This MA thesis analyzes socio-political development on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago throughout the twentieth century. The structure divides the thesis into three chapters. The first one shortly introduces historical development on Trinidad and Tobago before the year 1900. Such knowledge is elementary for understanding of the development in the twentieth century therefore I consider it necessary to devote a part of my thesis to this problem. Subsequent chapter describes first decades of the twentieth century when the leader canobserve gradual liberation of political constrains imposed by the United Kingdom Great Britain and Northern Ireland benefiting African and Indian inhabitants of Trinidad. This chapter is finished with the year 1958 when both islands entered West Indian Federation. The second chapter is finally fully aimed at both islands already freed from the British Empire and at the difficult period of culmination of disputes between African and Indian descendants. The escalation in 1970 resulted in the so called Black Power revolution. The end of this chapter represents the year 1981 when Eric Williams, a liberator of the islands, died. Finally, the third chapter follows a search for a new leader after the death of Eric Williams until the nineteen nineties when leading political positions...

Thesis (M.A.M.C.)--University of Florida, 2005. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 59 pages. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Sociology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-153). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR45972

The Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata, is a tropical freshwater fish with a long history as a model species for the study of evolution and adaptation to changing environments. The guppy is widespread in Trinidad, and many rivers on the island are host to multiple populations subject to varying levels of predation. Population structure in the guppy is influenced by several factors, including colonization history, presence or absence of barrier waterfalls within rivers, and both documented and accidental human-mediated introduction events. This study used genetic data from both microsatellite markers and mtDNA to investigate guppy population structure in 25 rivers and lakes across Trinidad and Tobago, with particular focus on the north shore Marianne and Paria Rivers. Most sites were located in the Northern Range Mountains of northern Trinidad, where rivers are divided into three major aquatic areas – the Caroni drainage, the Oropouche drainage, and the north shore. Results show a deep genetic divide between populations in the west-flowing Caroni drainage and those in the east-flowing Oropouche drainage, likely due to the colonization of these two drainages from two separate branches of the Orinoco, a large river located on the South American mainland. On Trinidad’s north shore, guppies collected in rivers on the western side of the island appeared to be genetically related to Caroni drainage guppies, while those in rivers on the eastern side of the north shore were predominantly related to Oropouche drainage guppies but showed evidence of admixture from the Caroni. Detailed study of Marianne and Paria River guppy populations showed downstream-biased gene flow in both rivers, with waterfalls in the Marianne limiting the movement of guppies in that river. Evidence of migration between the Marianne and Paria River watersheds was also found at two separate locations.

Cooperative behaviour among unrelated individuals is an evolutionary paradox. Research suggests that an individual’s propensity to cooperate and its response to experiencing cooperation or defection from its social environment consistently varies among individuals and as a function of external factors. The biological and psychological underpinnings of such behavioural variation remain unknown; they can, however, provide more insight into the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among non-kin. This thesis explores the proximate effects of experiences of cooperation or defection from the social environment, as well as possible proximate drivers of cooperative behaviour, using the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) as a study system. Firstly, the behavioural rules underpinning an individual’s decision to cooperate or not with unfamiliar individuals in the presence of specific or non-specific information were explored. When fish had information about their social partner’s cooperativeness, they behaved in a manner consistent with direct reciprocity, copying their partner’s last move. When paired with an ostensibly novel partner, a different, or at least additional, behavioural rule seemed to be employed. In order to help understand the drivers of individual variation in cooperative behaviour, phenotypic selection on cooperativeness was carried out over three filial generations, resulting in fish of high cooperativeness (HC) and low cooperativeness (LC). The divergence of individual cooperativeness observed between the two phenotypic selection lines suggests that cooperative behaviour in the context of predator inspection is at least in part heritable. Cooperative behaviour of F3 fish was found not to correlate with boldness or exploratory behaviour; HC and LC fish did, however, differ in some aspects of sociability and agonistic behaviour. Possible proximate neuromodulatory mechanisms underlying these differences in cooperativeness were also explored, focusing on brain expression patterns for the isotocin receptor (itr) gene in F3 females. HC females were found to have higher mid-section itr expression levels than LC females. Finally, I explored the effects of experiencing cooperation or defection on monoaminergic neurotransmission, which is thought to instantiate the effects of such experiences on the individual’s internal state. My findings suggest that experiencing cooperation or defection from the social environment affects internal state; this phenomenon may be crucial for the appropriate adjustment of the behavioural response to such experiences, and for the emergence of behavioural rules such as generalised reciprocity. Taken together these results suggest that neuromodulatory mechanisms are pivotal for the perception of stimuli from the social environment in the tested cooperative context and that variation in cooperative behaviour may be underpinned by individual differences in the structural properties of such systems. They also provide insight into how behavioural input may affect the behavioural response to such experiences, and ultimately how such mechanisms may lead to the evolution and maintenance of cooperation.

The present study employs the frameworks of postcolonial literary theory, sociolinguistics, and the social psychology of language use to compare the nature, function, and meaning of English in the delineation of cultural and social identities in anglophone Zimbabwean and Trinbagonian literatures. The construction of cultural and social identities in these literatures inheres in how certain Zimbabwean and Trinbagonian novelists use various linguistic devices to contextualize the English language in their respective cultures, and how they employ the English language to articulate and reinforce colonial, counter-colonial, and other heteroglossic social discourses arising from conflicts of race, class, and gender in the Zimbabwean and Trinbagonian contexts. Chapter One outlines the nature of the research and sets up the terms and categories that will feature prominently in the analysis. Chapter Two examines the place of English in the socio-economic and cultural history of Zimbabwe and of Trinidad and Tobago, and offers a description of the indigenous or other national languages which play prominent roles in the linguistic configuration of the two nations. The chapter also critically reviews the attitudes of some prominent post-colonial writers, particularly from the African and Caribbean regions, to the use of English as a medium of artistic creativity. Chapter Three engages with narrative idiom and characters' idioms and comments as they relate to (a)the nativization of English in selected Zimbabwean novels and the use of English and other indigenous languages for articulating social norms and certain situational imperatives, and (b) the power and politics of English as an instrument for domination, manipulation, oppression, the construction of elitist identity, the reproduction of unequal power relations, and of resistance to such social injustice. Chapter Four addresses issues discussed in Chapter Three, but with reference to the Trinbagonian literary context. Chapter Five, the conclusion, synthesizes the arguments by pointing out the sociolinguistic similarities and differences between Zimbabwean and Trinbagonian Literatures analyzed in the study. Furthermore, the concluding chapter not only indicates the values of an interdisciplinary project such as this one for both linguistics and literary studies, but it also delineates certain research options for the future. The dissertation generally concludes that the construction of Zimbabwean and Trinbagonian identities in and through language can be read as a mode of resistance to the homogenizing, assimilative practices of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Thus, the detailed documentation provided in this study of the range of linguistic and socio-cultural differences between Zimbabwean and Trinbagonian literatures on the one hand, and other works of English (especially the acrolectal varieties) on the other, establishes that while there is no single, stable Zimbabwean or Trinbagonian identity that is constituted in the language of literary texts to set up in contrast to an imperial British or American one, the fact of differences is indisputable.

This study examines how gender influences the performance practice of calypso, soca, steel band music, and other related musical genres in contemporary Trinidad. I address the history of these musical genres in this nation, and how they developed into their present form. My study of women in contemporary Trinidadian music examines how popular musicians bring together personal opinion, public persona, and musical structure, to create commentaries upon the contemporary moment (instrumental political agency) as well as emotional bonds with their intended audiences and show that an alternate way of organizing gender representations and inter-gender relations is possible (constitutive political agency). I use a performance based approach to studying various aspects of musical practice within Trinidad, and how this enhances women's agency within the public sphere of popular music, creating new kinds of cultural capital for previously underrepresented members of the population. Many different aspects of Trinidad’s expressive culture are discussed and related to the musical genres discussed therein. Trinidad Carnival, its history and aesthetics, receives particular attention. Performance practice within the musical genres of calypso and soca and the music of the steel orchestra are discussed in detail. Within Trinidad, expressive culture, including popular music, is a strong forum for communicating possible inter-personal and inter-gender relations. Thus, music in the Trinidadian context takes an important place alongside larger political projects and concerns. / text

This study examined the impact of migration and the resulting intercultural interactions on the cultural identities of first-generation immigrant Trinidadians living in the Philadelphia area of the United States. It focused on four identities: race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and nationality. The goal of the study was to determine how Trinidadian immigrants define and reconceptualize these four dimensions of their identities as they make new lives in American society. Another goal was to determine whether identities shift and, if so, how, for Trinidadian immigrants when they move across cultures to a society where they are no longer in the racial, ethnic, or cultural majority. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research included an initial online survey followed by qualitative interviews with a few selected participants. Survey results showed that for three of the identities (ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and nationality), more than half of respondents indicated no change in saliency. Survey respondents rated their shift in racial identity as almost equal between more salient and no change in saliency upon moving to the United States. However, qualitative findings showed that, of the four identities, race became most salient in the United States, even for those who showed no shift in this identity after resettling here. The racial identity of interviewees was influenced by three main factors: the racial identity they were ascribed in the United States, their experiences with racial discrimination, and being made to feel “othered” in a society that does not recognize their Trinidadian racial and ethnic categories. Findings also showed that immigrants in this study who are ascribed a Black identity in the United States acculturate to both African American and European American cultures in multicultural Philadelphia, while maintaining a strong connection to their Trinidadian national identity. This research has practical implications for intercultural researchers and trainers who work with Trinidadian or West Indian populations.