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MISTICA: Caribbean

From: Deirdre Williams ([email protected])
Date: Thu Sep 04 2003 - 09:29:28 AST

Dear Mistic@s,

In the first paragraph there is the question "Was ist dabei spezifisch
,lateinamerikanisch' (ich schliesse darunter die Karibik ein)? I discussed
this with colleagues who teach history and politics. It presents itself as
a general philosophical problem - we need a new word, a new name. We need
something like "sub-Saharan Africa" to embrace Latin America and the
Caribbean. Latin America does not "contain" the Caribbean, but the
Caribbean seems to have more in common with Latin America than with North
America, so we need an inclusive label to describe all of we southerners.

At the same time "Caribbean" seems to be the term of choice for the English
speaking part of the region. The word itself has unfortunate associations
with the slanders of the conquerors 400 years ago. It might be preferable
if all of us were to imitate the French and Spanish speakers and use the
appropriate version of the much less loaded "Antilles" (although I suppose
that would exclude non-islands)

However I remember a distinguished scholar of St Lucian creole waxing
passionate that if the people who use the language chose to call their
language "patwa" (patois) then that was their business, and to read a slur
into the name was merely sophistry. :-)

Any suggestions?

Deirdre

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