Mad Dogs and Transnational Migrants?” Bajan-Brit Second-Generation Migrants and Accusations of Madness

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8375341
AutoresRobert B Potter (University of Reading), Joan Phillips (University of Reading)
Ano2006
Volume96
Fascículo3
Páginas586-600
Data de publicação2006-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAnnals of the Association of American Geographers (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0004-5608 • E-ISSN: 1467-8306
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-8306.2006.00707.x
OpenAlexW2058852784
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas27
Referências citadas39

Second-generation British-Barbadians (“Bajan-Brits”) returning to the land of their parents are frequently accused by indigenous Barbadian nationals of being mad. Narratives of the migrants reflect four major sets of factors: (1) madness as perceived behavioral and cultural differences; (2) explanations that relate to the historical-clinical circumstances surrounding the incidence of mental ill health among first-generation West Indian migrants to the United Kingdom; (3) madness as a pathology of alienation that is attendant on living in Barbados; and (4) madness as “othering,” “outing,” and “fixity.” British second-generation “returning nationals” to the Caribbean, living as they do in the plural world of the land of their parents' birth, after having been raised in the colonial “Mother Country,” exhibit hybridity and in-betweenness. Accusations of madness serve to fix the position of these young migrants outside the mainstream of indigenous Barbadian society. Our analysis invokes recent postcolonial writings dealing with “strange encounters” to theorize that the madness accusation serves to “other” the young Bajan-Brit migrants in a strongly postcolonial context

Alienation · Colonialism · Context (archaeology) · Criminology · Ethnology · False accusation · Hybridity · Indigenous · Narrative · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics