Music in Diasporic Context: The Case of Curaçao and Intra-Caribbean Migration

Abstract

Curacao, one of Dutch islands in Caribbean, could be said to be caught between and betwixt different identities: being Curacaoan, Antillean, Caribbean, Latin American, and Dutch. In everyday life, people seem to switch between these sometimes conflicting identities in their expression of culture. Curacao as Part of Caribbean and African Diaspora The question of what it means for a Curacaoan to be part of Caribbean has not received much scholarly attention. The Netherlands remains, unwittingly, principal reference point for most people of island. Also, Curacaoans have traditionally been raised and educated to feel superior to rest of Caribbean (Allen 2003, 78). This phenomenon is found in other parts of Caribbean, too. Caribbean people still look toward their respective metropoles in Europe or North America for all kinds of matters (Kuss 2004, 110). During Carifesta X, celebrated in Guyana in 2008, Rex Nettleford protested against this aspect of Caribbean way of life, stating instead that Caribbean life and culture are more than what the binary syndrome of Europe suggests. It is also a matter of mind, which cultivates spaces that remain invalid, that is beyond reach of oppression and oppressor. That very mind also constructs for intellect and imagination, a bastion of discreet identities as well as quarries of very invaluable raw material that can be used to build bridges across cultural (2007). (1) According to Franklin Knight, focus on metropole has led to a fragmented nationalism in region, which is divided between Francophone, Hispanic, Anglophone, and Dutch-speaking subregions (2005; Knight in Barros de Juanita and Trotman 2005). One would expect a debunking of cultural boundaries erected by colonialism, given fact that a great many countries in Caribbean are independent states; however, opposite holds true. In this essay I propose that concept of could help in transcending these cultural boundaries. The term has evolved over time. Originally, it referred to overseas minority communities residing in host countries that maintain strong sentimental and material links with their countries of origin--their homelands (Sheffer 1986, 3). Up to 1960s term was used primarily for Jewish, Chinese, and Indian communities dispersed around world. Later concept of African Diaspora was introduced. Joseph Harris defined African Diaspora as encompassing global voluntary and involuntary dispersion of Africans throughout history, emergence of a cultural identity abroad based on origin and social condition, and psychological or physical return to homeland, Africa (1993). In a more recent definition by Michael A. Gomez, African Diaspora is described as movements and extensive relocations of persons of African descent, over long periods of time, resulting in dispersal of Africans and their descendants throughout much of world (2005, 1). Gomez's definition only deals with dispersion; criteria of homeland orientation and boundary maintenance are deemphasized (Brubaker 2005, 5-6). Brubaker (2005) and Cohen (2008) argue that term has in recent times been bandied about in both popular and scholarly discourses and therefore seems to be slowly losing its meaning. Rogers Brubaker speaks of 'diaspora' diaspora in an article with that title and ascertains that term itself has become dispersed in semantic, conceptual, and disciplinary space and has been used for a variety of intellectual, cultural, and political agendas (2005, 1). Analytically speaking, concept of has a close linkage with migration, ethnicity, and race. The is usually seen as constituted by unidirectional outward dispersals from a single point of origin (Gomez 2005, 8). Peter Wade considers such a conceptualization of to be problematic, irrespective of whether point of origin is geographical, cultural, or racial (2008, 2). …