Caribbean Culture: Soundings on Kamau Brathwaite

Abstract

The 22 essays collected in Caribbean Culture are representative of the quality of the intellectual dialogue that took place at the Second Conference on Caribbean Culture held in January 2002. Scholars and critics gathered at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies to honor the life and writings of Caribbean poet, historian, and cultural critic Kamau Brathwaite. The volume’s introductory essay offers a brief but compelling overview of Brathwaite’s key theoretical contributions to the field of Caribbean studies. This opening discussion of Brathwaite’s use of the concepts of creolization, “nation language,” and a Caribbean aesthetic helps to introduce the reader to the many themes that will bring cohesion to what could have been a disjointed body of work.The volume’s essays are arranged into seven sections according to theme and methodology, with most of the contributors engaging in refreshing discussions of “globalization and subalternity, and the relationship between Caribbean creolization, historiography, orature and aesthetics, and other regional cultures” (p. 17). The essays reflect Brathwaite’s insistence that historians and literary critics rethink and challenge disciplinary boundaries. Some essays directly assess Brathwaite’s historical and literary writings, while others use his concepts to develop their own critiques of Caribbean historiography, gender studies, and popular culture.Historians and graduate students interested in the concept of creolization will find the fourth section of this volume particularly relevant to their studies. Cecil Gutzmore offers a sharp critique of creole discourse and of historians who have failed to pay critical attention to historical theory. The author argues that historians of the Caribbean have “problematically theorized” the concept of creolization and attributed to it empirical results confused with other processes like acculturation and transculturation (p. 190). Gutzmore contends that creole discourse also excludes particular Caribbean communities (Asian and Amerindian communities, for example) and tends to “de-Africanize and inferiorize Caribbean and continental Africans” (p. 191). Throughout the essay, Gutzmore challenges keys aspects of Brathwaite’s Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, concluding that his major offense stems from his “strong tendency towards sociocultural totalization and the cultural resolution of issues” (p. 209). Nonspecialists of the Anglophone Caribbean familiar with the work of Néstor García Canclini will enjoy Ileana Rodríguez’s discussion of debates centered on the meanings of racial and political terms like mestizaje, creolization, transculturation, hybridity, and pluralism. Rodríguez contends that these socially constructed terms explain the identity politics of different historical moments from the eras of colonization and the diaspora to the current period of globalization (p. 244).The two essays featured in the sixth section of the book use Brathwaite’s writings on creole society and a Caribbean aesthetic to inform their analyses of gender and sexuality in contemporary popular culture. Donna P. Hope challenges the widespread belief that Jamaican dancehall culture is misogynistic, arguing that lyrics and performances actually represent “a creative negotiation of multiple masculinities as part of the lived realities [in a postcolonial society] of the actors in the dancehall dis/place” (p. 378). Rachel Moseley-Wood’s essay looks at the Jamaican film Dancehall Queen, insisting that the film challenges the representation and reception of female sexuality and the female body (p. 397). Moseley-Wood’s initial effort here to position Jamaican filmmaking in relation to films produced in Cuba, Latin America, and Hollywood points to the need for scholars of popular culture and mass media to position their studies in comparative frameworks.Specialists of Caribbean history, literature, and theory will find this volume both an open celebration and direct confrontation with the legacy of Kamau Brathwaite. The editor has assembled a body of work that stretches beyond the confines of colonial and disciplinary borders. It is likely, however, that most undergraduate and even some graduate students will find Caribbean Culture inaccessible, since many of the contributors assume that readers are well-versed in the language of the field. Yet, this detracts little from what is a polished, thoughtful, and engaging collection of essays.