Post-colonial Burial and Grieving Rituals of the Caribbean

This book brings together anthropological and historical studies that analyze burial rituals within the Caribbean through the theoretical lens of syncretism and the hybridization of post-colonial and contemporary time periods. Based on oral historiography, historical document analysis and ethnographic interviews, the chapters in this volume outlay the creolization of ancestral burial rituals in the wider Caribbean and present case studies of eight Caribbean countries: Barbados, Haiti, Grenada, Guyana, Suriname, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Trinidad and Tobago.

This contributed volume is edited by scholars from different disciplines such as social work, psychology, and political science, providing an interwoven lens of individual human, political and environmental contexts. Contributing authors are from diverse disciplines such as anthropology, communications, sociology, political science, social work, and psychology and each discipline approaches the subject matter through their perspective lenses. Each chapter analyzes the hybridity of the burial rituals in the construction of culture and identity within conditions of colonial antagonism and inequity and is rich with oral histories from lay community historians, firsthand accounts, and historical texts.

Post-colonial Burial and Grieving Rituals of the Caribbean will be of interest to scholars of cultural and religious anthropology, history and sociology, as it highlights the importance of grief and shows how it is encapsulated into burial traditions that are transmitted intergenerationally and express important aspects of Caribbean cultures.