Unification through Reclamation of Carnival
Join the Caribbean Solidarity Network (CSN) for another Groundings In the Diaspora (Every last Tuesday of each Month)
July we are having a community forum that asks what does a reclamation of Toronto’s Carnival (Caribana) look like for progressives on the social and political Left from the Caribbean Diaspora?
In 1967, members of the Caribbean Diaspora came together to present a cultural gift to Canada in the form of a Caribbean-styled carnival to commemorate its centennial birthday. They called it “Caribana”. Over the years, this celebration of Caribbean visual arts, sounds and movements developed as a mainstay in the City of Toronto every summer towards the end of July and into early August. Hundreds of thousands of spectators of Caribbean and non-Caribbean heritage alike came from all over the world to be dazzled by what a relatively small group of racialized people put on - all while untold millions of dollars flowed into the city during the Caribana season. However, in recent years, the festival has lost its vigour as corporate interests have diminished its social, political, historical and cultural value. Indeed, Caribana as we once knew it is no more.
This forum attempts to ascertain what is the true power behind the cultural production that people of Caribbean heritage affectionately call carnival. We ask, what does a reclamation by those who have been dispossessed of Caribana look like? How can this reclamation be a means to unify members of the diaspora across national lines, particularly as we resist white supremacist, capitalist forces that have continued to push us onto the margins of Canadian society? How can Caribana be an event that engenders not just cultural expression, but social and political causes as well?
In Conversation with Darrell Baksh and Runako Gregg.
Born in Toronto, Darrell Baksh is the eldest child of Indo-Caribbean parents who is the eldest child of Indo-Caribbean parents who emigrated from Guyana and Trinidad in the early 1970s. A PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies program at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad, he holds a BA from the University of Toronto where majored in Caribbean Studies. His dissertation is interested in what the mixings and re-mixings taking place in chutney soca music culture can tell us about the complexities, the anxieties, the tensions, and the complications surrounding identity discourses of being Indo-Caribbean. An avid bacchanalist, Darrell has played mas in Trinidad with Island People and Tribe, and he currently plays mas in Toronto with Carnival Nationz.
Runako Gregg is a researcher, activist, human rights lawyer and member of Caribbean Solidarity Network. He has immersed himself in an participated in various aspects of Caribbean Carnival Culture including mas, calypso, soca, and pan culture both in the region and across North America.
Join us in this dialogue.