Migration, Material Culture and Tragedy: Four Moments in Caribbean Migration1

Abstract

This paper looks at four moments in the history of Caribbean migration to the UK through an analysis of the home interiors. A study of contemporary living rooms in Trinidad, an exhibition of Caribbean migrants to the UK between the 1950's and 1970's, a study by Horst of migrants returning to Jamaica from the UK, and a study of two specific migrants from the Caribbean in London today. The paper ends with a consideration of how material culture exposes a potential tragic aspect of the migration process. Tragic in the sense that individuals find themselves enacting a larger sense of fated trajectory rather than their own agency. In particular it considers how migrant cultural aspirations that suited their place of origin may have quite negative consequences in the very different context they arrive in. Something material culture can speak to in a way words may not.

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