Twentieth Century Suriname

Despite its modest size, the republic of Suriname is today the site of many distinctive processes of globalization. This intersectional study teases out the complex relationships among class, gender, and ethnic identity over the course of Suriname's modern history, from the capital city of Paramaribo to the country's resource-rich rainforest.

Suriname is a fascinating yet also little known Caribbean country. Fascinating because a unique variety of lifestyles and group identities has characterized this country from its early beginnings as a European plantation colony, but even more so since the influx of contract laborers from British India and Java in the nineteenth century. Little known because even when attention was focused on the country, particularly following a military coup d'état in 1980, this awareness has contributed little to a better understanding of the country's complex developments. In fact, the media have not unveiled but rather covered the essentials of the evolving Suriname society. Combining a broad thematic approach with a focus on long-term developments in Suriname, 20th Century Suriname consists of fourteen chapters that discuss the main trends with respect to major areas of research. Topics such as Surinamese politics and economics, as well as its social, religious, and cultural aspects are covered by the best contemporary specialists on Suriname in the United States, the Netherlands, and Suriname. This volume provides an accessible introduction to Suriname for a general audience, including graduate and undergraduate students, and an authoritative 'state of the art review' for Suriname specialists.

Despite its modest size, the republic of Suriname is today the site of many distinctive processes of globalization. This intersectional study teases out the complex relationships among class, gender, and ethnic identity over the course of Suriname's modern history, from the capital city of Paramaribo to the country's resource-rich rainforest.

Anton de Kom’s We Slaves of Suriname is a literary masterpiece as well as a fierce indictment of racism and colonialism. In this classic book, published here in English for the first time, the Surinamese writer and resistance leader recounts the history of his homeland, from the first settlements by Europeans in search of gold through the era of the slave trade and the period of Dutch colonial rule, when the old slave mentality persisted, long after slavery had been formally abolished. 159 years after the abolition of slavery in Suriname and 88 years after its initial publication, We Slaves of Suriname has lost none of its brilliance and power.

Written by leading scholars from around the world, the articles in this volume range from sin, Sufism and terrorism to theology in the 19th and 20th centuries, Vatican I and II and the virgin birth.

"A valuable contribution to the historiography of indentured servitude in the Caribbean, in the Americas in general, in fact, globally."--Howard Johnson, University of Delaware Rosemarijn Hoefte explores the rise of indentured servitude on the sugar plantations of Suriname after the end of slavery in that Dutch Caribbean colony in South America. In this first study ever of bonded labor in Suriname, she discusses and compares the social, cultural, and economic consequences of migration and plantation life and offers insights into the system of indentured immigration in general. Slavery was abolished in Suriname in 1863. Between 1873 and 1940 more than 34,000 British Indians and nearly 33,000 Javanese (a unique presence in the Caribbean) entered Suriname and effectively replaced the former slaves. Working under a contract that included the so-called penal sanction, they were forced to place their labor power at the unqualified disposal of their employers; the employers had the right to press criminal charges against the laborers who broke their contract. Focusing on Plantation Mari�nburg, the largest and longest-surviving sugar mill in Suriname, Hoefte examines the reactions of the planters, the colonial state, and the former slaves to this influx of two large ethnic groups with different cultural backgrounds. She describes the hierarchical organization of the plantation and discusses such aspects of indenture as wages, housing, medical care, religion, and education. Both an economic analysis and a pioneering social history, the book fills a gap in the study of immigration in the Caribbean. Rosemarijn Hoefte is deputy head of the Department of Caribbean Studies, KITLV/Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology in Leiden, the Netherlands. She is the author of Suriname and the coeditor of Connecting Cultures: The Netherlands in Five Centuries of Transatlantic Exchange.

This book surveys the development of the religious landscape in Suriname and Guyana, focusing on the interaction between Hindus, Muslims, and Christians and responses to Christian dominance. It reflects on how and why these religiously diverse Caribbean societies are characterized by relative harmony, whereas interreligious relationships in other parts of the world have been marked by extreme conflict and violence. The chapters explore ideological and institutional dimensions, including the role of government policies, religious demography, religious leadership, and private religious institutions. The author takes a critical stance towards a negative approach to power struggles and offers a perspective that does not necessarily consider religious diversity a hindrance for religious harmony. Making valuable data accessible to scholars in the English language, this volume provides a framework for the study of interreligious relations and for understanding the religious worlds of the Caribbean.

"A tour de force that underwrites and shifts the petrified image of Islam disseminated by mainstream media."--Walter D. Mignolo, author of The Darker Side of Western Modernity "Gives us an entirely different picture of Muslims in the Americas than can be found in the established literature. A complex glimpse of the rich diversity and historical depth of Muslim presence in the Caribbean and Latin America."--Katherine Pratt Ewing, editor of Being and Belonging: Muslim Communities in the United States since 9/11 "Finally a broad-ranging comparative work exploring the roots of Islam in the Americas! Drawing upon fresh historical and ethnographic research, this book asks important questions about the politics of culture and globalization of religion in the modern world."--Keith E. McNeal, author of Trance and Modernity in the Southern Caribbean In case studies that include the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume trace the establishment of Islam in the Americas over the past three centuries. They simultaneously explore Muslims’ lived experiences and examine the ways Islam has been shaped in the "Muslim minority" societies in the New World, including the Gilded Age’s fascination with Orientalism, the gendered interpretations of doctrine among Muslim immigrants and local converts, the embrace of Islam by African American activist-intellectuals like Malcolm X, and the ways transnational hip hop artists re-create and reimagine Muslim identities. Together, these essays challenge the typical view of Islam as timeless, predictable, and opposed to Western worldviews and value systems, showing how this religious tradition continually engages with local and global issues of culture, gender, class, and race.