The Parish Behind God's Back: The Changing Culture of Rural Barbados

For this latest edition, the authors returned to Barbados to update the changing face of life in St. Lucy, the parish “behind God’s back”—the island’s most rural district. After discussing Barbados’s colonial history as a plantation society based on slavery and the economy’s recent conversion from sugar to tourism, they turn to everyday life in St. Lucy: patterns of work, gender relations, religion, and the meaning of “community.” The book concludes by examining the global forces and media—television, tourism, travel, and the Internet—that connect villagers to the outside and most directly affect their lives. Written with students in mind, this highly readable, illustrated, and thought-provoking account is ideal for courses in cultural anthropology and Caribbean studies. An appendix describes the changes North American students experienced as a result of participating in the anthropology field schools the authors ran in Barbados over a twenty-year period.