NWIG (Jan 1999)

Names and naming in Afro-Caribbean cultures

  • Richard Burton

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 73, no. 1&2
pp. 35 – 58

Abstract

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Compares naming practices in the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean and in Afro-American culture. Author asks how one is to interpret multiple identities and the parallel practice of taking over the names of the powerful as is common in both Afro-creole and Afro-American culture. He argues that Afro-creole culture is not a culture of resistance but an oppositional culture. It is a subaltern culture in part derived from a dominant culture which it can only oppose from within.

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