Description
Book SynopsisAnalyzes the relationship between conceptions of racial and ethnic identity and the ways social stratification and inequality are reproduced and experienced in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Trade Review“
Callaloo Nation is a solid contribution to anthropological theory and Caribbean ethnography. In helping us to understand that group identity is in constant flux, Aisha Khan shows, far better than just about anybody else, what the term ‘essentialize’ really means.”—Sidney Mintz, author of
Caribbean Transformations“Aisha Khan is an exceptional ethnographer.
Callaloo Nation brings to fruition her many years of ethnographic research focused on both Indo-Trinidadians and the social construction of their identities. There is nothing like this work in the literature on the Caribbean or on postcolonial societies in any region. It will be a shaping force in social science research on the Caribbean.”—Dan Segal, coauthor of
Jane Austen and the Fiction of Culture: An Essay on the Narration of Social RealitiesTable of ContentsAbout the Series ix
Acknowledgments xi
1. “This Rainbow Has Teeth” 1
2. A “Crazyquilt Society” 27
3. Locations and Dislocations 61
4. The Problem of Simi-Dimi 101
5. Carving Knowledge from Ways of Knowing 121
6. “No Bhakti, Only Gyan” 159
7. “You Get Honor for Your Knowledge” 185
8. Mixing Metaphors 221
Notes 233
Works Cited 241
Index 253
