##common.pageHeaderLogo.altText##

Articles

No. 1(22) (2022): The Return of Metaphysics

Measuring Mas: A Metaphysical-Bakhtinian Perspective on the Trinidadian Carnivalesque

Submitted
30 June 2022
Published
31-12-2022

Abstract

Carnival is a space of play where you are at once earthly and divine. We are born to this culture, writing our narratives in song, dress, tradition and spirit. As Trinidadians, we embed our lives, our creativity, and our souls into this sacrament. And every year it blesses our people with inspiration, solace and liberation. The theoretical premise of this paper combines social constructivism and Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism, heteroglossia, and chronotope to investigate aesthetic architecture within the Trinidadian carnivalesque (mas). A series of narrative interviews were conducted with Carnival band leader Valmiki Maharaj and visual artist Jackie Hinkson, gathering core meanings, intentions, and processes of creation attached to the Trinidadian brand of Carnival. This work highlights the aesthetic manifestations of reflection, creation, and connection as represented in murals, costuming, and carnival accoutrements, whilst acknowledging the cultural and historical frameworks that support these structures.

References

  1. Anthony K.I. 2017. “Ikeji Festival of Arondizuogu: Retelling the Stories and Rekindling the Values of an Ancestral Homeland,” International Journal of Religion & Human Relations, vol. 9(1), pp. 156–179.
  2. Araya K. 2014. “Anancy Stories beyond the Moralistic Approach of the Western Philosophy of Being,” Boletín de Literartura Oral, vol. 4, pp. 43–52.
  3. Bakhtin M.M. 1981. Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. M. Holquist, transl. C. Emerson, M. Holquist, University of Texas Press.
  4. Benítez-Rojo A. 1996. The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective, Duke University Press.
  5. Bhabha H. 1984. “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse,” Discipleship: A Special Issue on Psychoanalysis, vol. 28(Spring), pp. 125–133.
  6. Cowley J. 1996. Carnival, Canboulay and Calypso: Traditions in the Making, Cambridge University Press.
  7. da Rosa C.E., Felipe J. 2021. “Gender Performativity Seen through the Eyes of Children: A Drag Queen Mediates Literary Encounters,” Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, vol. 11(1), pp. 1–22.
  8. Fanon F. 2004. “On National Culture,” [in:] F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Grove Press, pp. 145–180.
  9. Henry F., Henry J. 2020. “Stories of Resistance and Oppression: Baby Doll and Dame Lorraine,” [in:] Carnival Is Woman: Feminism and Performance in Caribbean Mas, University Press of Mississippi, pp. 43–56.
  10. Hippolyte K. 2019. Wordplanting, Peepal Tree Press.
  11. Kershner R.B. 2010. “Dialogism and Heteroglossia,” [in:] The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, vol. 1, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444337839.wbelctv1d004.
  12. Kuei-chen C. 2022. “Between Warp and Woof: The Invention of Ethnic Costume of Ulay Atayal,” Min Su Qu Yi, vol. 217, pp. 27–65.
  13. Liverpool H.U.L. 1990. Culture and Education: Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. Implications for Education in Secondary Schools, Karia Press.
  14. Marshall E.Z. 2016. “Resistance through ‘Robber-Talk’: Storytelling Strategies and the Carnival Trickster,” Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 62(2), pp. 210–226.
  15. Martin C. 2004. “Trinidad Carnival Glossary,” [in:] Carnival Culture In Action: The Trinidad Experience, ed. M. Riggio, Routledge, pp. 283–294.
  16. Moten F. 2017. Black and Blur, Duke University Press.
  17. Piaget J. 1964. “Development and Learning,” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, vol. 2, pp. 176–186.
  18. Smith L.T. 1999. “Colonising Knowledges,” [in:] Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples, Zed Books, pp. 58–72.
  19. Tunali T. 2018. “The Art of Resistance: Carnival Aesthetics and the Gezi Street Protests.” ASAP/Journal, vol. 3(2), pp. 377–399, https://doi.org/10.1353/asa.2018.0031.
  20. Walcott D. 2000. Tiepolo’s Hound. Faber and Faber.
  21. Wertsch J.V. 1997. Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind, Cambridge University Press.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.