Frontiers of the Caribbean

By (author) Philip Nanton

Publication date:

26 January 2017

Length of book:

168 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

216x138mm

ISBN-13: 9781526113740

This book argues that the Caribbean frontier, usually assumed to have been eclipsed after colonial conquest, remains a powerful but unrecognised element of Caribbean island culture. Combining analytical and creative genres of writing, it explores historical and contemporary patterns of frontier change through a case study of the little-known Eastern Caribbean multi-island state of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Modern frontier traits are located in the wandering woodcutter, the squatter on government land and the mountainside ganja grower. But the frontier is also identified as part of global production that has shaped island tourism, the financial sector and patterns of migration.

Foreword: The Roaring by R.M. Kirkwood Introduction 1 Pirates of the Caribbean: frontier patterns old and new 2 Locating the frontier in St. Vincent and the Grenadines 3 Civilization and wilderness: the St. Vincent and the Grenadines context 4 Frontier retentions 5 Writing the St. Vincent frontier 6 Shifting rural and urban frontiers in St. Vincent 7 Conclusion by way of afterword Index

'Philip Nanton provides a compelling sociological analysis of a frontier society, revealing the value and promise of "the frontier" as a conceptual tool with which to explore the impact of globalisation. The book is beautifully written, offering an extraordinarily vivid picture of St Vincent's history and its physical, social and cultural topography. It is also highly original, both methodologically and conceptually, with an unconventional structure that seems to mirror the author's arguments about frontiers. This can be unsettling but it pushes the reader to reflect on other boundaries, such as that between art and science, poetry and sociology.' Julia O'Connell Davidson, Professor in Social Research, University of Bristol 'It is a highly original and unconventional study of SVG, past and present.' Bridget Brereton, Journal of West Indian Literature 25, 2, 125-127 'With this work, he aims to provide readers with "firstly, an alternative paradigm with which to re-examine the Caribbean; secondly, a cross-disciplinary analytical tool-that of frontier study-that integrates and straddles the disciplines of history, geography, literary studies, and social and cultural analysis, with a view to opening up new avenues of discussion about the Caribbean and other frontier societies; and thirdly, a work offering a close examination of an under-researched multi-island Caribbean society, St Vincent and the Grenadines" (p. 5). More specifically, he argues that "the purpose of this book . is to challenge the suggestion that the Caribbean frontier had a brief life and then was over"' Merle Collins, Department of English, University of Maryland, New West Indian Guide 92 (2018) 293-396