Caribbean Studies - Unfinished Synthesis: Georg Simmel's Adventure, Two Chinese Jamaica... - 0 views
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Bill Brydon on 21 Feb 11In this article, I explore how the Simmelian concept of "adventure" can serve as a symbolic category providing a framework for understanding two Chinese Jamaicans' recollections of childhood migration and their attempts to mediate and synthesize the tensions caused by that experience into an overall expression of identity. The Simmelian adventure recognizes that the very process of synthesizing life events draws attention to the disconnections and disruptions-what Simmel defines as "dualities"-that Simmel concludes are characteristic of modern identities. The Chinese Jamaican narratives in this study display the dualities of the adventures as posited by Simmel and as such, reconfirm the understanding of the Caribbean as a site of modernity and recognize both the experiences and contributions of a minority group in this region as being significant for our understanding of modern diasporic identities in general and, more specifically, in the Caribbean.