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The Parish Behind God's Back: The Changing of Rural Barbados | 
 enlarge | Authors: George Gmelch, Sharon Bohn Gmelch
Publisher: Waveland Press Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy Used: $3.00
You Save: $15.95 (84%)
New (8) Used (33) from $3.00
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 366579
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6
ISBN: 1577662091
Dewey Decimal Number: 200
EAN: 9781577662099
ASIN: 1577662091
Publication Date: September 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In the eastern Caribbean the expression "behind God's back" refers to a place that is remote or far away. In this book, the authors look at the changing face of village life in St. Lucy, Barbados' northern and most rural parish. What they find are people whose lives are fully connected to the outside world. One of the first things any visitor to the island notices are youths in baseball caps and T-shirts sporting the names and logos of American teams. Switching on the television, it is easier to find an American sitcom than a Caribbean program. In conversation, it soon becomes apparent that nearly every villager has a relative living overseas and that many have themselves traveled to New York, Toronto, and London. And all Barbadians are aware that the health of their economy depends on decisions made beyond their shores. The Parish Behind God's Back is informed by the authors' research and experiences directing an anthropology field school in Barbados since 1983. The book begins with an introduction to the island and parish, followed by history and macrolevel description of the island economy, before turning to the local scene--patterns of work, gender relations, lifecycle, community, and religion. The perspective then widens to look at the global forces that most directly affect local people's lives--television, tourism, and travel. An appendix describes how North American college students were changed by living in St. Lucy.
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| Customer Reviews:
Well written, readable ethnographic account of Barbados August 18, 1999
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Excellent ethnography of the the changes that have been occurring in Barbados since the arrival of Europeans and Africans. The Gmelches take students to the island for a semester every other year so they can learn how to do ethnographic research in cultural anthropology. They are placed in Bajian homes and live there for ten weeks. The book is well informed by the students' perspectives. They help us all see what this island is like and what the life of the islanders has become in the light of tourism development on the island. The Gmelches write well and the book is easy to read and very informative. I have made the book a required text in one of my university, introductory anthropology courses.
An excellent depiction of life in rural Barbados. May 11, 1998
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Gmelch's have, for many years, taken mostly white, middle-class, students from the USA to spend a college term living in rural St. Lucy Parish, Barbados. "The Parish Behind God's Back" presents a highly readable, appreciative, ethnographic account of contemporary village life gleaned from the Gmelch's own field work and that of their students. This book makes a very strong case for the value of study abroad schemes as it lets readers understand much about the process by which students gain insights into themselves and their own cultures while learning to live among strangers. This book is an enjoyable read and highly informative. I have adopted it as a mandatory reading for my university course "Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean."
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