Williams, Christopher A. (2010) Caymanianness, history, culture, tradition, and globalisation : assessing the dynamic interplay between modern and traditional(ist) thought in the Cayman Islands. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The research undertaken for this largely qualitative dissertation draws on newspaper articles, oral
histories, historical documentation, open-ended interviews, and to a lesser extent, questionnaires, in
the effort to ultimately confirm the extent to which the benefitting forces of globalization have
fractured any existing traditional-historical cultural body of knowledge and expression among the
Caymanian people. Indeed, by 2009 some Caymanians had long been verbally denouncing the social
and cultural ills of globalization – inclusive of multiculturalism – on their so-called traditional,
unassuming way of life, some of them clamoring for an extensive purge of the many foreign
nationals in “their” Cayman Islands. Yet, other Caymanians have become somewhat invested in the
idea of multicultural “oneness” ostensibly for the sake of peaceful coexistence, harmony and
prosperity as these work towards the promotion of a global, borderless cultural awareness.
This dissertation relies on theoretical frames centred both on the discrete natures of, and the
dualistic struggle between, these two opposing ideological-cultural forces. That this struggle is taking
place in the present age, I anticipate the ways in which more modern understandings, which are
potentially open to liberating subjectivities, must clash with “historical”, xenophobic and
nationalistic viewpoints, viewpoints which have constantly proven contradictory given their
adherents’ complacent acceptance of, and participation in, a localised economic prosperity
substantively dependent on foreign input. Thus in aggregate terms, this dissertation pinpoints the
various effects of an evolving scheme of values and counter-values on an ideologically torn
Caymanianness whose contradictory traditional half is especially fighting for its “cultural purity” in
an era where its ‘reinvented’ logic is being more and more regarded as anachronistic and somewhat
irrational.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	F History United States, Canada, Latin America > F1201 Latin America (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Globalization -- Cayman Islands, Multiculturalism -- Cayman Islands, Cayman Islands -- Civilization, National characteristics, Caymanian
Official Date:	September 2010
Dates:	Date Event September 2010 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Gilmore, John, 1956-
Sponsors:	Cayman Islands. Ministry of Education
Extent:	viii, 431 leaves : ill., maps
Language:	eng

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