This dissertation looks at the historical and social construction of Black Bermudian identities, and how identities have been shaped in contemporary Bermuda by its education system. I grapple with, and attempt to make sense of the complexities, messiness, ambiguity, disappointments, and painful reality of Black Bermudians’ identity and cultural dynamics. It is necessary to have a total understanding of identity and its connections not only to enslavement and colonization but also the rest of the Caribbean and Africa. The present understanding creates an amputated sense of self. Through the use of three concepts: Afrocentricity, Anti-colonialism and creolization, this dissertation seeks to reunify Bermuda with the rest of the Caribbean and Africa by moving Bermuda from the peripheral of international discourses to the larger and broader discussions on African-diasporic identity. It is through the synthesis of these theories that Black Bermudian identities and how Black Bermudians self-identify are understood through their various forms of resistance to dominant narratives. The dissertation also proposes a re-examination of the role of schooling and education—through teaching curriculum, texts and pedagogical practices—in producing a particular narrative of Black identity and the implications of such knowledge in constructing Blackness in Bermuda. The dissertation note that dominant forms of knowledge and epistemological orientation can shape the way Black Bermudians tend to understand themselves in relations to their history, culture, values, worldviews, and identity. Consequently, a fragmented self or what Frantz Fanon refers to as "amputation" is produced within Bermudian classrooms. The dissertation concluded with four key steps that are essential for Black Bermudians to re-engage through counter-hegemonic knowledge that is rooted in Anti-colonial, Creolization, and Afrocentric discourses and theories.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/43686 |
| Date | 13 January 2014 |
| Creators | Outerbridge, Donna May |
| Contributors | Walcott, Rinaldo |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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