Notes from research May 19, 2022
This post will probably be the last on how migration may have shaped Althea McNish, reflecting on research found in social science journals. Today's post makes an attempt to engage with memory as a research subject. The remaining posts to come will focus on the art historical context in which she operated, as well as notes on the circumstances of the 1812 war that led her forebears to settle in Trinidad.
1/ Social scientists postulate that second generation immigrants have greater intercultural competence
This accepted idea is of relevance to Althea. Even though she was not a second-generation immigrant per se, her forebears having settled in Trinidad more than a hundred years before, it may have contributed to her being so adept at gracefully navigating through the elite world of London high fashion. The findings from my research, which will be given below, suggest to me that Althea's heritage as a Merikin in Trinidad may have helped her be especially savvy as a migrant in the UK.
In the International Journal of Intercultural Relations Volume 88 May 2022, pp11-21, the article titled, The intercultural competence of second-generation individuals: knowledge gaps and steps forward, states the following:
"Scholarship highlights that SGIs (second generation individuals) from childhood are usually confronted with cultural diversity. Throughout their developmental years they usually establish multiple cultural belongings, experience context-related cultural norms, and learn to adapt their communication styles to the demands of different cultural environments (Granata, 2012) From an early age they may act as intercultural mediators between their families and wider society (Padilla, 2006). It is reasonable then to hypothesize that such experiences may help SGIs develop heightened IC (intercultural competence)."
The authors of the paper admit that, "Policy and media discourse often emphasize SGIs’ social exclusion and link this to urban dysfunction or radicalization (Amin, 2002). This narrative, often expressed in simplistic terms, tends to feed negative, stereotyped perceptions of the social dynamics involving SGIs. In fact, their social realities are much more complex (Grillo, 2011). " They then go on to discuss their proposition that such individuals actually may have an advantage and contribute to social cohesion in multicultural societies.
"In this paper IC is defined as a set of values, knowledge, attitudes, and skills that favour an effective and appropriate interaction within intercultural contexts (Barrett, 2018; Bennett, 2009; Deardorff, 2006). Such a definition mirrors the key dimensions of human competence: cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions, as well as context (Spitzberg & Changnon, 2009). It also includes values, considered by some scholars as a further dimension of IC (Barrett, 2018). The expression “IC” refers not only to the ability to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds, but also to understand the relationships between different cultures and to position oneself between them, potentially becoming a mediator (Byram, 2012)."
The following statements perhaps indicate why Althea was so adept at navigating London high society:
"To resolve such issues of identity, SGIs must conduct a continual inner dialogue and translating of meanings, which may be conducive to developing high levels of cognitive flexibility and ability to understand other points of view (Zapata-Barrero, 2018, Granata, 2012, Vivero and Jenkins, 1999).
"Thus, many SGIs develop a multicultural identity attached to different cultural groups internalizing different cultural frames and codes (Brannen, Garcia, & Thomas, 2009). Cultural frame and code switching is the process through which multicultural individuals swing from one cultural scheme and code to another, in response to stimuli from different cultural environments (Toomey, Dorjee, & Ting-Toomey, 2013). As a consequence, they communicate easily with people from different cultural settings (Moore & Barker, 2012). "
"When SGIs learn that their cultural selves can coexist in constant dialogue, they progress their ability to communicate effectively with people from different cultures (Manco, 2002). The causal nexus between multicultural identity and IC development is bidirectional: by developing positive relationships with others, SGIs reinforce their sense of identity and enhance their capability to manage internal differences and contradictions (Manço 2002). "
So, I want to explore in my interviews with friends and family of Althea whether life as Merikins within Trinidadian society did present special challenges that heightened Althea's multicultural awareness and flexibility in relating to different types of people.
2/ The importance of place in memory formation; the effects of trauma or commodification on memory
An article in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (second edition) 2015 , pp 181-187, by Uli Linke, makes the following statement:
"...memory archives are attached to landscapes to recall place-specific events or the movement of people, bodies, and objects across a topographic terrain (Greenhouse, 1996, pp. 39–48). This mode of time keeping is not nature based. The morphologies of space are meaningfully mapped to record political, economic, or social events. Oral histories and collective memories can thus be archived and retrieved by reference to spatial markers."
This is significant in relation to the Merikins, since much of their history tends to discuss their relation to terrain in some form or fashion. Hence, my decision to include a map or maps on a project website for the podcast would definitely be useful for this story. This fact will also have a role in shaping some of my interview questions.
I am not sure I fully understand the following statement, and will seek guidance from my advisors on its interpretation and how it may help in crafting my story. I believe it is an important statement.
"Anthropological studies further suggest that collective memory may be systematized on the basis of relative temporalities, that is, a flexible system of polymorphous reference points. Among certain peoples of the Ivory Coast, like the Guéré, “the consciousness of a historical past has developed alongside a multiplicity of other times” (Le Goff, 1992, pp. 8–9): mythical, genealogical, historical, lived, and projected time. Such a register of memory forms belongs to the aftermath of the colonial project. This observation is congruent with the historical reverberations of struggle ‘in the postcolony,’ as Mbembe (2001) asserts, where the ‘languages of life’ always consist of ‘a combination of several temporalities’ – brought into being by memories of living in the concrete world and the entanglement of existence and experience in times of ‘instability and crisis’ (pp. 15–17). Under the impact of prolonged social trauma, the disparate logics of time and memory chart the precarious matrices of life: a synchrony of struggle, violence, and perseverance. In the ‘afterlife of collectively experienced catastrophes,’ these knowledge of the past can be deployed as a ‘political language’ to affect future change (Radstone and Schwarz, 2010, p. 3). "
So, in keeping with the above, how has the reality of the past social trauma endured by the Merikins contributed to the way they remember their story at multiple levels? And does this even matter to my telling of Althea's story? My advisors' input will be needed here.
The next statement by Linke is also important:
"A remembrance, a social understanding of events that is represented as memory, can be constructed by sharing with others “sets of images that have been passed down to them through the media of memory—through paintings, architecture, monuments, ritual, storytelling, poetry, music, photos, and film” (Watson, 1994, p. 8). In every society, we can identify an array of memory sites or places of commemorative record and practice where remembrance anchors the past: topographical places (archives, libraries, museums); monumental places (cemeteries, architectural edifices); symbolic places (commemorative rites, pilgrimages, emblems); functional places (manuals, autobiographies, associations); and places of power (states, elites, milieux) which “constitute their historical archives in relation to the different uses they make of memory” (Le Goff, 1992, pp. 95–96, Nora, 1986). These memory sites furnish a series of locations where knowledge of the past are conveyed and sustained by a circulation of signs that focuses meaning on pertinent ideas, values, and feelings."
My research and discussions with a person documenting the Merikins' story have all highlighted how that community has treasured its monuments, rituals, and other media of memory, for example, the way the names of streets were chosen. What do these types of memory media tell me and others about the way Merikins view themselves and view their relationship to the wider Trinidad community? It may be helpful to understand that so as to better understand Althea. How does one interpret their choice and representation of media memory? Again, I look to my advisors for guidance on this one.
Linke also states, ""Here, interpersonal memories, commemorations, theater, drama, folklore, secret, and oppositional histories are ‘the venues within which alternative remembrances’ – unauthorized and unapproved memories of the past – can be located and analyzed (Watson, 1994, p. 2). Collective memory practices are linked not only to sites of domination that attempt to legitimate a given social order, but also to unsanctioned sites of struggle, opposition, and transformation."
To what extent is this statement true of the Merikins and, specifically, of Althea McNish's family?
Linke's final statement is a sobering warning, because the Merikins' story does face the possibility of being shaped to sell as a commodity and may already have been to a certain extent. I need to be aware of this when shaping my narrative. Linke says:
“Memory” is therefore “not a generic term of analysis, but itself an object appropriated, transformed, and politicized” (Matsuda, 1996, p. 6). Or, put differently, memory can be nationalized, aestheticized, and commodified, offered up for purchase or branded for consumer attention.
Historical consciousness shaped by nation-building, scientific discourse, and global capitalism plays a significant role in the formation of social identities.
In a consumption-driven capitalist world, memory industries obliterate temporal boundaries and destabilize the precarious relation between remembering and forgetting. Mass-mediated productions of historical events flourish on narrative plots scripted by corporate interest. Representations of the past are fabricated, staged for popular entertainment. Such a collage of fiction and memory, unlike remembrances produced by collective experience or lived time, is not ‘embodied in the social’ and therefore more easily forgotten: commodified memory “is sucked into the timeless present of the all-pervasive virtual space of consumer culture” (Hyussen, 2003, pp. 10, 28). These transient, fleeting ‘memories of the modern’ (Matsuda, 1996) tend to destabilize a secure sense of the past. Guided by market principles, mediated historical consciousness is a product of ‘prosthesis’ memories (Nora, 1989, p. 14): a repertoire of simulated temporalities, composed of recycled image fragments and fictional texts that conjure an affective engagement with the past via shock-effect or mass-produced sentiments of nostalgia and commemoration. As ‘prosthetic’ implants, such consumable memory artifacts have the “capacity to create shared social frameworks for people who inhabit different social spaces, practices, and beliefs” (Landsberg, 2004, p. 8). In a global media market, translocal identities and transnational solidarities are forged by consumer-directed memory productions that mimic a sensuous engagement with imagined historical realities (Neiger et al., 2011). Stocked with prosthetic memories and consumable pasts, global commodity culture is increasingly marked by fears of forgetting the phantasmatic and surreal.
"What sorts of memory markets have emerged to counter these popular anxieties about the slippage of temporal experience? Through the interventions of commercial media, trauma history has come to the attention of a bourgeoning tourist industry.
"Competing versions of past experience rise to the surface of data-saturated awareness by the media hype of spectacle, advertisement, and entertainment. The formation of global memory markets productively engages postmodern instabilities: a world of shifting imaginaries, inhabited by flows, fragmentation, and forgetting. The eventual shrinkage of collective memory in the global theater poses a challenge for conventional anthropological research."
Again, my advisors can show me ways to figure out when I am in receipt of a commodified version of history rather than the actual truth, as far as it can be known.
3/ Final word on place identity and its impact on personal identity
In the journal Health and Place 18 (2012) 1162-1171, the article, Sense of Place and Place Identity: Review of neuroscientific evidence, makes the following observation:
Places have been understood as location (Cresswell, 2004), as
concentrations of social relations and social practices (Kearns and
Gesler, 1998), as zones of experience and meaning (Wilson, 2003).
To this effect, they influence our way of thinking, our conscious
ness, the course our life takes, our social structures, our health
and well-being. Both for the individual and for society as a whole,
the interaction with places leads to perception, creation of mental
pictures, ideas, concepts, meanings and symbols of places and
landscapes (Williams, 1998).
The article then goes on to discuss the concept of "place identity" and its impact on an individual's formation of their own identity. This article, like Linke's, highlights the importance of place to the psychological formation of individuals. Since the Merikins' terrain is special in so many ways: location in deeply rural northeast Trinidad, historical significance, etc. I am inclined to think that understanding that location and community will be important to Althea's story. It is also important to remember that Althea did spend a significant portion of her youth in Trinidad's city area where she went to school and later gained some prominence in the country's art circles, but that fact does not negate the relevance of understanding how "place identity" may have helped to shape her outlook and her design practice.
The article further states:
"The ability to remember and reconstruct scenes is a key element of episodic forms of autobiographical memory (Moscovitch
et al., 2005). In this respect, place forms an essential basis for experiences to be unfolded in memory and imagination. And in fact, many of the brain regions known to be involved in memory are also involved in navigation and other forms of projection that require a spatial grounding (Bruckner and Carroll, 2006). This insight seems promising to better understand the bonds of spatial neuroscience with sense of place and place identity. It is beyond doubt that autobiographical memory is critical in maintaining the emotional bonds with place by reliving experiences that occurred in this
context. It provides us with a sense of familiarity of places. More over, semantic knowledge (Levy et al., 2004) about certain places enables us to create a sense of places that have never been personally experienced (Szpunar et al., 2009), and to make predictions about contexts (Bar, 2009). Autobiographical memory—as a multimodal and complex form of reliving context and experiences beyond the here and now—is seen to contribute to a sense of self and identity (Addis and Tippett, 2008, Damasio, 1999). Analogously, it may provide the basis for a sense of place and place identity."
So, how did this "sense of place" shape the personal identity of the descendants of the Merikins? In other words, how did the memories of where their forebears came from, that is, in the US, help to shape their identity and that of their children? Further, how has the place where they have settled in Trinidad also contributed to their "sense of self and identity"?
Finally, how did the landscape of her rural community and the sense of place in Trinidad as a whole influence Althea's creative practice? We know she said it did influence her designs. Can I explore this question in more depth in the podcast narrative, by using this research to add depth to the oft-stated comment that her work used Trinidadian colours and flora? How best do I approach this topic in doing interviews and shaping my narrative?
20/06/2022 I think it is also important to add this note. I read today a detailed account of Althea's life in a local newspaper; it shows she had an active life in Trinidad's capital city where she grew up and became part of an elite circle of well-known artists among whom she developed her skills. That experience no doubt was equally as important in shaping her ability to navigate with grace and sophistication the world of high society and high fashion.