*CARIBBEAN STUDIES* HYBRIDIZATION Presented By: Group Four

Group Four Members:  Shonika McKain  Kellen George  Sherrika Maynard  Sadé Melville-Peters

 Hybridization This refers to processes of cultural and ethnic mixing to produce new or ‘creole’ forms. Meeting and mixing in the Caribbean region have been going on for more than five hundred years. The term is borrowed from biology and is used in Caribbean life to describe many levels of meeting and mixing and creating something new, especially fusion between different races to produce hybrid peoples and cultures.

 Racial and Ethnic Hybridization o Amerindian, African, and to a lesser extent Indian women, were forced to cohabit with and have children for the European conquistadors, slave masters and overseers. Sexual unions between persons of different races, resulting in children of mixed race, is called Miscegenation. o Europeans first encountered the Amerindians in the fifteenth century, and in that violent impact between the powerful and the powerless, the mixed race of Mestizos was born. ( Euro- Amerinidian Mestizo, Afro-Amerindian Mestizo, Afro-European Mestizo, and so on.)

o In the terminology of British historians, enslaved Africans and their white European overlords produced the ethnic group, known as Mulattoes. o From the very beginning of the Conquest, the Spaniards regarded the aboriginal inhabitants as subhuman. This notion of racial superiority was extended to encompass the enslaved and, later, indentured populations who were of a different race. Racial and ethnic hybridization, then, underscored and emphasized the prevailing ideologies in the society, equating skin colour with social constructions of superiority/inferiority.

o Eventually, these lighter-skinned children were somehow ‘better’ than their maternal ancestors, they were dealt with more leniently, all because they had biological/physical traits publicizing their European connection. As a result of this, a Pigmentocracy evolved, in which persons of fairer complexion wielded more prestige and power in the society than others. o The Polyglot (knowing or using several languages) peoples of the Caribbean showcase the rich racial and ethnic diversity of the region, resulting in hybridization.

 Cultural Hybridization This term is defined as the development of new cultural forms out of existing ones through a period of contact and interaction. It also includes cultural traditions, language and different mass communications from a society and mixing it into another society creating a new culture from its current one.

 Religion o A social institution which embodies the valued ideas and beliefs that society has about our relationship to a divine or sacred entity and the afterlife. When religions of the world met in the Caribbean region, they underwent considerable hybridization or syncretism into creolized forms. o African religions came with the enslaved people and lived in their imagination and memories. They created many syncretic religious forms that were adopted to their conditions of life and often differed in significant ways from European Cosmology (beliefs about the nature of the universe and reality).

o Myal - an early Caribbean religion that developed in Jamaica, where Christian elements were blended with African views. Baptists, after fleeing the American War of Independence, settled in Jamaica and carried that religion with them, where they incorporated, transferred and transformed Christian doctrines and concepts into a Myal world view. o Hybridization and Religion is about how Christianity has changed and adapted to different cultures in society. In other words, when the enslaved people came to the Caribbean, the Europeans tried to enforce their culture and religion onto them and instead of them enforcing Christianity on themselves, the enslaved individuals then adapted Christianity to their religious beliefs.

 Language In most Caribbean Countries, it is fair to say that the ‘creole’ exists as a Continuum. However, the African languages that enslaved the population were not usually written languages, so that the ‘creole’ forms which mixed, emerged and evolved would differ greatly from the European 'master' language. These hybrid forms were usually referred to as ‘creole’ or ‘patois’. The basilect includes the raw form or the least socially prestige (Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica), mesolect refers to the languages used by most creole persons (Trinidad), while acrolect is the Standard English (Highly Prestigious – Barbados).

Creoles were developed when different cultural groups, such as, the Amerindians and Europeans, were brought into the Caribbean where they spoke different languages.

 Processes of Cultural Hybridization o Cultural Erasure – this refers to practices that have died out or are dying out. Thus, a culture can survive based on the artefacts it has left behind. o Cultural Retention – this refers to practices that have survived even when most other forms and symbols of culture are no longer evident. o Cultural Renewal – this occurs when a group goes through a conscious rejuvenation process and returns to some elements of its culture, which it believes have been ignored or suppressed.

 Cultural Change o Enculturation – this is a process of socialization whereby a person becomes part of another’s culture. A person can become enculturated through processes of ‘acculturation’ and ‘assimilation’, which have been policies tried by the various Eurpoean colonizers in the Caribbean. o Assimilation – this occurs when a dominant group makes a bid to enculturate another by attempting to supplant all aspects of its culture and make it over into the image of the dominant group. The French intended to convert the British people into French people, culturally speaking. Thus local and indigenous customs, beliefs and yearnings were ignored.

o Transculturation – this describes the process whereby a culture changes drastically, actually overcoming itself and translating into something new. Cuba, before and after the revolution, exemplifies this process. o Interculturation – this refers to the mixing of cultures that goes on between groups who share a space. The groups do not necessarily give up their own culture, but participate in various ways in each other’s lives.

 Bibliography o Mohammed, J. (2007). ‘Caribbean Studies For CAPE Examinations: An Interdisciplinary Approach’. Macmillan Caribbean. o Stockhammer, P. W. (2012). ‘Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization: A Transdisciplinary Approach’. Heidelberg: Springer.

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