Intellectual Traditions Flashcards
Ideology
- An ideology is a worldview or perspective that shapes the way that people behave and interact with their society/environment
- A set of values that justifies thought and behaviour
- Perspective that is shaped by the experiences of a group of people
Intellectual Tradition
- An ideology becomes an intellectual tradition when it becomes a practice of a society
- It becomes embedded in the regular life of people and shapes the way they live their lives
- isms and schisms
- (Political parties, communism)
Purpose - Why are these ideologies important for us as Caribbean people?
They are largely shaped by our History of oppression, resistance, colonialism and enslavement.
They have led to politcal economic and social awakening and change
They help us to develop and recall a sense of identity especially in the context of globalisation.
Afro-Caribbean Thought
- The term is applied in hindsight and refers to a movement especially within a period of understanding that all black people are of African descent.
- A convergence of various ideologies that were geared at raising a consciousness amongst blacks around the world that would lead to:
- Black pride
- Black nationalism
- Black Justice
- Black unification
- Black unity
The term was not necessarliy used during the period but had several other names of different groupings that derived legitimacy from the underlying principle
* Black Power Movement (Stokeley Carmichael, Walter Rodney)
* Black Panther Movement
* African Black Brotherhood
* Garveyism
* Negritude (Leopold Senghor, Aime Cesaire)
Pan-Africanism
The Movement called Pan-Africanism was started by Caribbean people and then was adopted in North America, African disapora at large and the African continent itself.
In 1900, a Trinidadian Henry Slyvester Williams organised a conference of like minded people in London. They discussed the urgent need to raise awareness amongst the peopel of African descent as well as for the dominant groups to understand their ideologies.
Pan African leaders began to raise awareness all over the world about the general principles and ideals of the movent by:
Organising conferences
Establishing newspapers and printing black content
organised marches
Lobby governments
NB: Since the leaders agreed on the main principles, did they all work together on one project to achieve their goals
Garveyism
Garveyism became the premier Pan-African movement
Garvey founded the Universal negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 114 to advance the cause of blacks in Jamaica
Migrated to the United States where the expanded the Association and founded other affiliates:
African Communities eague (ACL)
Universal African Black Cross Nurses
Black Star Line
The Negro World The Blackman
Garvey was a spearatist and with good reason
He believed that blacks would never be treated equally in a world where whites owned the means of production
He encourgaged blacks to educate themselves in order to become self-sufficient
Advocated for the blacks to establish teir own businesses and empower themselves
He advocated repatriation to the African continent for blacks, believing that each group should occupy their own spaces in order to prevent conflict and encourage growth of the black man.
Rastafari
Indigenous Ideology/Religion
Derived out of a mixture of Garveyism, Ethopianism, Revivalism
Advocates for Repatriation
Challenges the status quo - babylon/capitalism
Proposes self suffiency, black consciousness and awareness and nationalism
Haile Selasse 1 (The Black Christ)
Industrialisation by Invitation
Concept proposed by Sir Arthur Lewis (St. Lucian) in the 1960s
Caribbean countries alcked the means to move their economies from backwardness that has characterised us through monoculture/monocrop economies
Sugar
Bananas
Tourism
Bauxite
Ex-colonial countries like those of the Britsh Caribbean should deliberately invite foreign direct investment to boost the conomies
Operation Bootstrap
Developed and used in Puerto Rico in the early 1900s
Helped to inject FDI in the economy
Backwardness industrialisation
Boosted the economy
Negatives
Does not necessarily diversfy the economy
Profits are expatraited.
Indo-Caribbean Thought
Focuses on issues related to the individuals who emigrated largely from India during the immediate post-slavery period to work on sugar plantations
Mainly concetrated in Guyana and Trinidad (Pluralism)
Issues
Political Rights
Cultural rights (endogamy)
Religiuous acceptance
VS. Naipaul, Oonya Kempadoo
Industrialisation by Invitation
Faced with a series of uprising in the 1930s, which were a result of protests against persistently high levels of poverty (indicated by high employment , poor housing and sugar industry that could not provide the needed jobs and which caused extensive property damage, loss of lives and racial division), Caribbean leaders were forced to seek pratical yet sweeping solutions. In the 1950s, St Lucian economist, Sir Arthur Lewis, devised an economic model, later reffered to as Industrialisation by Invitation as the solution for governments to address the ussues tha countries faced.
How Industrialisation by Invitation works
Stimulate investment by inviting foreign investors and MNCs to establish manufacturing facilities in the region.
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Utilise surplus agricultural labour in these manufacturing facilities
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Wages are higher than the agricultural sector, but are fixed at the level ower than in more industrialised countries
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Investors make a profit because prices charged for the product, which are often exported back to industrialised countries, are higher than the wages.
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The profits are then reinvested back into the business
The results were:
* Lower unemployment
* Less reliance or agriculture and a more diviersified economic base
* Increased productivity and exports
* Stimulated industrial growth
* Ultimately higher wages in both the argicultural sector (as surplus labour is absorbed in industry) and in the new industrial sector as profits are reinvested
* A transfer of knowledge, technology and skills to the region
Industrialisation by Invitation in the Caribbean
A model Lewis was able to refer to when formulating his theory was Operation Bootstrap, which had been implemented in Puerto Rico from the 1940s onwards.
Operation Bootsrap
* This initiative was geared at transforming the agrarian economy to an industrial one.
* Incentives, such as tax concession, grants and low wage rates were offered to US and multi-national companies to established manufacturing facilities.
* In the first stage, domestic US investments grew, stimlated by tax incentives, and, then, in the second stage there followed substantial foreing investment.
* Between 1960s and 1978 the total US investment in Puerto Rico increased from US $1.4 billion to US $20 billion. This resulted in:
* A high living standard among Caribbean countries, with a per capita GDP that was three times that of other Caribbean countries.
* Substantial investment in the education sector, which is seen in the country boasting the highest tertiary enrolment rate in the Caribbean.
Puerto Rico, however was in a unique situation as it pursued this industrialisation strategy. Although the ensuing neglect of rural areas led to an increase in population and poverty levels in urban aeras, the fact that Puerto Rico was a territory of the United States meant that ease of labour migration to the US alleviated the stress of unemployment problems, and welfare payments from the US helped to control increase in poverty.
