Teresita Martínez-Vergne

Contemporary Caribbean Cultures and Societies in a Global Context Teresita Martínez-Vergne

Caribbean peoples have a long history of connections, often painful ones, with people from all over the globe and especially from European colonial nations and the United States. Since the advent of globalization - the name given to the unprecedented multidirectional transfer of products, people and ideas over the past several decades - the region's struggle to articulate its own identity has sharpened. In addition, say Knight and Martinez-Vergne, scholars and policy makers of the Caribbean feel an increasing urgency to redefine the terms of their analyses of the region. This multidisciplinary collection of ten essays commissioned expressly for this book is aimed at identifying and illuminating important social and cultural aspects of the Caribbean region as its peoples and nations navigate the global context that increasingly inscribes their future. The volume takes a twofold approach. First, it provides case studies that illuminate important phenomena especially sensitive to globalization - the influence and diffusion of currents of thought, ideology and culture, for example, or the movements of goods and populations in a world market. Second, it provides a measure of and model for new scholarship on the region. The contributions range from an economist's view of the challenge to Caribbean economies in the era of globalization to a cultural critic's assessment of creolization in Havana, from a sociologist's analysis of the relationship between nationalism and race in Puerto Rican boxing to a cultural historian's study of identity as manifested in Jamaican reggae. Throughout, the volume is focused on highlighting the regional manifestations of forces resulting from globalization, thegrowing agency of the Caribbean peoples in the modern world, and the delicate balance between homogeneity and difference among residents of the region.