Lives in-between
Encountering Men in a Tobagonian Village

Brigt Dale

Department of Social Anthropology, University of Tromsø
MA (Cand.Polit.) Dissertation

Contents

Title page
Maps
Acknowledgements
 
Introduction: In-betweenity as identity

1.0. The field
1.1. Preliminary considerations
1.2. Field methods
1.3. Tobago
1.4. Other fields, other places: Theories and comparisons

2.0. Lives lived
2.1. Situational adaptations
2.2. This place and foreign: Moral dualism and beyond
2.3. Individual stories of adaptation
2.4. Analyzing in-betweenity

3.0. Living it and filming it: Some reflections concerning methodology, film and text
3.1. The gendered ethnographer
3.2. Self-presentations and representations - with a camera
3.3. Reflexivity and film: Representations revisited
3.4. 'Film-or-text' or 'film-and-text'?

Closing arguments
 
References
Notes

Title page

You see me, if I feel to come in, I come in. I feel to go out, I go out. I feel to let all me colour drain out, I just let it go. Far. Deep blue in me head. Cool all the while. King'a the block, man'a the ghetto, I got juice. Respect. Respect I, man, 'cause I is the real juice, blue juice. Me. Spreading far. Chipping with the breeze, shining-back the sun, doing what the hell I want. Big black waves when I vexing, still clear glass when I chilling. Versatile all the while. I is me own boss. Oonya Kempadoo: Tide Running

Ethnographies have two plots; there's the story of the ethnographer's experience in the field - a tale too often untold (...); and there are the stories of the lives of the people studied - tales all too often poorly told! As many critics have pointed out, anthropologists need to become better storytellers and find a way to tell about their experience in the field as well as to tell convincing and moving tales of those they studied. Jay Ruby: Picturing Culture

Maps

Acknowledgements

(in no order whatsoever)

Anne-Cath. Holten, Sherina Olivierre, Hogne Øian, Zerihun Abebe, Lars Øyan, John Williams, Sarge, Peter I. Crawford, Anders Askelund, Rossella Ragazzi, Ida Jack, Bjørn Arntsen, David MacDougall, Britt Dyrnes, Louis Gay, Kjersti Benjaminsen, Regina Sankar Øyan, Aldon Forde, Marit Gjertsen, Trond Waage, Espen Marius Foss,Chris Peterson, Bror Olsen, Jonny Nordhus -

Teachers and students at Plymouth Angican School, the staff (and volunteers) of Environment Tobago and PRDI, my parents and inn-laws for their everlasting support, and for visiting us in Tobago, students and staff at ISA & VCS at the University of Tromsø -

I thank you all, for your support, presence and for being for real.

Introduction: In-betweenity as identity

This thesis is, together with the film "Boys Will Be Boys: A Fieldwork Diary" (Dale 2002), the end product of an analytical process which has taken me more than 2 1/2 years to complete. I returned from fieldwork in August 2001 after a six-month stay in Plymouth village on the island of Tobago in the Caribbean, much in doubt as to what I had accomplished. I had, after my wife and daughter had left for home, spent the last two months in the field feeling very much alone, spending (I felt) too much time by myself, often thinking I was only scratching the surface of 'da real Tobago life'. And when I did manage to establish contacts I constantly felt like I was the one being observed, and that the discussions were just as much about me and my family as about 'them'. I had realized quite early that trying to guide conversations with pre-formulated questionnaires only ignited suspicions as to what I was really doing there. But most importantly, I became aware of how my behaviour was interpreted and evaluated according to ideals of manhood that I felt very uneasy about complying to. As a foreigner, a white man, with a family, I was of course categorized as something different than any local man, but I never felt comfortable with it. I felt access to specific social fields would be limited for me if I was to be labelled as 'white' - which in practice was the equivalent to 'tourist'.

How very wrong I was, because as it turned out, it was my constant rebelling towards their categorizations that made me unmanageable and seem a bit odd, at best. Most people in the village couldn't care less, of course - as they had their own lives to worry about - but there were those who spent time with me and tried to teach me 'the moves, the way to behave', both directly and indirectly, by explaining to me the difference between how they perceived themselves as opposed to 'dem tourists', but also to other meaningful (and often intertwined) oppositional categories, like 'Trini's' and 'money people', to mention but a couple here.

Thus, this thesis is about a few young men and the environment in which men seek their opportunities, face constraints, work, eat, make love, drink, flirt, quarrel... and laugh. But it is also about my learning process, and about what I learned, and how my presence - as an observer, camera man, student, white-man-with-money, husband and 'ad hoc pardner' - played an important part in the learning processes which we all were part of. In other words, focus will be on what produced meaning right there and then, and me meeting a few people over a period of six months back in 2001 may in this respect be seen as an example of how modern lives intertwines for a while, producing social actions and meanings which both reflects upon and in some ways change 'culture'.⁽¹⁾ This is not to say that no 'real' difference exists anymore, that we all float around in a post-modern, globalised reality of equal rights and opportunities, where all things matters the same way to all people, and that no baggage exists. On the contrary, my experience has taught me that there are some real differences out there, to be experienced, to be felt, reflected upon and to respect.

The ethnographic stories presented are about people whom I came to know quite well - all things considered - and are examples of individual lives within a context which was rapidly changing, and where manoeuvring through a complex web of opportunities were a part of the daily activities. None of them would brake radically with popular consensus about proper behaviour, but were part of a society where the definitions of what proper behaviour was no longer felt absolute (if they ever did). I will refer to these men as being affiliated with groups which I have loosely named barmen and beach boys, which in one sense will refer to the social field where I had most of my encounters with them, but in another it also refers to their relation to tourism and to local idioms of morality and dualism. However, it is important to emphasize that these categories are not of an emic character, and that there are no clear boundaries around or between these categories; they are simply introduced as (analytically constructed) entities which serves an explanatory purpose; that of identifying generalized ideals expressed by persons who may be seen to "fit the categories".

Before entering the field then, I wish to emphasize that the stories here are told by me, and that I alone are responsible for the analysis and interpretations that are presented. Therefore my perspectives, my ideals and my relationships will be presented as well, both for the purpose of comparison and to be able to claim a certain degree of representational sincerity.

In the following, I will introduce the term 'in-betweenity', which is much used in public discourses in the Caribbean, a concept I feel is fruitful when trying to analyze the processes of change constantly taking place in any society.⁽²⁾ A critique of the (in Caribbean anthropology) classical dualism has been its lack of precision when it comes to identifying the actual shifting from one moral realm to the other. Thus my focus on temporality as derived from Miller (1994) (see page 26-29) and on 'in-betweenity' as an identity marker that indicates that any individual at all times will refer to a number of cognitive models. In-betweenity, literally "somebody or something that falls between others", is meant to describe many facets of human life, and provides an insight into individual, social, political and historical processes. My aim is not to replace any of the analytical tools at our disposal, but rather to utilize them all combined whenever I find it necessary.

While there are indeed some regional cultural traits in the Caribbean which can be identified and might help understanding regional adaptations to processes of modernity, there are also a constant need for new (or re-adapted) concepts which are capable of capturing (one or several of) the seemingly endless different adaptations to these 'cultural traits'. And, most importantly, I believe there is a need for a focus upon how adaptations to and understandings of globalized structures (like for instance tourism) make their mark on and are marked by individual lives. Indeed many of the writers I will be presenting here have done just that, and my presentation of one more concept (which is not new, by all means, but rather adapted to the setting of my fieldwork) should be regarded as one of many possible ways of analyzing the material.

Eric Williams, in his book on the history of the people of Trinidad and Tobago (1942/1993), devotes a chapter to describing what he calls Tobago's "... state of betweenity (in which)... the people of Tobago... did not know where they were going from day to day" (ibid.: 51). Whilst Williams used the term in explaining the colonial history and the competition between the colonial powers for the domination of the island, I will argue that the term 'in-betweenity' is useful in order to incorporate both the dualism, pluralism and individual adaptations of the present era, whilst taking into account the possibilities and restraints of the surroundings at a particular moment in time. Thus the concept is adaptable to both the multiple varieties of Caribbean everyday life as it has been described, and in accordance with my impression of peoples own perception of their situation.

There are at least four identifiable ways the term may be used as an analytical tool in local discussions on Caribbean society:

i) In-betweenity may be used to describe the way in which the Caribbean has been treated historically, as a place "between the modern (i.e. western) world and the others", as what Troillot calls "an undisciplined region" (1992: 20).

ii) On the political scene, the image of in-betweenity is used to describe both the imagined lack of concrete power of local authorities, but also to describe the position of many of the countries of the Caribbean in the ever-ongoing process of emancipation. It is for instance quite common for newspaper columnists to explain constitutional shortcomings by blaming the judicial and political system inherited from the colonial power, and that their society still is 'in transfer'.

iii) Socially, 'people in between' often refers to those who maneuver in both a 'local' and a more 'global' (in lack of better concepts) spheres, in the same way as Williams saw the people of Tobago maneuvering "between national flags" historically (Williams 1942: 51). In my material I have found this to be most prolific in dealings with tourists, where one's capability to balance moralities and worldviews is essential for success. I will be asserting that this maneuvering is something common for all people, everywhere, but that some are entrepreneurs in this game and are more explicit in their maneuvering than others, to such an extent as to be able to base their income on their abilities.

iv) Finally, there's the individual level, where, as suggested, one treats the moral dualism as part of a cognitive map, and exposes it to evaluation, to redefinition and reestablishment. In this way, in-betweenity, understood as a repertoire of skills, may serve as a poignant and useful tool with which the individual learns to understand others, him/herself and the society around. My main point here is that with reference to these suggestions on how to live - provided by one (or a combination of several) cognitive model(s) - the individual will choose her or his path, based on prior experiences, socialization, love, desires, financial means, abilities (for instance the individual power to go through with it), and - dare I say it - 'free will'.

While I see points 1 and 2 as a backdrop to the society I encountered, I will be most preoccupied with points 3 and 4, and will be discussing the fruitfulness and validity of the concept of in-betweenity through the analysis of my own material, and with the support of the other analytical tools which have been used in other ethnographic works from the region and beyond.

Chapter One: The Field

1.1. Preliminary considerations

The reasons why I'm going to focus on men in this thesis are many: First of all, I am a man, and my experience from the field was that 'they' approached me, and I approached 'them' in very gendered manners, that is, in the very first conversations and social encounters I had with Tobagonians, great emphasis was put on gender, theirs and mine (not to mention my wife's), and how - if at all - I was able to conform to core ideals of manhood. Methodological and ethical issues concerning both the fieldwork itself and the constant re-evaluation and finally representation of anthropological findings will be discussed from this point of view. Secondly, I believe that the way in which descriptions of Caribbean men have become stereotypical, has much to do with how men are perceived when engaged in somewhat superficial, short time relationships, where one's ability to describe and conform to the masculine ideals are important. I believe that there are many other ways of being a man in the Caribbean, and I believe I have the material to indicate that not only do men behave very differently, they are also constantly redefining and reshaping these core ideals. In short, not only do they rarely conform to them, they also keep on changing them. In short, many men lead lives of in-betweenity, where constant renegotiations are needed in order to balance the requirements from family, friends and outside influences. As social behavior is a creative process which influences norms and regulations in a society, new ways of defining moralities will of course be an interesting aspect of this thesis.

When deciding on focusing on the everyday life of men in the Caribbean island of Tobago - a decision that was evident as most of my informants and friends in the field were indeed men - I soon came upon ''the gender problem'; that is, I had to decide on whether I should focus on the construction of male gendered identities, or on 'other' aspects of male discourses, concerning for instance power relations, discourses on ethnicity or racial relations, or simply the survival strategies of men in a village where one's sources of income are somewhat limited. I realized that these kinds of discussions would turn out to be fruitless if the aspect of how a man sees himself and is judged by other men (and by women) as a man is left out. Discussions on power, religion and ethnicity - they all must include real actors, with situated identities, created and recreated in constant flux as human social life is played out. One of the most dominant features of one's identity is the gendered one, that is, the actor's socially constructed gendered identity. In addition, a man's ability to act upon the ideals of manhood will in many ways predetermine his possibilities.⁽³⁾

The identity of a person is not a fixed entity, created by his or her upbringing and education, rather it is a process of endless representations and evaluations, played out in specific social settings:

"Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact... we should think, instead, of identity as a 'production', which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation." (Hall 1990: 222 in Gutmann 1996:17)

The aim will not be to describe what men do in general, but more specifically, and following the advice of Matthew C. Gutmann (1996: 17), "what men say and do to be men". This will, in other words, be a thesis where I try to capture the men-as-men aspect of attitudes expressed in conversations and actions, and how these are connected to certain ideals, certain cognitive maps, to which one adapts locally on an individual basis, by utilizing individual skills connected to living in-between.

Practically though, this cannot be done without touching upon the question of local / global dichotomies and in the introduction to "Globalisation: Studies in Anthropology", Eriksen (2003) shows how the many realities of the 21st century rarely are treated with the proper thoroughness they deserve. Rather, he sees the way processes of globalisation are described as an ongoing oversimplification of the processes of interculturalism:

"The appropriation of Western modes of production and consumption, Western rights concepts and notions of personhood, appears inevitable and irreversible (...) Whether Western or not, empirical work on globalisation does little to counter claims that this body of research largely deals with the dissemination and recontextualisation of, and resistance to, modernity." (Eriksen 2003: 2)

Eriksen goes on to claim that the apparent homogenisation of social life worldwide has led to confusion as to the importance of a thorough investigation of culture, place, locality: ⁽⁴⁾

"... although there are doubtless aspects of social organisation and symbolic universes in virtually every society that conform with these notions of globalisation - statehood and citizenship, monetary economies, modern mass media and so on - their actual realisation is always local and embedded in locally constituted life worlds and power relations." (Ibid: 3)

I will strive to remain true to some of the ideals of anthropology that have prevailed in spite of (both real and imagined) 'crises' of the trade, be it of a representational, methodological, ontological or political kind. If anthropology is to survive in the ever-growing conglomerate of neo-, post- and interdisciplinary studies of 'the complex world out there', it must keep insisting on broad, detailed, experience-near representations based on (if possible extensive) fieldwork. People always live locally - or in several localities - in relationships with others, and the images created of the processes of globalisation, the effects of the seemingly victorious modern project of neo-liberalism and capitalism, western style, must be nuanced by curious and critical representations of these lives as lived. In people's adaptations, reinventions, internalisation of and influence on World History in the making one has the opportunity to grasp the multiplicity of human organisation and adaptations.

Now, these initial words open for a task way beyond the limitations of this thesis, and must therefore be read as statements which serve to clarify my standing as to what I believe to be the task of anthropology writ large: As a body of produced knowledge about "us-and-them", it still serves as a corrective to oversimplifications and -generalisations, it is still based on curiosity about difference and similarities (both "here-and-there"), and finally; it claims authenticity and authority (real and imagined) based on ideals of "being there". However, it can never be the task of one anthropologist alone (let alone one student of anthropology) to investigate all the possible localities, communities, (sub)cultures, age-cultures and so on connected to the place (s)he has chosen as field of study. Instead, the aim should rather be to search to describe (in a manner true to his/her experience) the reality (s)he found while conduction fieldwork. For instance, the absence of descriptions or analysis of religious praxises is but one example of how the limitations of the realities of fieldwork and the scope of the thesis combined necessitates a limited selection of data on which the analysis presented is based.

My story will include situational descriptions of places and characters I got familiar with, stories and tales handed over to me by generous helpers who patiently spent more time with me than I deserved, and written (and filmed) narratives from books, libraries, TV, radio and newspapers. It will consecutively be analysed and compared to examples of anthropological work that may help me shed analytical light on my material, both from the Caribbean region and beyond. The focus will be on the lives of a few young men - and the social sceneries in which they live out their lives - and how the everyday life of any one of them is an ongoing process of reinvention and adaptation to the surroundings. I wish to show how these adapting skills have been described other places (and times) in the region - and thus that these men in many ways still conform to inherited cultural ideals, but also that much of the reality surrounding these lives has been thoroughly changed since the time of Wilson's Providencia (1973), Abrahams' Tobago and St. Vincent (1982) and even Miller's Trinidad (1994) (see below).

To sum it up then, I will in the following aim at showing how an ethnographic approach to the study of ever changing localities is effective in order to understand the processes which produce seemingly unlimited varieties of modern life, and that this situated knowledge produced in the meetings of ethnography in itself is a part of the exchanges that feeds cultural change, and makes the processes of life so dynamic and unpredictable. Individual lives are creative processes, where the generalized cultural ideals of what it means to be a man can often seem both vague and oppositional. I will especially focus on understanding the gendered identity of men in relation to the complex reality of the village of Plymouth, a community where links to the outside world are becoming closer and closer and now form an important part of the daily lives of many. As for the many new influences on gendered identities, my main focus will be on the effects of the growing tourist industry on the local reality. I will also place emphasis on how what Tobago men refer to as 'their culture' is mediated, transformed an utilized in terms of marking one's masculinity, and how the identity of the 'Caribbean man' is connected to certain local practises which have become (and have been influenced by) a global imagery of the region. Finally I will analyse what effects, if any, the (geographically) extended relationships people have (due to tourism and migration labour) on the redefining of 'the social lives of men' in the village.

I will follow up on these considerations by describing the setting; the Tobago I have learned to know. I have chosen a somewhat 'autobiographical' approach to introducing the field because I think it is important to acknowledge the importance of my personal rationale for 'being there' and my relationship to the island and some of its inhabitants. Secondly, I will discuss how both local reflection, adaptation and re-invention of both 'local' and 'global' trends are expressed in social settings via ethnographic descriptions of small-scale social events. Then follows an introduction of my two main 'informants' from the field, - two young men who, in their very different ways, helped me realize just how much space there were in their lives for individual adaptations. In Chapter 3 I will consider some of the methodological reflections derived from my fieldwork experience, which also included doing ethnography with a camera. The focus will be on the impact of the filmic experience on my fieldwork; how it generated a self-awareness both in me and in those to be filmed, and to what an extent a reflexive mode of engagement in the field played a role in the production of the end products, - this thesis and the film " Boys Will Be Boys" (Dale 2002).

1.2. Field methods⁽⁵⁾

The story here told is based on a six-month long fieldwork, conducted on the island of Tobago in 2001. I went there with my wife and then four-year-old daughter, wishing to establish our unit as one amongst others. That is, we wanted to live there as a family, trying to adapt to local ways of being a family. As anyone even slightly familiar with the difference in family modes between Norway and the Caribbean might have guessed already, this approach may have it's moral virtues, but is close to impossible to implement. As I was a student assigned to the Visual anthropology programme in Tromsø I carried with me a video camcorder, intending to shoot as much footage as possible, both for the purpose of data collection and for the production of an ethnographic film. The usage of the camera had a profound impact on what I learned in the field, and thus has a major role in this story (see chapter 3). Further, I carried with me a minidisc-recorder, for recording of conversations and sound to be used in the film, as well as a laptop for my field notes (which was rarely used, as the small memo books I bought in a local shop which fitted nicely in a pocket provided me with just the right tool when it came to note-taking!). I rarely took notes while talking to people, as I soon felt that many would respond quite differently to a person with a note-pad, but also because much of the 'fieldwork was conducted in a relaxed atmosphere, on a street corner or in a bar, on the beach liming⁽⁶⁾ or on the balcony... I was rarely the 'interviewer' and the other 'the protagonist', - I would rather try to participate in conversations as a whole being, and not solely as a recording device.⁽⁷⁾ I also believed that it would be disturbing the performative nature of many of the conversations I witnessed and participated in to ask for pauses so that I could write things down. I would strive to record what I found to be important as soon as I would be alone, and often found myself writing in small rum shops, or outside one of the shops in the village.

Besides these obvious tools for the recording of data, I realised that the importance of how I was percieved could not be underestimated. I worked hard all the way through fieldwork to try to convey an image of myself which I believed would be both "true" and beneficial for my studies, but suffered - as so many has done who has travelled far - from a lack of understanding of the stereotypes my behaviour was met with, and of the way my appearance reinforced these stereotypes.

Anthropological fieldwork is about presence. It's about meeting the methodological challenge of "being there", of learning with all senses over time. Kirsten Hastrup (1992) has described fieldwork as "...situated between autobiography and anthropology. It connects an important personal experience with a general field of knowledge" (p.117). The ideologies of early social science, of objectivity and holism, structure and absolute difference has (at least within anthropology) lost ground to studies of the particular, of the processes of change, of the flexibility and constraints combined which makes up human existence. And the focus is on the impact we all have on each other, that is, with studies on how both global and local processes leaves their mark on - and are influenced by - local life. The method I resolved to was to enter the fields as an adaptation of my own social self, - still the same guy, same attitudes, but very self-indulged, preoccupied with acting respectfully and consciously, as not to breach any of the secret social codes yet to be discovered. I soon learned that this approach led to many misunderstandings and frustrations, and even though it lead me to understand much about "us-and-them", I still wonder if another approach might have made fieldwork easier, if not with such interesting results.

I spent a considerable amount of time during my fieldwork reading, especially newspapers but also Caribbean novels and articles of interest, be it on anthropology, sociology, history or musicology. I visited the Library at the University of West Indies in Trinidad, only to find that the literature collected on Tobago was rather scarce compared to that of Trinidad⁽⁸⁾. Besides this small collection of scientific studies, novels produced in the region has played an important part in my search for clues on how to describe a Caribbean reality. V.S. Naipaul's authorship must of course be mentioned, but it is the carnevalesque, detailed and emotional descriptions of individual life stories in Earl Lovelace's novels "Salt" and "The Dragon Can't Dance" that has truly inspired me, especially in his portraits of male identities. Finally, Oonya Kempadoo's novel "Tide Running", about a young couple's encounter with the village of Plymouth, Tobago and the 'rude boy' called Cliff, has helped me recollect, over two years after fieldwork, many a detail about what it meant to be a stranger from foreign⁽⁹⁾ visiting the village.

For my presentation of the island, of the village and my fieldwork entry, I have chosen an autobiographical form, thus paying attention to what Okely (1992) refers to as the "...links between the anthropologists experience of fieldwork, other cultures, other notions of autobiography and ultimately the written text (p. 1). I believe that the curiosity, the approach, the "cultural baggage" and the embodied personal experience of fieldwork inevitably puts its mark on the analysis and thus on the product(s). I have tried to avoid the pitfalls of mere narcissism, and focus my attention on the personal experiences which I consider to be of importance for the production of ethnography and analysis.

1.3. Tobago, paradise island?

Visiting from Trinidad, we could never have seen the darkness of this island. The strength of it overpowered and silenced you. Only after moving here did the calm become unsettling. Traces of resentment under the skin of proud faces, in the gait of mobile bodies.
Oonya Kempadoo: Tide Running

For the visitor, the island of Tobago may well have seemed like a tropical paradise, especially when strolling along any one of the many (relatively) unspoiled beaches, more or less alone (relative to most other Caribbean destinations, or any other mass-tourism resort, for that matter), with a certain calmness about it's managing of business and a friendly atmosphere. However, this idea is far from new when Tobago is concerned: During the 19th Century, there was a saying in the financial circles of London - "rich as a Tobago planter" (Johnson 1998: 2) - which focussed on the profits that Tobagonian planters made from their crops, - a prospect which surely must have seemed 'paradisial' to the average colonialist at the time. Another notion linking Tobago to ideas of 'paradise' is the well-spread rumour (still utilized by the tourism industry) that Tobago was indeed the island of Robinson Crusoe; that Defoe had visited the island and found it to be perfect for his story of how (civilized) man tamed 'nature'. Another factor is probably that the slaves of the island rarely made life less troublesome for the white planters than in other West Indian territories (Williams 1993: 62).

Both locals and visitors would describe the island as a paradise, but whilst the affection of the tourist often was unconditional, there was a certain ambivalence in the manner which locals would use the term, in how they defined what a paradise was and for whom. In talks between a 'beach boy' and a tourist, one could often hear both parties praising Tobago's unspoilt nature and free-spirited people, and agree that to visit something like this, seemed like going to a 'paradise'. One should not forget that ideas of 'paradise' - in addition to being unspoilt - also include notions of a 'natural life', as opposed to 'modern' or 'developed', and that the people living there in a sense are 'closer to nature', happier and less bothered by the problems and responsibilities of modern life. As we shall see, I believe these notions to be far from the truth, and that locals most of the time will refer to their island as 'paradise' as a means of adopting to the global discourse on what a Caribbean island should be, not as a description of a genuinely percieved local reality.⁽¹⁰⁾

I first visited the island in 1996, as a backpacker-tourist, wanting to rest up after a four-month trip through Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. My girlfriend (later to be my wife) and I took the ferry from Port of Spain, Trinidad - a six hour crossing in calm seas with beautiful views of the north-western tip of Trinidad, then only turquoise seas and blue skies for hours before spotting the green luscious hills surrounding the island capital of Scarborough. We had been given the name of a lady with accommodations available in the basement of her house, and thought to be set up for the night. In South America there always seemed to be rooms available whenever one turned up, - it was a matter of finding the right place and price, and then bargain for it. We were not prepared for the kind of tourism Tobago catered for, - people flying in for a week or two, pre-ordering rooms for the whole period. We had come to a totally different place all together. We had a hard bargain in front of us, not with the lady we originally planned to stay with - she was all out of rooms for the rest of the season - but with her neighbour, who in the end offered us an apartment at least five times the price we had paid for accommodations in Venezuela - the most pricey of the countries we had visited in South America.

As most backpackers, we were primarily concerned about two things; prices and authenticity, and were naïvely unaware of the pragmatic approach of most of the Tobagonians involved with tourism towards visitors. Being successfully involved in tourism locally demands a lot of knowledge about the visitors, their similarities (what all of them wants) and differences (what some of them would absolutely love and others despise). The attitudes of many a tourist guide or 'beach boy' resembles that of a cosmopolitan⁽¹¹⁾; open to the world and its many facets, free from cultural boundaries, roaming the global web of interpretations and expressions, recognizing subtle differences vital to the construction of different personalities. With this knowledge they meet the different requirements of tourists with a remarkable accuracy that intrigued me.

It was during this first visit to the island that I ended up in quite a vicious quarrel with a taxi-driver who had taken us from the popular Sunday-school fete⁽¹²⁾ back to our rented apartment. We were six people altogether, and had been hijacked by two drivers while walking up from the village of Buccoo - where the party is held every Sunday - towards the main road of the south-western part of the island. Both taxis were unlicensed, which basically meant that they were cheaper than the registered one's because they didn't pay any taxes on their income. We negotiated a prize for the fare, and the driver of our car promised to take us there in 'no time' (a promise he would have been able to keep, had it not been for the boring realities of friction and resistance of physical movement). When we got out of the taxi, I handed him a 'blues' ($100 TT bill, - the equivalent of 250 NOK or around $35 US at the time), but he told me that he didn't have any change. I then said that none of us had any other money, except for a twenty-dollar bill, - maybe he could take that and return in the morning for the rest? He didn't think that was a good idea, instead he suggested that he 'd take the 'blues' and return later with the change. I told him that that was out of the question, he knew where we lived and could go off and get a hold of the change he should have had in the first place, before getting paid. He then explained to me that he hadn't had any money when he started driving, and that we were his first fare of the night. He worked himself into a frenzy, his language changed from the polite, tourist-adapted Creole to what I felt was an unjust abusive attack on me personally; he yelled at me that I did not understand how to behave when visiting his peaceful island, in fact, I was no other than a 'fuckin' racist', making sure that poor black people never got the upper hand by constantly keeping them down. I completely lost my cool, yelling back at him that he didn't have a clue as to whether I was racist or not, and that it was really unfair of him to immediately connect my physical appearance to a specific behaviour. I told him (quite loudly, I'm afraid) that me not wanting to give him the 'blues' was not a "black-and-white-thing" but a matter of a transaction where he should be able to give me the change I was supposed to have back. Fortunately, the rest of our party arrived, with plenty of change, and the driver took off, still cursing my arrival on his island.

There are in this story several themes that continued to annoy me after I had gone back home. I told it to both friends, family and fellow students on several occasions, and it was more often than not seen as an example of what we then named 'reverse racism', a regular theme of discussion at the time. My uneasiness about my own behaviour did not disappear, however, and the more understanding I met amongst my piers, the more I started to wonder about why he got so angry. If he was trying to scam me, he certainly had overplayed his part, and it somehow didn't fit the overall image I got of him. But why, then, did he get so upset, and why had it been such a surprise for me that he activated the black-white dichotomy?

Six years later, on the plane from London to Tobago, with my extremely exited four-year-old daughter by my side (and a wife not too keen on flying half asleep in the next seat), on our way to fieldwork, I still felt uneasy about the incident, and envisioned the moment when I would stand face-to-face with the same driver, having to have the same discussion all over again. In fact, I dreaded the next six months, wondering how many similar discussions I would have to get through. I was beyond the naivety of my first encounter with the Caribbean discourse on colour, and knew all to well that no matter what I said and how I said it, I would be met with stereotypical ideas about who I was.

Standing in the customs line, in 90% humidity and 35 degrees Celsius, tired after a ten-hour flight, my worries shifted from the possibility of meeting the infamous taxi driver towards worrying about the luggage, which contained - amongst the usual clothing and a pram for Oda, our daughter - the film gear with which I was to record the material for a film, and of what to do if we didn't get the three-month visa which we counted on. Everything ran smoothly though, and Jango, a handyman employed at a youth hostel where we had rented a room for a week, picked us up. He was talkative and friendly, and was the first man I shared a flask⁽¹³⁾ with, and what he told me about his wishes and possibilities for obtaining them spurred my curiosity on young people's situation on the island. In my field notes from January 15th, 2001, I wrote the following paragraph about him:

"Jango's a newly married man, no children, somewhat of a fixer, made contact with me almost at once, asked about who we were, what we were going to do here. He got the message that we're here to do some other things than most tourists, but he's obviously so used to talking to tourists that he keeps pushing tourist sites on us. We should go to this and that place - nice pictures. He's been several times to Europe, twice in Norway, and has friends there.

On a trip to the Lowlands, and whilst there, Jango told me about their situation. He's not pleased with having to work for others - "them", that is, those who ran a business (with tourists). They took all the money and didn't pay good salaries (the general level of prizes had risen considerably the last few years). He'd been given a small spot of land by his grandfather, and was in the process of building a small house for himself and Marilyn, his wife. Next to their spot was a piece of land owned by Texaco, unused land, and this he burned down to grow cash crops - tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, herbs and spices. He said Texaco didn't care, "and as long as they're not gonna use tha area, it's me right to use it", Jango explained. "We got plenty land here on Tobago, but no one lets us use it - land should be used for something, you know". In addition to growing cash crops, he had several ideas for projects that would help him become a "free man", he wanted to buy a bus for the money they had put aside in an insurance fond, they paid about 150 TT a month to this fond. In addition, he talked about starting up production of honey, which was supposed to be quite a lucrative business, but one that demanded some serious investments, importing the material needed for production, and obtaining a license, "And then there's the government, you have to bring in new stuff, not used, because of hygiene regulations", he explained

I never got out of him what his profession was, he just did "all t'ings, boy!" and was full of ideas. He adapted to the possibilities of the moment, and adjusted his work load in such a way that he could both accumulate some money, and maintain a lifestyle which - even though he spent much time with tourists - he claimed was typically Tobagonian, - in his own words, he was just a local guy trying to get by, taking care of his family and enjoying a lime every now and then, thus meeting the expectations of his male companions.

We spent a week in the hostel, acclimatizing and roaming the area for a village in which to settle. Ideally, I wanted to stay in a village that was situated on the outskirts of the most touristy area, and we found Plymouth to be perfect for our purposes. When Jango heard about our choice, he told us it would be better if we stayed closer to the tourist area, but when I inquired about it, he wouldn't specify why he felt this would be better for us. After he heard that we were to stay in one of Miss Ida's apartments, he seemed assured that things would be ok, and agreed to take us there in the van.

In these two meetings with two different young men, five years apart, many of the themes of which this thesis is going to be about are presented, or at least hinted at. In the story about the quarrel with the taxi driver, there is of course a "black-and-white-thing"⁽¹⁴⁾, even though I wouldn't admit it at the time, there's the presence of a writer (myself) who - through his lack of understanding of the social and cultural setting - provokes responses to his actions which, even if they are unpleasant and even disrespectful, helps him in producing knowledge - or at least triggers his curiosity - and finally, there's the performatory aspect of the quarrel, where the mastering of bickering and not wanting to loose face was something which we had in common, but which was a skill in which he outwitted me quite easily.

Jango, on the other hand, introduced me to topics that were related, but in a quite different manner, in which I would ask initial questions, but where he would simply keep on talking. No doubt his long experience with tourists had provided him with an audience which was more than happy to be taught something about 'the natives', but he also seemed to be quite frank in his descriptions of the realities of his life. He would talk about how he worked in order to obtain his 'freedom', how he didn't feel like he was treated as an equal. He insisted on 'knowing the world' because of his many travels to Europe, full of great deeds and masterfully elaborate stories on 'them'⁽¹⁵⁾. He was also one of many who talked about the importance of farming, and expressed deep concern about the future of the island if they were to rely on tourism alone.

In discussing his own relationship with a street vendor in Sri Lanka, Malcolm Crick writes about to what an extent the random process of "choosing" chief informants⁽¹⁶⁾ (or maybe they choose us..?) influences the outcome of the fieldwork (1992: 186). What he calls the "wager character" of anthropological fieldwork, where a mutual dependency develops - or at least some kind of reciprocal exchange of goods and services - surely has an impact, but the "unknown factor" is also an interesting aspect of the process of obtaining knowledge about "the others". My main informants where chosen more or less based on their interest in us, individually and/or us as a family. The reflections on fieldwork by Crick must be regarded as emphasizing the subjectivity and unpredictability of fieldwork, and thus serving the purpose of reminding us of the very intimate and personal quality of the experience, from which - quite ironically - we are to draw more or less 'objectifiable' conclusions:

"We need to be aware of the extent to which our ethnographic subjects are themselves indigenous ethnographers (Clifford 1983:139; Marcus 1980; McKean 1976: 12). But we have also to be aware of the large range of pragmatic motives that might attract an informant to such a strange identity as an anthropologist; we need to be aware, in other words, of how the informant is 'reading' the anthropologist." (ibid.: 180)

Crick reminds us that 'we' (meaning ethnographers) are under the same scrutiny as we put on 'them', a reminder which - combined with the personal memories of an awareness of this scrutiny - has led me to include myself as an active participant in social situations in the text, thus focusing on the immediate and fluctuating quality of ethnographic descriptions, and the impact my presence had on the findings presented here.

The various reasons why I decided to conduct my fieldwork in Tobago were, interestingly enough, multiple, contradictory and based on both prior knowledge in certain areas and curiosity about others. I decided early on in my fieldwork to put great emphasis on spending time with people in the vicinity of my home, in Plymouth, and let the talks and observations from the village guide me towards my research topics. Thus, my most interesting material are the small stories, the individual lives lived; not necessarily because I believe that they tell everything, neither that I believe that the broader, political discussions that people themselves also take part in are of no importance to people's lives, or that the history of the island is without importance, but simply because these were the stories that came to me, that people revealed, and finally, because my own personal story - as a fieldworker, man, husband - intertwined with the other stories in such a way that they simply forced me to take notice.

Plymouth village

In his book "Man-Of-Words In The West Indies", Abrahams (1983: 7) describes the village of Plymouth on Tobago as an active, vibrant, lively village where communal and street activities are poignant. Conducting fieldwork in the 1960's and early 1970's, his focus was on how public performances both shaped, reshaped and exemplified (though often in an exaggerated manner) the ideals of the society, and how a man's reputation very much depended on his skills as a performer⁽¹⁷⁾. Particularly important was the performances connected to ol' mas bands, a rarity of Tobago, where bands meeting on the streets would start a mocking fight, and where one's ability to create rhymes and lyrics of whit and temperament determined his status as a performer, and thus as a man. The Plymouth I came to know, was very different from the publicly social village described by Abrahams. Plymouth anno 2001 was very much a sleepy place, most of the shops that used to line the main street of the village (as described by both Abrahams in his book and by Plymouth people themselves) were gone, and most people who had a job worked outside the village, and the description of a village with employment possibilities for everyone and where fisheries from the beach still was a major source of income for most families simply didn't fit any more. As a general comment, I will claim that the village described by Abrahams was very different from the one I was visiting some 30 years later. An important factor of life which didn't seem to be of importance to the story Abrahams wanted to tell us from Plymouth, are the stories about survival, about managing. These factors where extremely important in most of the lives I became involved in, and the constant battle between financial difficulties and an ideal of freedom (especially for young men) was almost always present, and determined what kind of choices people made. Therefore I will be focusing on describing and analyzing day-to-day strategic choices, and how these choices in fact (re)define masculine ideals. The world is an ever-changing place, and my critique of Abrahams and others is not done with the intent of degrading their work. Rather it is a conscious effort to try to live up to the ideals of empirical (not empiricist!) science; to test and attempt to falsify hypothesis and generalizations, or at least to modify them within time and space, - in other words not to accept the accuracy of any categorizations or preconceptions beforehand.

As early as in the 1600's, the Courlanders (Latvian farmers) put up a trading station and started cultivating the areas where Plymouth today lies, laying the foundation for the establishment of the two large plantation estates, Courland and later Arnos Vale. This makes Plymouth the oldest European settlement on Tobago, a fact that helps sell the otherwise rather sleepy village as a tourist destination. It was a quiet place, the streets looked almost deserted in mid-day with most people working in Scarborough, the island capital, the Bon Accord area where most of the tourist industry is located, or in the hotels and apartment venues located in the close proximity, in the Grand Courland Bay area.

In Plymouth most of the houses were built on quite spacious lots of land, but one soon noticed that there was still an evident difference between rich and poor; some of the roads had luscious gardens, and well kept houses, but just a few meters away one could find the most shabby of shacks, surrounded by bush. There were small children out in the front yards (in the more touristy Bon Accord area they were not present at all after dark), and small gatherings continually formed and dissolved outside the small shops, which also functioned as rum shops in the afternoons and evenings, as they were both equipped with a small table and some home made chairs. These rum shop/ groceries were small, but well stocked with essentials. Together with a gas station and a postal office, these shops provided the village with the most basic of community functions. A bus route from Scarborough had Plymouth as its final destination, and the route was run with large, modern buses during rush hours, and older less spacious ones the rest of the day. There were two beaches within a few minutes walking distance. There was one on the northern side of the village, with tough waves and currents, where local boys with homemade surfboards would play. The one lying southeast of the village was a long beach reaching as far as the small village of Black Rock, a few minutes away by car. On this beach, called Turtle Beach, one could find the most visual sign of tourism in the vicinity of the village; the Turtle Beach Hotel was with its 200-odd rooms (at US$ 180 - 250 a night) a visual expression of the might and impact tourism had - and still has - on the area. Villagers worked at and by the hotel, some as waiters, barkeepers and cleaning personnel, others had the beach as their base for selling tourist items like home made carvings and jewelry, clothing and tapestry. There was some fishing being done from the beach, mostly by using nets, and the fish was sold to the shops and to individuals in the village, to the hotels close by or, more commonly, at the fish markets in Scarborough or at Mt. Irvine.

Plymouth village itself was less touristy. There were some rental apartments to find, most of which are build in the yard of the owner's house, or as a part of the house itself. There was a hotel called the Cocrico Inn - owned by our landlady, Miss Ida, situated hundred meters or so from the football field, in the northwestern part of the village. It provided reasonably prized accommodation for visiting foreign tourists (most of whom were just passing through the village on their way around the island), for Trinidadians on weekend trips or extended holidays, and - to the satisfaction of the owner - to quite a few reappearing groups of natural scientists.

Thus, the most obvious appearance of the village was that of one mostly asleep, which meant that most people living there worked somewhere else. I was told that until only a few years before, the village was one of the most lively and prosperous on the island, with several shops selling hardware, clothes and electronics - there was apparently also a more active local cultural scene, with drum-groups, dance acts and steel bands. The Village council, a body entitled to comment on political decisions being made that concerns the village, was actively taking part in the formation of village life. In 2001, the council was not operational, and this was put down to some individuals and their lack of ability to cooperate with others. Isaac, a local man in his mid-twenties, saw it like this:

"Yuh know, this used to be a place like Scarborough, plenty stores and everythin', now all dat moved to Scarbro', all dem people work there now. Now, nobody here does anythin', all yuh find here are dem beachbums an' dem."

In 2001 then, Plymouth had a rather sleepy appearance daytime, but come nightfall, the streets were for a brief period filled with people walking the streets, either out for a stroll, or on their way to a friends house, a street corner where one's pardners could be found, or any of the four or five rum shops. This lasted only for an hour or two, and then the streets were again quiet and empty, as the people had reached their destinations. Most weeknights, the rum shops closed early (around eleven), and most people went to bed early, as the hours just after sunrise were considered valuable, because of the cool temperature.

Plymouth had it's drug peddling street, called Freedom Street, and this was, as I would find out later, well known all around the island as one of the places to get one's hands on some ganja or crack cocaine (the two most common illegal substances in Tobago), and as the village had quite a few young unemployed young boys roaming the streets, there was a potential for recruitment to the milieus engaged in trafficking and/or abuse. Most men in the village didn't worry too much about the ganja, - many were on-and-off users - but expressed deep concerns about the crack cocaine, considered to drastically change people's behavior in violent and degrading ways. The drug trafficking and abuse of crack seemed to divide the male population of the village in the sense that most of the more mature grown-ups showed nothing but contempt for the selling and abuse of crack, whilst there were quite a large group of "socially active" young men - that is, men who were out on the streets, taking part in the male scene - who were users and traffickers of crack. More often than not, the appearance of crack was put down to being part of bad outside influence, either from Trinidad or from foreign, but also that some of these men were nothing more than "stupid, ignarant Plymouth people, keepin' theyself down".

Summing up then, one can say that the Plymouth I came to know was a place which was considered by many to have it's days of glory behind it and that this diminishing of importance was a source of sad reminiscences of how things were, and how things still should have been. But, simultaneously, patriotism would often shine through, and the importance of not forgetting one's roots was emphasized when one's identity was under scrutiny, especially when there was talk about going away or settling elsewhere on the island. Discussions like these would reveal how there existed a multiplicity of possible belongings, where ideas on locality were seen in light of discourses of global trends and ideals. Personal identity was more than where one came from, but simultaneously grounded in local life, in the community in which people had grown up.

From this rather personal description of the island and the village of my fieldwork experience, I turn to some other anthropological works that have had an impact on how this thesis has been fashioned. These will include short descriptions of some of the important works of Caribbean anthropology, a run-through of some of the important analytical tools derived from studies of masculinities, a discussion of perspectives on the local - global dichotomy, and finally an introduction to the term in-betweenity, which I suggest will be of use in the analysis to follow.

1.4. Other fields, other places

In the following, I wish quite briefly to introduce some of the works from which I will extract tools for analysis and ethnographic descriptions for comparisons. The descriptions are by no means meant to be exhaustive, and should be viewed in light of the main purpose of this thesis, which is to analyse the material from my fieldwork.

The global and the local

The public debates on globalisation and modernity tend to focus mainly on two attributes rather than the process itself; one is the effects of (western) capitalism, the other the (presumed) homogenisation of "culture". The first point, the spread of western capitalism - and especially the development of the colonial empires, has undeniably been an important vehicle for the development of what we might call a global system of exchange and the exporting of certain institutional traits. The other is, as for example Englund and Leach (2000) has shown, a matter of analytical preferences. Local life is understood to be one possible 'modernity' and thus subject to classification according to the logics (and ideals) of the modern project. In this way, the identifiable likeness of all places - exported from a centre to the peripheries - is acknowledged, and personified local life merely examples of different levels of modernity. This idea, the authors wish to contest by focussing not only on local adaptations to 'modernity', but on local perceptions of 'modernity:

..."we insist that the uniqueness of the ethnographic method is at stake in the current fascination with multiple modernities. Studies of multiple modernities celebrate diversity against their authors' understandings of the similarity underlying or even generating that diversity. Sociocultural anthropology merges into cultural studies and cultural sociology, and ethnographic analyses become illustrations consumed by metropolitan theorists" (p. 238).

I believe that Englund and Leach point to an important theoretical discussion concerning how we perceive of difference in the world, and that they often are imagined, reproduced and systematized according to the specifics outlined within the discourses of modernity. However, their critique does not imply, as I see it, a rejection of the ideal of comparison or of an emphasis on any locality as one being-in-the-world, and Foster (2002) modifies their critique by pointing out that most ethnographic accounts of today focuses on both continuities and discontinuities, highlighting "...those elements of Western modernity that have been subsumed in local projects of value..." (p. 238).⁽¹⁸⁾

Daniel Millers "Modernity: An Ethnographic Approach" from 1994, is an attempt to reclaim for anthropology the methodology necessary to really understand and meet the many local expressions of modernity found globally, - the 're-embedded' modernity in Giddens' terms (Foster: 2002).⁽¹⁹⁾ Based on ethnographical fieldwork in Trinidad, Millers focus is on descriptions of local expressions of modern life, allowing these tales to be juxtapositioned with theories of modernity, derived from the European experience. Miller warns anthropologists about falling into what he calls "primitivist assumptions" (p. 60) about "the others", and points to the fact that anthropology itself was founded upon such a dichotomy created between the assumed agents of modernity (colonizer) and the tribesmen (colonized, enslaved) of the field in question. Thus, the kind of models of modernity described by Miller is not one that focuses on recognizable characteristics from, say eighteen-to-twentieth-century Europe, but rather on the dynamics of change that the descriptions of modernity provides. There are indeed recognizable processes which can be utilized in order to understand changes globally, but the "cultural stuff", the actions, morals, ideals, institutions these processes bare might vary greatly. Miller also makes it clear that, through the usage of ethnography, we might indeed find that there are real differences in the world, differences that can be systematically represented by utilizing more sophisticated analytical tools.

From Wilson to Wardle

Discussing issues of modernity and globalisation one tends to focus on the processes of homogenisation, processes propelled by the revolution in mediation (through different media) of what might be called a global capitalist culture. This understanding is however far from adequate, and as many scholars has shown us, more a requiem over western ideas of 'us and 'them', of a way of arranging the world by posting what Michel-Rolph Trouillot labels "gatekeeping concepts":

"...hierarchy in India, honour-and-shame in the Mediterranean etc., a manoeuvre that, in my view, reflected as well the West's ranking of certain Others" (1992: 21).

These concepts were and, according to Troillot, are still posted in order to be able to portray a cultural homogeneity that would ensue that the society described would fit into the notion of "difference" by which western modern culture defined others.

I believe the main gatekeeping concept of Caribbean anthropology to be 'dualism', a cultural trait believed to originate (and thus be as close to something 'original' - historically - as anything one might find in the Caribbean) from the relationship of the plantation/slave owner and the enslaved population. Odd Are Berkaak (19??) describes this 'original difference' like this:

"Most perspectives seem to conceive of this original difference both as an institutional and a cognitive dichotomy implying that different sets of values are correlating to different institutions and practices" (p.1).

Pursuing Michel Troillots idea of modern science, including anthropology, as producer of certain gate-keeping concepts for the differentialization of 'others' from the western world, I wish here to present some important analytical tools of Caribbean anthropology, to be able to show - in light of ethnography - that even though social 'patterns' of thus kind might be found, the amount of (conceivable and real) discrepancies and deviations from the patterned social life are prolific, and that they in reality are ideals (or simply ideas) within the cognitive web in which social life is interpreted in the Caribbean. The importance of these concepts as ways of describing 'the others'' as fundamentally different from 'us' (i.e. the rational west), thus justifying western dominance, is hereby also acknowledged. I do, however, believe them to be of purpose for an analysis of local life, assuming that their 'gate-keeping' abilities are tested empirically and - if possible - adjusted.

Wilson's (1973) tale from Providencia and his description of the ideologies of reputation and respectability have indeed become important for the durability of the gate-keeping concept of dualism. Wilson himself was aware of the oversimplification of the endeavour, but insisted on the importance of directing attention to the informalness of Caribbean life which structural analysis of households, the most common theme for anthropologists studying in the Caribbean, could not grasp. Earlier descriptions had focussed on the Caribbean as a society which was stratified, and where the moralities inherited from the colonial power were sought: religious piety, class dependency and family values. Now, Wilson wanted to emphasize that many aspects of life is often lived without reference to the structures with which most social science prefer to explain societies:

"Yet, if study after study tells us that real people, living in communities representative of the way of life of the majority of a given national, tribal, ethnic, or cultural population, fulfil their lives through each other in ways that the anthropologist chooses to call informal, parallel, supplementary, interstitial, secondary, subordinate, loose, flexible, or even quasi - then, there is something cockeyed somewhere" (ibid.: 5).

The importance which others ascribed to institutions exported by the colonial powers as means of describing Caribbean life was balanced by a focus on the basis for peoples classifications of themselves and others, and that its in the process of living in-between the ideals of reputation and respectability that life is built. However, Wilson connected the moralities a little to tightly to attributes of male and female life respectively, and other anthropologists who followed him in his quest for understanding of the moral dualism also emphasized to a larger extent the individualistic approach to living within this dichotomy, and that the approach of any particular person would depend upon situational and relational actualities.

Thus, Miller proposed - in his ethnography from Trinidad (1994) - a new dichotomy to replace Wilson's' namely that of 'transience' and 'transcendence', where the former refers to the temporality of life celebrated during Carnival, whilst the latter describes processes of continuity most prolifically expressed during Christmas:

"On the one hand, there is a celebration of an ephemeral present that in its absolute form appears to deny all possibilities of sociality, through an exhilarating sense of freedom within the maelstrom (celebrated during Carnival - my comment). Opposed to this is Christmas, the time for constructing a sense of roots and tradition, also associated with planning for the future and family descent. Christmas provides a sense of continuity" (ibid: 132).

Miller argues that people refer to different cognitive maps in order to manoeuvre towards ideals that might seem totally oppositional, but which are compatible because of their temporality. Additionally, he argues that if one accepts the notion that Christmas and Carnival indeed celebrates ideals prolific in the Caribbean society, then traces of these cognitive models should be traceable in everyday life as well. In my own field, I found that people regularly referred to both maps - that is, to ideals of continuity, conformity and moral and to ideals of freedom, promiscuity and adaptational skills - but rarely complied fully to any one of them at any particular time, and in this sense blurring the very notion of any absolute 'border' between the ideals.

The final contribution to the discussion of pluralist modernities in the Caribbean to be presented here, is Huon Wardle's introduction of a threefold model as an alternative to the analytical pairs of reputation and respectability and transience and transcendence, which is that of ambiguation, disjuncture and commitment (Wardle 2002). Wardle writes more generally of the cultural trait here labelled 'creativity', and I believe this to be an interesting approach towards an understanding based on empirically observed actions of lives lived. For example, when writing on the issue of commitment, mostly understood as family ties, he emphasizes the inclusivity (and not exclusivity) and "open-endedness" (p. 497) of the local understanding of kinship and family structure, and the "...ability of those who draw on its idioms to stretch and combine the values it entails (p. 497). In this sense, even the most conservative ideals defiant to change may in this sense be seen as an institutionalisation of what would otherwise be regarded as deviant behaviour. Examples from my fieldwork that could be mentioned are child shifting, often simply called adoption, or relations between women who have children by the same man. The tensions of moral dualism is thus incorporated in and part of ideals of conformity and continuity.

Due to the limitations of this thesis, I will not engage in a discussion of the difference between Millers transience and transcendence and Wardles ambiguation and commitment respectively, other than hinting at Millers tendency (in his ethnographic material concerning Carnival and Christmas) to institutionalise the concepts separately, whilst Wardle regards them as (cognitive) components in the creative process of everyday life. Further, I read in Wardles usage of the term ambiguation a focus on the personal adaptations to - and of - the variables of ideals and expectations which are present at any given time, and a sensibility towards the ideals of opposition and freedom which thus makes adaption a task characterized by a specific reluctance which should be sought after empirically.

Wardles most interesting concept for my purpose though, is disjuncture, which refers to the geographical extensiveness of Caribbean culture.⁽²⁰⁾ Both historically and in the present, the reference of other places - be it Africa, the colonial administrative centres, or what today is called foreign, but also regional centres and neighbouring villages - has been a continuous influence, but also a realm in which to move. "What we are presented with is a series of social and cultural continua" (ibid: 496), flexible, changeable and creative realms of social processes of change which for the individual manifests itself as life in-between.

Masculinity and anthropology

With the surge of feminist anthropology and a focus upon more personal experiences (of both the people to be studied and the researcher), anthropologists went from describing other societies writ large, to becoming more interested in how people differentiated themselves from others, i.e. a focus upon the constructive processes which create meaningful differences within and between societies. Studies from the western anthropologists' own cultures - street corners, kitchen tables, schools and factories - contributed to the fragmentation of the concept of 'culture' and the understanding that in any given society one may find distinctly different groupings with seemingly oppositional 'cultural' traits. Categorizations which before seemed clear and unambiguous - such as male/female, child/adult, worker/industrialist - were challenged by new categories (such as 'men in women's clothes' equals transvestites -, 'young adults acting irresponsibly' equals youth - , 'worker with a stock portfolio' equals the middle-class man) and a curiosity as to what defined these categories,- both the new ones and the old. As more and more 'unmanly men ' and 'unwomanly women' - through their socially presented re-evaluations on what a man and a women should be - challenged the stereotypes, science focussed more on men and women's identities as socially constructed through processes of gendering.⁽²¹⁾

In the introduction to the collection of essays called "Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies", Cornwall and Lindisfarne (1994) write that one of the most important tasks for anthropology is to challenge and analyse "cultural categories which have been taken for granted" (p. 2), and that there are three basic strategical steps to take in order to

"...view the world more reflexively. (...) The first step is to try to dismantle the conventional categories which dominate thinking on a particular subject. (...) The second step is comparative. (...) The third step occurs when anthropologists draw upon the insights of ethnographic studies to examine their own preconseptions" (p. 2)⁽²²⁾.

In studying masculinity, then, one must first challenge the descriptions of masculinity which dominate the discourse within (and about) the specific society one is to investigate. In my case this means analysing both ethnography from the Caribbean and discussions from my own fieldwork to 'test' the categorizations. Secondly, a similar investigation is required into studies of masculinity from other places (and times), in order to investigate the many different meanings (and content) a specific label (such as 'man') contains. Finally, the personal experiences from the field, combined with reading on what a man might be in different places and the different expectations a man might meet, should lead to a discussion of the complexity of gendering in any social reality, and the similarities and dissimilarities both between and within different societies. In addition, the power to dominate others, in both intra- and inter-gender relationships, should be analysed as one of many conditions under which personal adaptations are produced.

The concept of hegemonic masculinities has provided a tool with which one may identify both a specific set of prolific cognitive ideals which most men within a cultural realm would ascribe to. It will help, in essence, to identify what it means 'to be a man', and thus define other ways of being a man which are regarded as inferiour (Carrigan et.al: 1985; Connell 2000). In addition, it has been suggested, it identifies those attributes of male behaviour least likely to be confused with its opposite; female, and are therefore in itself a tool for the persistence of male dominance as defined by the Euro-American patriarchy (Strathern 1988).

A further elaboration of the theoretical discussions will not be pursued here. The aim of these rather sketchy presentations was simply to draw out from the fields of men's studies, Caribbean ethnography and theories of globalisation and modernity a set of concepts with which to identify and analyse what seems to be the dominant masculine behavioural pattern of the West Indies, and with which to question it's actuality, potency (sic!) and durability when confronted with the variables of actual social life. In addition, I wanted to introduce the term in-betweenity as a tool for understanding how a continuus state of bargaining with modernity (Foster 2000) and balancing the dual morality (Wilson 1973; Miller 1994; Trouillot 1992; Wardle 2002) manifests itself in modern life and thus becomes an identity marker, demanding a repertoire of skills and identifiable traits. In the next chapter, I will seek to utilize these analytical tools on my own ethnographic material.

Chapter Two: Lives Lived

In this chapter I wish to present the ethnography which I have chosen for this thesis, and an analysis of this material, utilizing the analytical tools presented in chapter 1. But before we venture into the scenarios presented, a note on what a good life is might help shed some light on the rationale of individual choices made.

The good life?

As in most places, both individual preferences and influences from society play a role when individuals choose. Therefore, individuals will often make choices and live lives which, for the ethnographer, makes comparisons and generalisations difficult; at least if prejudiced notions about cultural patterns are followed. Wilson (1973) was aware of these problematics, and thus made a strong case for the empirical approach, and that local life is both pragmatic and emotional, difficult to create generalized accounts of unless one give room for the fluxuality of everyday life. In my own material, I often find that the very ideas about what a good life is may vary greatly; for one man it's the idea of having a house for himself and his family, for another, it's a car that'll make him a free man. But even on the individual level, I found that the same man might have different, and quite oppositional ideas about what a good life might be. For Cane, a young man who I will present more thoroughly below, it could be to build himself a small house in his mothers back yard and settle down with a local girl, or to buy himself a minibus in which he could take tourists on guided tours, or it to find himself a girl from abroad, so that he could "get outta here" and pursue his musical ambitions. Others would find a path more in balance, not imagining having to choose between one or the other - like Adam, who sold his small fishing boat, bought a bigger one, and worked - for a short time - at the hotel as a sailing instructor to be able to buy himself an engine for it. He still wanted to stay, still engaged in local life, but wanting some stability, and believing that in order to be able to take it easy, one should create a solid base for one's life. In-between the ideals of "jus' chillin'" and the imagined conformity and stress of capitalist life, Adam had found the direction he aimed for; hard work, then freedom. Still hard work, but for himself. True entrepeneurism, in-between.

2.1. Situational adaptations

I will in this chapter present some localization, some social settings where homosociabillity amongst men prevail, and where the (almost institutionalised) local cognitive models are reflected upon, through social interaction. I will seek to analyse this material by identifying the cognitive dualism at play, and then seek to describe how it affects everyday lives.

The soccer field

A vital part of a man's identity was connected to the utilization of his leisure time, and many spent parts of the afternoon on the soccer field. The game, loosely organized more or less every afternoon, provided an opportunity both for a real sweat and for an arena where one's masculinity could be exposed. In this section I wish to show how participation in the game of football was interpreted, and conversely how those who did not attend would find means of degrading its importance as a typical male scene. Men gathered every afternoon for a friendly. Small goals were constructed with piles of clothing, and somehow a ball would always appear. Strolling towards the field, the young men rounded up their friends - pardners - and adversaries, they gathered in small groups on the field, slowly initiating warm-up exercises, awaiting the arrival of enough players to start a game.

I decided early that I wanted to participate in some of the leisure activities of the village, and thought the game to be one of the arenas to enter. Full of enthusiasm and let's-go-gett'em-spirit, I walked the couple of hundred meters from our house to the field for my first game. A few days earlier I had asked a young man if I could participate in the game. My family and me hadn't been in the village for more than a few days, and most people had not taken notice of us yet. He was standing on the corner of the street where we lived, chatting with a friend. I introduced myself, and explained what it was I wanted to do in Tobago. Nigel, the younger of the two, was the one most interested in what I was doing. He said he understood, and that he thought it important that I picked up on just how different the two islands of Trinidad and Tobago are. I said that I would like to play some football in the afternoon, and they told me to just show up: "No problem, man, if yuh wanna have a sweat."

The game had already started, and I met Isaac by the side of the field, who asked me if I wanted to play. I joined one team, he the other ("Yuh play that way" was the only explanation I was given). I just stood there, totally confused. There was apparently nothing that separated one team from the other, the only thing I was told as that I was on 'the young team'. Suddenly the ball was played to me. I moved carefully in the right direction, and had some luck with my first two or three passes. Then I started playing the ball to the opposite team, much to the despair for my teammates. As the game progressed, I was able to follow the game somewhat better, but kept playing some bad passes. This was met with laughter from some, obvious irritation from others.

The game was played in sort of a mixed mood; of humoristic communality and seriousness. There was a lot of laughter and "good" noise, but also intense discussions. A good, hard tackle was much appreciated (especially, it seemed, when the white boy was tackled...twice...hard...), and technical skills were greeted with loud calls for more. If a player, after several good moves, still lost the ball, it didn't really seem to matter, he had shown off his skills and had done his best. If you were clumsy, though, it was another story, especially if the player was considered to be a good player, he was then considered "below heself". The competition between the most skilled young players was obvious, and the performance-part of the game had great significance. Duels were played out all the time, in technique, speed, physical strength, and in the posing and verbal skills displayed afterwards. The youngsters were most preoccupied with showing off their skills, technically, verbally and in posture, in order to impress and reconfirm their positions as good, physical football-players. Sweaters, shorts and shoes were constantly checked to see if they were on right.

The soccer field was an arena where the order of the masculine social field, the hierarchy, the alignments, and the loyalties were displayed. This was done by showing playfulness and performance-skills in a mixed atmosphere of friendliness and fierce competition:

"One of the oldest players showed a very arrogant attitude towards one of the younger players who was trying to take the ball away from him, - he pushed the youngster away and said: " What you doin'? Go away!" (Fieldwork notes)

As time went by, the football field became a scene which I reluctantly returned to from time to time. I was never quite able to keep up with the pace (even if my physical shape improved, I could never measure up to most of the guys there), and also felt targeted sometimes, as tackling the white guy was much appreciated by all present. Chris told me later on in the fieldwork that as far as he knew, there had never been a white guy playing the game before; at least not for more than one or two times. At this point I had stopped playing, and his comment felt like him trying to comfort me in my failure to measure up to their standard, but later on I understood that it fitted with the image of both white men and of the game played in the field, as a celebration of the physicality of the hegemonic ideal of masculinity.

Young men who didn't participate, would tell me that they stayed away because of the high level of intensity of the game: "It like dem tryin' to pick a fight or something", Cane would tell me, - "that game no fun, man, it all macho like. Them there fellas playin' there don't know nuttin' 'bout stayin' cool, man. An' me bein' real cool about it, yuh know!" Cane's idea of being a man was much more connected to ideals of slackness and peacefulness, - whilst others would say he didn't attend simply because he lacked the skills and physical strength. In either case, both 'parties' would engage in adaptations of and adaptations to the hegemonic model of masculinity.

I found the football field to be a very challenging scene to enter, as I soon realized that one of the intentions of the game- besides the workout - was to test the players ability to conform to the ideals of manhood that most of the men present adhered to. My physical skills as well as technical performance was tested and thoroughly analysed (I was told later), and I'm sorry to say that few found my game to be more than adequate. I had to be more aggressive, I was told, being a wimp tackling only made the impact more painful, I had to pick up more speed, and not let anyone take the ball away from me. The analysis of my performance, the hierarchy displayed, the young player's desire to 'act manly' - these are all factors that indicate that men-only arenas are important for the establishment and re-establishment of dominant male virtues.

In accordance with Eduardo Archettis notion of the game of football as a discourse on the ideals of masculinity (1999),⁽²³⁾ I will claim that the game can be seen as commenting on a set of values, which can thus be identified. But while Archetti describes a style of playing which becomes the foundation for an idea about a nation, an imagined community (Anderson 1983), the way football is played on the outskirts of Plymouth have a somewhat smaller, but no less important, role to play for the individuals participating; the maximizing of the traits of the hegemonic masculinity.

The next setting I wish to describe is the beach, which is the place where a local ideology of masculinity has, and still does, change, much due to the impact of tourism.

The beach

In presenting the beach as a male scene, where a glocal identity is (re)constructed,⁽²⁴⁾ I will first give a short account of the fisheries that still takes place on the beach next to Plymouth and secondly show how the perception of the beach and what sort of men that utilizes its financial potential has changed, - primarily due to tourism. The presentation will be centered around the free fisheries of the beach, loosely organized in a guild, and on the activities of the unemployed young men employing themselves through interactions with the tourists. The whole discussion of organized wage labour and the complex matter of reaffirming of class/race - distinctions within the tourism sector itself will only briefly be touched upon. Rather, my main focus will be on the changes that has taken place in how young men utilize the beach, and how the new activities has given rise to a new economical niche, where young men with insecure wage earnings can make a living for themselves.

As before mentioned, the beach stretched for a couple of kilometres, from the Village of Plymouth to the large black rock which had given name to the neighbouring village. Walking down from the bus stop to the pier, from which the seagoing fishing vessels operate, the beautiful view of the bay was striking. Passing the rocks that separate the pier area from the rest of the beach, one had to cross the small river which ends its route from the small rain forest on top of the island. A couple of minute walk up the beach, one reached the fishing facilities, provided by a local guild, where fishermen kept their equipment and some personal belongings in locked closets. Immediately next to this rather plain, basic structure, was the hotel, with its fenced-in pool-, restaurant- and bar-area. Further on, one found scattered sunbeds, rudimentary tables with palm-thatched roofs, usually some local women selling printed cloths and massages, a small security check point - usually unmanned - and Sherma's "Total Local"-craftshop (Dale 2002). After Sherma, the beach was usually empty, except for the occasional tourist and locals walking from one village to the other.

i) From fisheries...

Most weekday mornings, fish carts with the latest catch would be pushed around in the village to be sold at a bargain price by youngsters on commission. The catches would vary from bonitos to dolphin or redfish, but seemed to be rather small. However, as I was explained by our next-door neighbour, himself a fisherman with his own boat, only a small amount of the catch made by fishermen in Plymouth ever reached the carts. Some was sold directly on the beach to locals but most of it was sent off to the fish market in Scarborough or on Grafton Beach. He himself took it all to the market, he said, because he couldn't get the same price for it here. He jokingly admitted that it was more difficult to bargain with locals whom he knew, but that he was more than ready to help someone with food, if they really needed it.

As I would witness on several occasions, the fishermen all over the island showed a remarkable stamina when it came to claiming their rights to fish from the beaches, and many a tourist would find that nets being launched and pulled from the beach just outside their hotel reduced their swimming area. Most tourists were more than happy to be witnessing this event though, and the posing for photos had become an extra income for fishermen on some of the most popular beaches.

Fishing could take place out to sea, with bigger boats, or on thee beach with smaller boats dragging the net some 50-100 meters out to sea, then turning back, making a seine which the men would then pull back to shore. Jones, a man in his early thirties, with a wage income from teaching the tourists sailing but saving up for an engine for his boat, explained to me that the net would be own by one fisherman, whilst the boat might be owned by another. Then they would round up free hands for the pulling. Traditionally, this would be done by walking through the village blowing a conch or simply shouting out for aid. During my fieldwork I never heard such calls, and Jones suggested that most of the temporary manpower needed was family, friends or simply men who was in the vicinity, tourists included. The catch was then divided between the owner of the boat and the owner of the net, whilst the men helping out in pulling the net would receive "a little some'ting to eat".

The fisheries are very limited compared to only a generation ago - as have been described to me by locals, but also by Abrahams (1983), and even though my material from Plymouth does not include any survey of how many still worked as fishermen in the village, my clear impression is that most young men would look for other things to do, and that most of the men still fishing were middle-aged and upwards. This is not to say that no young men went fishing. Rather, I was told that many youngsters had gone out to sea for a period with a father or an uncle, but that very few made their living solely from fishing, and that it seemed like the fisheries was something they would be a part of for some time, in adolescence, and then abandon it for other activities when they grew up.⁽²⁵⁾

One might say then, that the fisheries of Plymouth was still an aspect of life on the beach, but that it's relative importance was diminishing; some young men would take the occasional trip, some would even depend on it for an income for some time, and even fewer still committed themselves to the trade. Most of the fish consumed in the village was purchased from outside, and a resource that not long ago was a part of informal trading relations within the village had become a part of the formalized cash economy. The fruits of the sea had become cash crops.²⁶

ii) ... to tourism

Firstly, it is important to emphasize that in the Caribbean, tourism can hardly be seen as a new phenomenon. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that there's a continuity to be found from the leisure activities of the colonizers and how this was seen as a major difference between colonizer and colonized to the imagery and connotations that today's tourism industry provokes locally.⁽²⁷⁾ In a rum shop conversation, I was once told by a man in his sixties how he resented the fact that his daughter catered for the tourists: "I remember how my grandmother used to dress in a uniform, to go an' serve a (white) master. Now, my daughter is doing exactly the same t'ing, she serving the white people there at the hotel. 'Tis the same t'ing, man, we ain' come to far, yuh see?"

In a regional perspective tourism is no new thing but locally, the building of a top-range, all-inclusive hotel on the beach where they did their fisheries, did have an impact on the position of the beach in the village. It provided wage-earning possibilities, but it also limited the space from which the fishermen could operate, and made the beach less lucrative as a recreational area for people in Plymouth. However, as tourists came closer to the village, and as many locals got jobs at the hotel (or connected to it, for instance as drivers, guides or as providers of goods), the economical niche of befriending tourists emerged as an alternative for more young men. As tourists arrived at the airport, some of the most eager of beach boys would make sure they were present, mapping the new arrivals for potential 'friends' for the next fortnight. Most of the tourists who had booked at the hotel have already transport arranged for them, so the first possibility of really getting to know them was at the beach the next day. In chapter two, I will describe how these radical changes of earning possibilities makes for a new arena where particular lives are lived out, in-between tourism and local preferences, and how these men are regarded by others in the village, and - most importantly - how one of these young men sees himself.

From the beach, we turn both inwards and outwards, as I will be describing a (somewhat stereo-) typical male scene of the Caribbean: The street corner. In this presentation, the way outside links and influences are discussed and analysed locally gives an example of the importance of acknowledging foreign as an important stage for the construction of local identity. As mentioned, Wardle uses the term disjuncture to identify this non-geographical ideal of managing "space", and will in the following aim at showing how it is an important factor on lives lived in-between.

The street corner and beyond: Local reflection on glocality

Traces of processes of globalisation can of course be found in any locality of the 21st century, and what could be more illustrative than a lime - the Caribbean way of passing time, where the discussion evolves around other places, other peoples.

As intrinsic to Trinbagonian⁽²⁸⁾ self-identity as carnival, the lime has with time encompassed so many different meanings and connotations that any quest for the "real" lime would not only be futile, but also meaningless, as it is as fluctuating and ever changing as creole life itself. Whilst steady limers at the Sidewinder Bar and Restaurant (see below) used the term in order to separate the sort of sociability they assert from the partying going on in disco's and hotels, the tourist industry invites the same tourists to the same disco's and hotels for extensive liming. And while any Trinbagonian would agree that a real lime requires at least two persons, the popular backpacker/bedtesting tv-programme "The Lonely Planet" finished it's report from Tobago with an image of the host of the programme lying in a hammock on the tip of a pier, out in the luscious turquoise sea, liming all by herself. And, even if the guides manages to get that part right, about sociability, they tend to over-simplify its relative importance, like in "The Rough Guide" for T&T from 1998, where one can find the following description in the glossary: "Lime: To socialize with friends on the street, in a bar, in a person's house, by a river, anywhere. T&T favourite pastime" (De-Light & Thomas 1998: 313).This definition is of course suitable for one thing only, which is to "re-exoticize" T&T. One a more serious note, I may add that as a gate-keeping concept (Troillot 1992?) it also serves the purpose of portraying the people of T&T as being indefinitely most preoccupied with enjoying themselves, which neatly makes them completely different to "us" i.e. the tourists and their society, believed to be intrinsically "rationalist", "efficient", and thus "rich".

The term liming has to such an extent become a part of a globalized language, with a set of intrinsic meaning which will vary greatly from time to time, place to place, person to person that it lacks any precision when it comes to actual analysis. It has, like for instance the imagery of Rastafarianism, become part of a pool of Caribbean exoticism, from which anyone interested might find symbol and meaning which correlates to the image of self they wish to portray. Nevertheless, but without being deterministic, the lime is a social event where many of the important aspects of a creolised identity can be recognized, and as such its explanatory and illuminating value should not be overlooked, but still put under scrutiny.

In my first example here, I wish to describe a meeting between Jackson, myself and a crowd of listeners and participants, all making sense of and mutually exchanging thoughts on references concerning manhood here and there, with an explicit focus on adaptational skills, or living in between, and on the fact that - deep down - things might not be so different after all. Next, Cane's trip to London, the way he sees it, is presented, again as a means of illuminating how stories from abroad legitimises a specific identity.

i) Moving to Switzerland, and liming on it

Jackson had spent a good five years abroad in Switzerland, after starting a relationship with a Swiss woman who visited the island for a longer period. He worked there as a teacher, and said he'd adapted to European life, even learned some of the language. He had a good reputation among most in the village, as one with many friends and acquaintances. His return trips, he would tell me, were joyous occasions as much time would be spent liming with old partners, reminiscing past acts and updating each other on what was happening in their lives as of that moment.

One evening around 11 a.m., after I had been with Cane to a pre-wedding arrangement for one of his friends, I met Jackson in the main crossings of the village. He was sitting on the side of the pavement, and greeted us both wholeheartedly. Cane chatted for a minute, before taking off: "Have some business to deal with nuh," he said and disappeared down a dark alley towards the beach. I sat down next to Jackson, thanked him for the cigarette he offered me, and asked him of his plans for the evening. "No plans, jus´ breezin´, man. Me jus´ here nuh, yuh know. This here my place, me a real Plymouth boy, man. We talked a little about whom I knew in the village, and about my involvement in the local primary school. He told me that he had attended the same school, and that his days there had been good. He told me how he'd built relations there with other children, which were still strong and that they had pulled all sorts of tricks on the teachers; they developed a sign language for telling each other when there were tourists coming to the village, so that they could run off and pose for photographs, - for petty cash, of course. He went on to talk about his love for music, and that he felt sad about how things were in the village now; "before, he said, the village council was workin', an' all a' we had drum an' dance lessons, there were choirs an' all. Today, no-one stand up for the place no more, all dem do is fight amongst themselves, yes?"

We kept on talking about past and present for a while, and he also wanted me to tell about my country, which he soon found to be quite similar to his new home, Switzerland: 'Tis all about knowing yuh way, man , an' I real good at findin' me way there. I have me a nice job, a nice apartment, an' a loving woman - who could aks for more?" As we were sitting there by the pavement, a few other men approached us, and greeted Jackson with great warmth and humour, - "yuh here, boy? An' yuh don't come see me, boy? What I do to yuh?" - and Jackson replied by indicating that all good things would eventually come to those who wait. There were many questions about his new homeland, and Jackson replied willingly, and told this story about how he behaved in order to get the proper respect that he felt he deserved as a man:

"In this country, Switzerland, there are all kinds of people, right, I mean, there are good people and there are bad people, jus' as anyplace - just like here in Plymouth. Some fellas there also racist, like real nazi types, now, an' everyone afraid of these fellas. Them all nasty lookin', with their military jackets an' their shaved heads, an' most black folks go biiig circles around dem fellas, so. This one time I had been to this bar, dancin' - yuh know how dem white women like dancin'! (a remark which was much appreciated) - an' was on me way back home, when I reach this corner. Now, on this corner, there were a bunch o' dem fellas, skinheads or whatnot, and dem lookin' real hard me way. I jus' keep on goin' straight, jus' so, an pass'em real close. One start shoutin' somet'ing, - I didn't understand, 'cause I hadn't learned the language yet - an' me turn 'round an' tell him to talk straight to me face, if he want somet'ing (appreciative murmuring), an' the man shut up jus' so! He so unsure of heself, he jus' loose he tongue!!" (laughter)

Jackson' story was met with much interest, and many wanted to know more, about what kind of money one could make there, and about the kind of problems he had encountered. Jackson would tell of these tribulations with an aura of experience and nostalgia, as if they had been part of a transitional phase which he had now passed through. He saw it as essentially important that he had been able to learn at least some of the language, and that the respect that he now had amongst friends there was due to his willingness to learn and adapt, but also because he treated everyone fear and equal. He never indicated any sort of inferiority in his relations with locals there, rather that him coming there was beneficial to both them and himself.

I know little - or rather close to nothing - about Jackson's life in Switzerland, and thus have no way of testifying to the relative truth of his descriptions, and have no intention of finding out either; for me the important thing is how the descriptions rests on some measure of authentic experience ("being there"(!)), and that the way the story was told, is a reflection of masculine traits and values both here and there. Put differently, other places are, and have always been, important points of reference for construction of a local identity in the Caribbean, and the skills connected to identifying with both places, having adapted to living in between is much appreciated by one's peers and seen as a focal aspect of a persons identity.

ii) The London that Cane came to know, and how he saw it

Cane also focussed on his skills in performing in accordance with how both visitors and locals wanted things, and took pride in revealing how he was able to manoeuvre between being just a local guy and being the iconified Rastaman on the beach (see page 59). Cane's links abroad were - besides his son's mother who's living in the US - mostly people who'd been visiting Tobago as tourists, and he kept in touch with several, by mail mostly, but he also called a couple of friends in foreign occasionally. He had an ex-girlfriend living in one of London's suburbs, but there was another friend that eventually invited him over to stay with him and his family for a while. He wanted Cane to be a witness to the baptism of his first child - he had also been best man at his wedding, which was held in Tobago.

The way Cane described himself as a part of the pulsating life in London, underlined his identity as a man with cosmopolitan values, and that him being situated at the beach in Tobago in no way limited him in his views of the world. Cane introduced his London by telling the story of the first cab driver he met, who took him from the airport to his friends place. He was an Indian, not Trini-Indian but a real East Indian⁽²⁹⁾, " an' we tune in one time, man. He real cool, an' aks me 'where to?' an' I tell him. Then we talk for a long time, 'cause me friend place real far, an' he take me through the ropes o' London Town, tellin' me how to do dis an' dat, an' even where to get me a spliff, man. Me trust him jus' so, an' he give me he cell phone number, so when me in need for transportation, me call him, an' he take me all over da place. Me an' him alike, yuh know, no real difference between me an' him, we the same."

Cane moves in with his friend, the wife and the small child, and stays there for a few weeks. Every day, he tells me, he was set-up with some pounds, so that he could se the town. And soon he knew the place like his own pocket: "Tis like this, man - no place is bigger than yuh mind, an no man's an island, so me jus' mingle with da people, yuh know, bein' cool with it. An' people real friendly when them see my attitude, an' them show me e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, yes?" After a while, Cane left his friends house to live for a week or so with his former girlfriend, a girl in her early 30's whom Cane met a few years ago on the beach. One night, on the balcony outside our apartment, he described their meeting and relationship like this: "For a long time, there was this gyal, yes, she come here with a gyalfriend, to stay at Turtle beach. She lookin' at me in the bar, a guy from the party come over an' talk with me, an' me ending up by the table with'em. Them bein' curious an' all, questions shootin' from all sides, but she say nuttin', jus' sittin' there lookin' at me. She later say me bein' her mirror. I look her up when in England, yuh know, an' stay with dem for about a week, with her new boyfriend. She have a kid now, an' the guy complainin' that the friendship all gone between him an' she, so me jus' back out. I pack me bag an' tell she me leavin'. She all upset, sayin' "you don't have to go just like that". We still good friends, me an' Catherine, an' yuh never know what happen down da road. We need space, an' now we have dat. Me I don't like to plan , me go with da flow, yuh know?" He got up, and was about to leave, when he turned to me and said: "But I do miss her sometimes, yes? Yuh know, me bein' serious by the way me talk now, eh?" I nodded, and he showed a careful smile before turning around and walking off.

Cane links outwards stems primarily from his activities on the beach, his hard work and pleasant ways with the tourists. From this position, he is able to argue his identity as a world citizen, with friends in many places, but one who's also seen some of these places. The trip to London provided him with a first-hand experience essential to his image as a cosmopolitan, as a guy who manages to live in a state of in-betweenity.

The final scene I will be describing here is also one that is well documented in the literature of the Caribbean: the rum shop. Seen as both a political, social and emotional arena for men, it was for a long time regarded as something of a curiosity of the Caribbean. It was often described as a place for the individualism of "the typical male", and seen as the part of the problem of "the absent male" from the arenas of early Caribbean anthropology: the household. In my material, I find that it was an arena for both sadness and laughter, and for some serious reflections on life in-between.

The rum shop

A central social institution for the understanding of intra-gender relations between men in the Caribbean is the rum shop. An adaptation of the pub, bar or tavern of Europe, the rum shop is still unmistakeably Caribbean; local music dominates, and sociability governed by inherited rules of behaviour, focussing on 'coolness' or 'slackness', prevails. All are welcome in a rum shop, provided that one knows how to lime the right way. One major feature of the real modern rum shop is its distinctness from the different drinking-and-dancing establishments of the tourist scene. Even if many a bar will call itself a rum shop, most local men will agree that they are so named to give the place an aura of exoticism; the drummers, the umbrella drinks, the comfortable seatings - all of these aspects and more takes them beyond the ideals and aesthetics of a rum shop. Thus, another sign of a 'real' rum shop is the lack of tourists and as an (for a tired ethnographer pleasant) effect, lack of hustling.

In the following, I wish to describe an archetypical rum shop in Plymouth, called The Sidewinder Bar and Restaurant.⁽³⁰⁾ It was located in what was called Freedom Street, a street notoriously known for drug trafficking. The bar contained about six tables; three outside on the patio, and three inside the small, semi-dark room where the actual bar and a humongous sound system were placed. The patio had a galvanized roof, and was fenced in by a bamboo fence. The bar was well kept, clean and neat, in a somewhat simplistic style typical of the traditional rum shop. There were painted decorations on the walls, plastic flowers in small vases on the tables, ads (displaying fair-skinned, light-dressed women) for Mackeson, Guinness, Crawford Whisky and Baileys. The front of the building was lit up by small electrical candles, and decorated with banners from Black and White Whisky and Malibu Liqueur. In front of the bar itself, three home made stools were the most popular seats for regulars, there to socialize as well as to drink, while others preferred the darker corners where they could enjoy a drink by themselves or share a flask with one or two privileged 'pardners'. The sound system, also controlled from behind the bar, contained a cassette deck and a CD-player, and two disproportionately large loudspeakers, from which there was an endless blasting of old calypsos, dancehall tunes and 1980's pop ballads.

The bar was mostly empty in the day, but they were still open, for the one lonely ranger who stopped by for a quick drink during lunch break (if he had a job from which to take a break) or a Roti.⁽³¹⁾ The clientele at night time consisted mainly of men (although some women appeared now and again, especially on dance nights, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays), from the age of 25 upwards, engaged in liming 'da right way'; calm, relaxed, dignified drinking - this was not the place for more or less aggressive begging for drinks and cigarettes or other types of 'hustling', - then again, it was not the kind of place tourists frequented, and therefore one rarely saw those who's occupation it was to live on, with, by, the tourists. The clientele were mostly workers, men who got a salary every two weeks, or entrepreneurs, with a sometimes surprisingly negligent attitude towards the islands main industry; tourism. Here local themes were discussed, who's done what with who's wife or daughter, "the son of so-and-so has moved to Brooklyn, well, then, another problem gone, my pay's late again, long time me ain't seen so-and-so, - where he at, boy?"

The bar was the place where one was supposed to be open, inviting, forthcoming and generous (if one had the means), but there was also room for the occasional heated argument (over the lyrics of a calypso or the name of a cricketer), as long as it was kept verbal.

As before mentioned, the rum shop was an arena where men got together and contemplated their roles, and where the risks and benefits of being a man was analysed. The following two stories shall here serve as examples of these kinds of reflections, and will be part of the basis for the analysis to follow.

On a night of much rum and real talk, James, a man in his early 30's, told me this story: "I used to be a happy man, a married man. We had a good life, me wife an' me, we have two chi'rren. I worked at the Pineapple Inn (a hotel in a neighbouring village), made good money, an' the wife made no fuss 'bout me spendin' a little somet'ing on me pardners every now and then. Then, they cut me salary jus' so, no explanation, jus' that there was less visitors, less money coming. I couldn't take dat, boy, dat fuckin' insultin' yes? So me quit one time! Now I spend me time doing construction wo'k, government wo'k, and limin' here. Me wife lef' me, say me didn't care for neither she nor for dem chi'rren. She ain´t easy, nah! So, yuh see me a free man! (Steups⁽³²⁾, and a sigh) Yeah, boy, me free as a bird..." His friends would tell me later that he probably was fired, but that it was better for him to tell the story in this manner, to keep up an appearance.

On another occasion, an elderly man called Cliff had joined the table. Not usually a part of the lime of Isaac's crew, he was invited to the table by James, who had put the first bottle on the table. He sat down and exchanged courtesies, and when he was asked, in a playful manner, how his children were doing, he replied: "how'd I know, boy!", much to the delight of the others. He grinned, looked at me, red the confusion in my face and explained: "Yuh see me, I have chi'rren all over, in Trinidad and in Bethesda, in Barbados and in Panama. Boy, me even have some chi'rren I dunno 'bout!" He said he had some children in the village too, those he had had with his common-law wife, and those were the ones that really counted. He went on to tell us the story (which everyone else but me seemed to know already) of how he had spent time in his youth working for the Americans in Puerto Rico, and how he had met a girl there which he fell hopelessly in love with, "like in one o'dem lovesongs, boy!" He then explained how she'd found him totally irresistible too, and that they had a short affair before the harsh realities of life - both being poor immigrant workers on short-time visas - caught up with them and separated them. "I be been chasin' dat kinda love ever since, boy, that was the real thing, yes? Never found it, never found it, but sure have tried, an' see, da'is why chi'rren all over looking like this!" He grinned and pointed to his characteristic smile; front teeth miles apart.

After these descriptions of a variety of social scenes I have found to be important for the maintenance and re-establishment of a consensus on male virtues, I will go on to seek to analyse the situations according to the cognitive dualism in the anthropology of the Caribbean (Wilson 1973; Miller 1994, among others), which has been broadened by the introduction of the term disjuncture by Wardle (2002). In addition I wish to incorporate the notion of in-betweenity as the personal, creative aspect which is imbedded in the balancing act which is social life within this moral dualism.

2.2. This place and foreign: Moral dualism and beyond

I will in the following seek to identify the elements of social behaviour which we may call gate-keepers of Caribbean anthropology in these stories, and analyse to what extent the social behaviour inherent in the situations might help us understand the complexities of living in-between. I will tie this discussion primarily to Wardles set of concepts - disjuncture, displacement, commitment - but also relate the discussion to the in the anthropology of the Caribbean classical opposition between respectability and reputation, or transcendence and transience. In addition, I will be referring to some of the concept developed in studies of masculinity. I have described and evaluated the usefulness of these concepts in describing local Caribbean realities elsewhere in this thesis, and wish now to exemplify how the concept of in-betweenity may point to how people in praxis - and in a simultaneous mode - respond to the conditions they pose.

The situations described above are of course mere examples extracted from my fieldwork experience, and do not represent the full complexity of local life as it is made up in Plymouth. Still, I believe them to be a selection of particular settings that gives a glimpse of the kind of social processes individual adaptations promotes, and which are comparable to other places in the Caribbean.

I have described how a model of hegemonic masculinity of Tobago (as seen from the village of Plymouth) is linked to the personal acquisition (or maximizing) of virtues connected to both respectability and reputation, to use Wilson's terms. The balancing act is performed in social situations, in meetings with others, and in self-portraying in such ways as the audience will consent to these virtues. Thus this socially constructed masculinity is reaffirmed, strengthened or rebuffed, all depending on the quality of the performance, so to speak.

In both Jackson's and Cane's stories from foreign, we see that the ability to move in a foreign place is based both on one's ability to perform individually, in the moment, and in establishing social bonds which may be utilized. In this sense, the descriptions of experiences from abroad both represent a master narrative on how to behave - even in foreign - and a tale of in-betweenity in itself. Positioned in-between here-and-there, us-and-them, both Jackson and Cane emphasized how their experiences had made them wiser, individually, but also how bonding with others required an effort. Jackson had made a commitment towards his girlfriend, while Cane reaffirmed his bonds with his friend, whom he was best man for in his wedding, and tried - unsuccessfully - to bond with a former girlfriend. Their stories reaffirms the importance of disjuncture as a significant aspect of individual lives, - what happens in foreign and gaining knowledge about it, is a part of the basis for both personal and cultural creativity locally, not forgetting that the term also may describe more transcendent connections abroad, to family and friends.

Also in the rum shop, amongst one's closest piers, the ability to at all times position oneself in-between the individualistic and sociable, the intimate and the careful, in praising the transient and transcendent was important. The examples of quite intimate stories told in the rum shop environment were also examples of how one not only had to balance, but that it was desirable: James ironically described himself as being "free as a bird", seemingly desiring his old life back. He felt powerless in regard to his children whom he met only occasionally, and was constantly on the alert as to what the child support he paid went to. Cliff also played with the notions of commitment and disjuncture (Wardle) by ascribing the reason for his having many children with different women (in itself a sign of individualism, freedom and potency) to his search for a stable, loving relationship, like the one he once found in foreign, in his adventurous youth. In other words, I find these stories to be good examples of not only how people balance their lives in-between because of bear necess