CULTURAL DUALITY IN THE CARIBBEAN

Abstract

Crab Antics is not just another anthropological study aimed at increasing our general knowledge of Caribbean societies. Though its focus is the tiny, English-speaking Afro-Caribbean island of Providen cia, the book is intended to provide an analytic model which its author, Peter Wilson, believes is applicable to other better-known English-speaking Caribbean societies and possibly to the entire Carib bean region. Moreover, Wilson claims his model is more pertinent to the particular history and experience of Caribbean peoples and to the salient issues of identity, autonomy, and equality than previous anthropological analyses. The theoretical point of departure in Crab Antics is ?what people have in mind? or ?what they think they are doing.? Like the British and French anthropologists referred to as ?thought structuralists,? Wilson regards the social order primarily as a moral or cultural system defined in terms of complexes of values, beliefs, and thought patterns ?that produce not only actual behavior but also the groupings and segments of the society? (p. 7). Wilson analyzes Providencia's social system as a product of two such value complexes: ?respecta bility? and ?reputation.? Respectability stands for stratification and inequality and is rooted in the old colonial social order. It is equated with formal authority, high social status, ?whiteness,? English culture, and to some degree with age. The colonial church is the locus of authoritative definitions of the values of respectability. Reputation, in contrast, emphasizes intrinsic moral worth, personal attributes, and human equality; it is equated with blackness, low social status, a sense of ?communitas,? and social ties based on friendship and kinship. Reputation is an indigenous value complex that arose in response to the colonial situation. It constitutes a counterprinciple which serves to partially negate the effects of the dominant order (based on respectability values) by providing members of the com munity alternative criteria for assessing personal worth and for according esteem and respect. The two value systems interact in the behavior and attitudes of Providencia islanders, providing alternative evaluations and prescrip tions for social behavior. Thus, for example, land ownership cons

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