Drinking Shops and Social Structure: Some Ideas on Lower-Class West Indian Male Behavior.

Abstract

A methodological and analytical concentration on women and children biased almost all prior studies of Black West Indian society. By their occupation of a residential structure tied to a point in space, adult females and children have been relatively easy to locate, describe, and analyze. A relative neglect of the study of males resulted in portraits of Black society populated almost solely by women and children, with males depicted as somewhat shadowy figures who drift in and out of the lives of family members (Liebow, 1967). To help correct this bias, we must look at extrahousehold points of congregation around which males frequently and regularly interact during their adult lives. The neighborhood pub, the winkel, is more than a dispensary of alcoholic beverages. The winkel is a neighborhood way station for lower-class men, the one neutral and accessible point in space where men with similar mating and residential arrangements can congregate and interact. These males are relatively marginal to the occupational hierarchy of downtown as well as to the many dispersed households and domestic groups in which they are members. In many ways, the men who gather at the winkel have no place else to go. The winkel as association absorbs shocks and disturbances in male interaction generated by other institutions and groups in society. The loss of a job, temporary or permanent departure from a household, the acquiring or shedding of a mate, all alter the males' preferred use of time, space, activities, and people. Within the winkel a new equilibrium is established as males increase or decrease the frequency, intensity, and duration of their participation with other males and, eventually, with female-headed households and their places of work.