Venster op het buitenland. Caribische sociologie (I)

Samenvatting

Part I of a report on Caribbean sociology. A brief description is offered of the complex political, historical, economic and social structures of this area, and 4 books are reviewed: (1) the pioneering study of M. J. and F. S. Herskovits, Surinam folkore (New York, NY: 1936), which emphasized the survival of African elements in the Dutch West Indies; (2) Social Stratification in Trinidad (Social and Economic Studies, University Coll. of the West Indies, Jamaica, 1953), which applied the concepts of stratification developed by T. Parsons; (3) ST. Thomas negroes by Albert A. Campbell (Evanston, Ill., Northwestern University Press, 1943) which is a cultural and personality study; and (4) Personality and conflict in Jamaica by Madeline Kerr (1952) which is a study of tensions due to social conflict among Jamaican peasants. The author's criticism, based on his 6 months' residence in Jamaica, covers the following points: (a) most Jamaican peasants are not overcome by tensions; (b) psychol'ts overestimate the effects of skin color; (c) existing psychological tensions are best explained by poverty and the practice of small-scale agriculture. A 15-item bibliography I. Langnas.