Caribbean place identity: From family land to region and beyond

Abstract

This paper argues that a useful point of departure for ethnographic research on the Caribbean can be found in the study of constructions of place and the wider patterns of rooted mobility, at various regional scales, which they implicate. This argument is developed through an examination of the emergence of family land on St. John, USVI, as an anchoring point for African‐Caribbean people engaged in acts of moving to explore social and economic opportunities outside the confines of local contexts of life. Family land thereby accommodated the seemingly contradictory acts of rooting and moving which have constituted mutually constitutive aspects of African‐Caribbean life. By examining the changing construction of family land as a locus of place identity it is possible to elucidate the establishment of significant frameworks of life among the people we study that are vital to the construction of place attachments ranging from the locus of family land and home island, to regional spheres which encompass not only the Caribbean basin, but global networks of relations.