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Caribbeanness

38170 Cultural Path The National, Ethnic, and Social Panorama that Shaped Seacole
Similar to the disregard for the influence that Seacole's Jamaican background had on her subjectivity, her positionality as a Caribbean subject is often overlooked on studies about her process of identity construction. I will discuss Seacole's Caribbeanness as a distinctive cultural tradition that emerges from the traumatic experience of colonization that differs but mediates British culture. The discussion will distance the elaboration of Caribbean identity from the common framework of hybridity given that the term implies a merging of two "pure" cultures to prevent its marginalization (Dean and Leibsohn 6). 
 

Colonial Difference

Walter Mignolo's concept of colonial difference refers to the variation in access that an individual has depending on the color of their skin and position within the a colonial power structure (61-62). That is, it is the name the scholar gives to the distance between the social and economic accessibility of a white wealthy subject and that of a poor person of color who's language is not English, or is not a hegemonic variation of English (U.S. or British accents). Although this social distinction began upon European arrival in the Americas, it continues today in the relationship between hegemonic culture and Latin American as well as Caribbean locations, for example. 

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  1. Cultural Path Winnie Perez Martinez