Celebrating Ourselves: The Family Reunion Rituals of African‐Caribbean Transnational Families

Abstract

Abstract In the past decade, family reunions have become an important ritualized event among Afro‐Caribbean transnational migrants. Dispersed across a large number of North Atlantic countries, Afro‐Caribbeans have turned to organizing events specifically designed to reunite kinfolk. The rituals constitute a celebration of family as a distinct social group with a kin‐based, lineage‐like identity. Re‐creating kin ties among those spread across different nations and transmitting kin‐based connections to their offspring are the main incentives for holding these rituals. In this article I describe three different recent family reunions, one held in Barbados, one in Grenada, and one in Trinidad and Barbados. I analyse the specific forms these rituals take, relate their differences from the social positioning of the core members of the kin groups and discuss the signifying practices of the reunions for maintaining Caribbean family connections in the diaspora. Finally, I raise questions about how the kin‐based identities constructed in the reunion rituals intersect with race/class, ethnic and national identities.

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