (refer to 3 or 4 above) published by the same author in the same year.
Again, you must be consistent in your use of these formats.
D. Criteria for Evaluating your Paper
The following criteria are meant to inform you, if you wish to anticipate how well your paper
will be received by the reader:
1. Your paper must have a thesis that must be stated clearly at its beginning. Your
instructor should not be looking for a thesis as he reads the paper. Remember that the title of a
paper is not a thesis. The thesis entails the inclusion of a sentence or sentences that state clearly
what the author is trying to communicate to the reader.
2. Prevalence of quotations
A significant amount of quotations is a sign of weakness. Paraphrase and footnote unless you
think that the author's choice of words expresses superbly what you wish to communicate to your
reader. Placing the author's words in your own words requires thinking. If you paraphrase an
author's words, you must give the reference and the appropriate footnote.
3. The number of paragraphs
The number of paragraphs in a formal paper indicates to the reader how many main ideas you
think you are treating. Make sure that your paragraphs, and hence your thoughts, are organized
properly. Also, try to link your thoughts from one paragraph to the next in an orderly fashion for
the sake of coherence.
4. Double checking of all page and source reference.
The reader is going to check around. The reference had better be in that book, that edition, and in
that page where you give your word the reference is.
5. Formal errors
Misspellings, typographical errors, skimpy paragraphs, wrinkled and soiled pages, or general
messiness constitute a message to the reader that you don’t think much of your paper. The
purpose of your paper is to communicate ideas, and the reader will be aware of what you are
communicating by the general messiness of your paper. In this case, the reader will tend to agree
with your poor estimate of your paper.
6. Writing skills
There is no reason to feel shame about having difficulty in expressing your thoughts well in
written form. Remember that writing is one of the most difficult skills to master and that few
among us have overcome our difficulties completely. No one writes perfectly, albeit some write
better than others. But those who write well have learned to do so, first, by writing continually
and second, by seeking the assistance of others. If you know that you have trouble with your
writing, that you have had problems in the past, you are encouraged to seek assistance. Your
instructor as well as the folks at the Trinity Writing Center are delighted to help you improve
your writing skills in whatever way they can. You should contact them and have them review
your paper with you before submitting it.
7. Printing the final copy
Before printing your paper, you should make sure that your printer is in good order and that it
will yield clear, crisp and dark impressions. Please save your instructor's eyes; he already has
very bad eyesight.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a major form of academic dishonesty and will be pursued with the Academic
Affairs Committee to the fullest extent allowed by the college. The Student Handbook defines
plagiarism as “presenting, as one’s own, the words, the work, or the opinions of someone else.”
Rest assured that the instructor will visit various web sites and other written or oral sources if he
detects that your paper has been indeed been copied from these sources.
This is what the letter grade means on your paper
A “C’ means that your paper fulfills the assignment adequately. Your paper has a focus, a
central thesis which is described clearly at the beginning. Each paragraph follows logically from
the previous one. The first sentence of each paragraph introduces a new idea that is supported by
the other sentences in the same paragraph. Each sentence leads logically to the next and so is
each paragraph. Your paper has a prevalence of quotations. It also has few spelling, grammatical,
stylistic errors, and your punctuation and sentence structures are not as adequate as they should
be. The paper is legible but has some parts of it that are vague and lack “luster” of clarity.
A “B” paper means that your paper fulfills the “C” characteristics but has a few added
characteristics. It shows a degree of critical thinking in your analysis of the sources with which
you are working or quoting. You are incisive and able to describe the different points of view or
approaches presented by the different sources. Your paper has a clear thesis which is stated at the
beginning and has a strong conclusion which summarizes the points that you raised throughout
the body of your paper.
An “A” paper is fascinating to read. It fulfills all the requirements of the “B” paper, and
manifests a clear understanding of the issues being discussed in the paper. You have
communicated your ideas clearly with vivid details and with a creative use of language. The
reader must be engaged in your discussion of your thesis.
A “D “ paper lacks a central thesis. It has no clear description of what you are trying to achieve
in your paper and it has a weak, or no conclusion. Moreover, your paper is replete with spelling,
grammatical, punctuation errors. The paragraphs do not follow logically and neither do the
sentences.
An “F” paper fails to fulfill the assignment. It lacks a central thesis, is poorly written with badly
constructed sentences and paragraphs. It has no conclusion and makes poor use of available
sources. It shows not attempt at critical thinking of the topic. Your thoughts are disorganized and
manifest a lack of clarity of thinking and a lack of familiarity with the subject. In other words,
your paper reads as if you wrote it quickly the night before and essentially thoughtless.
Glaisma Perez-Silva Introduction
Glaisma introduction
Our third panelist Gaisma Perez- Silver is a most talented Puerto Rican educator and poet. She also tells
us that it is important to recognize that she is also a loving mother and most of all, the finest and
endearing grandmother on the face of the earth. She makes her home in Hartford. Formerly trained as a
special education teacher she was educated at the prestigious Catholic University in Puerto Rico and
graduated summa cum laude from the Inter-American University in Rio Piedras in Puerto Rico. She
currently serves as the Learning Disabilities Specialist at Capital Community College.
Mrs Perez-Silva’s poetry is written in her native language and is wide ranging -- from feminist themes
to issues of cultural identity. Mrs Perez-Silva has featured her poems in the “The Favorite Poem
Anthology and Video”, a National Project for the Archives of the National Library of the United States
Congress. She is the winner many prestigious awards, not the least of which is a Fulbright scholarship
awarded to her in 2004 which sent her to Ghana. She was the winner of the Excellence in Literacy Award
at the Urban Artist Institute. She has also produced “Tertulia”, a weekly radio show on WFCR in
Amherst. Lastly, she hold certificates and honors from the Amherst Writers Artists Institute “Gente y
Cuentos” (People and Studies) in Princeton, New Jersey, and is a member of the Urban Artists Initiative.