Value Displaced, Value Re/Claimed

Abstract

The history of Caribbean records and recordkeeping run parallel to the contextual history of the Caribbean. Where themes of domination, exploitation, mercantilism, racism and violence existed, the records created over the 300 years of colonialism documented and are evidence of the systematic development of displaced valuation of the peoples, labour and societies in the Caribbean. Using the Caribbean Reparations Movement as a starting point for reflection, this chapter posits another view on the displacement of records. Rather than a question of loss or trans-placement, the contention of reparations and shared heritage is about the displacement of value. The inequities of slave-colonial society continue to haunt post-independent Caribbean society. This chapter muses on the ways Caribbean historical and archival records mirror and bear evidence for the societies that emerged from the monoculture plantation economy and inform the legacies impacting present-day social issues. It considers how recordkeeping, as a colonial imposition, substantiated British wealth while negating its labouring subjugated. In so doing, colonial recordkeeping practices negated the documentary practices of the colonized. In re/claiming value for Caribbean peoples and societies, this chapter will conclude that there must be intentional efforts to affirm the validity of experiences and reclaim the value for the formats and ways in which Caribbean memory is articulated, expressed and preserved.

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