Flexible ethnic identity, adaptation, survival, resistance

The Garifuna in the world-system

Bibliographic Data

ID2989309
AuthorsLinda Miller Matthei (East Texas A&M University, corresponding author), David A Smith (0000-0002-7664-1731, University of California, Irvine)
Year2008
Volume14
Issue2
Pages215-232
Publication date2008-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Identities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-4630 • E-ISSN: 1363-0296
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13504630801933290
OpenAlexW1984403642
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited28

In this paper we examine flexible ethnic identity formation as a mechanism of accommodation and resistance deployed by a particular social group with origins in the periphery as they respond to changing political and economic forces in the world-system. This paper addresses criticisms that world-system analyses are ‘too macro’ or ‘structurally deterministic’ by examining on the ground action and responses by a local oppositional movement within its broad political and economic context. Its focus is an historical case study of a particular group of people whose origins lie in European colonial expansion into the Caribbean in the seventeenth century. The paper begins by recounting ethnographic reports of Garifuna origin myths, then sketches this group's forced incorporation in a colonial world-system (and their responses), discusses their assignment to ‘minority group’ status within newly independent Belize at about the same time they are establishing transnational communities via migration to the United States, and concludes with some thoughts on the emerging ‘virtual communities’ of Garifuna and indigenous peoples around the world that are emerging on the worldwide web today. We explore what the notion of ethnic identity means in this particular case, and how and why it changes over time. We also try to understand if this flexible identity, and the social movements that arise as it is redefined, can be understood as a form of ‘resistance’. Finally, we ask if diasporic identity movements of indigenous people, like the Garifuna, actually or potentially can contribute to rising challenges against the forces of contemporary ‘globalization’

Aesthetics · Collective action · Collective identity · Colonialism · Ethnic group · Globalization · Indigenous · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · World Systems and Global Transformations

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