Francio Guadeloupe

Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso, Christianity, and Capitalism in the Caribbean

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Map of Saint Martin and Sint Maarten Map of the Caribbean Islands Introduction: A New Jerusalem in the Caribbean Sea 1. So Many Men, So Many Histories: The History That Matters to the Islanders 2. Performing Identities on Saint Martin and Sint Maarten 3. Christianity as a Metalanguage of Inclusiveness 4. Clarkes Two Vitamin Cs for Successful Living 5. DJ Shadows Prescription for Rastafari Individuality 6. The Hip-Hop- and Christian-Inspired Metaphysics of DJ Cimarron Conclusion Notes References Index

Conclusion: Post-script on Sex, Race and Culture

Just prior to the start of our research programme on ‘The Culturalization of Citizenship’, one of us published a book on issues of autochthony, citizenship and exclusion in Africa and Europe which touched on many of the themes addressed in this volume (Geschiere 2009). The title of that book, Perils of Belonging, expressed considerable distrust towards what the author called ‘a global conjuncture of belonging’—the convergence, roughly since the end of the Cold War, of various global trends combining to fuel a preoccupation with local belonging, and this in a world that was supposedly ‘globalizing’. Looking back at the findings of our programme, some of which are presented in this volume, an obvious question is what has changed in the meantime. To what extent is it still possible to speak of a ‘global conjuncture of belonging’? Have we witnessed the emergence of new issues and preoccupations?

Yu di Kòrsou, A Matter of Negotiation: An Anthropological Exploration of the Identity Work of Afro-Curaçaons

The identity marker Yu di Korsou, literally meaning child of Curacao in Papiamentu language, has become a matter of contention on the Dutch Caribbean island Curacao. Commentators claim that the term is being used by Afro-Curacaon oldcomers to exclude both other oldcomers who aren’t visibly of African descent and newcomers who in the course of the twentieth century have come from different parts of the world and can trace their heritage worldwide. This vision has become part of the hegemonic academic thought. In our chapter, we claim that this reification is actually just one of the manifold interpretations of Curacaon life and we will present a more nuanced reading of how the Yu di Korsou notion is understood and used in practice among Afro-Curacaons. Consequently, we juxtaposed an analysis of the unfolding public discourse on Yu di Korsou to one that is focused on everyday practices.

Their Modernity Matters Too: The Invisible Links Between Black Atlantic Identity Formations in the Caribbean and Consumer Capitalism

Much work in the field of Black Atlantic studies has highlighted the lives and philosophies of liberation of black savants such as W. E. B. DuBois and Claude McKay. These and other black intellectuals, who combined anti-capitalist critique with the struggle against anti-black racism, have been heralded as planetary humanists eschewing exclusive nationalism. This article seeks to complement this body of work by revealing the underprivileged actions of the Afro-Caribbean working classes to tame capitalism and demolish racism. It focuses on Elza, Tica and Amelia Richardson, three sisters who were born in the Dominican Republic and whose travels and kinship ties connect the Dutch, English, French, and Spanish Caribbean to Canada, Western Europe, and the United States of America. Reading the life histories of the Richardson sisters, it is possible to see beyond race and recognise the power that consumer capitalism has had in shaping both blacks and whites in the Caribbean and its Diaspora.