The accumulation of capital and the shifting construction of difference: Examining the relations of colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism in Trinidad

How were social groups made in the colonial encounter? Do they persist into the present? Are social groups remade by post-colonialism? How are social groups produced in the neo-colonial moment? What is the relationship between socio-cultural mixture in Trinidad, group formation and the accumulation of capital?; To illustrate how the economic structure and socio-cultural foundations of colonialism in Trinidad relate to the inequality of capitalism today this dissertation provides a social history of the shifting construction of difference in Woodbrook, Trinidad. This history highlights various forms of difference making and links them to the maintenance and negotiation of the interests of capital accumulation. These forms of difference making include the production of racial hierarchy, the generative contradiction of cultural assimilation and cultural resistance, the stratification of Carnival, the role of Afro-Saxon "organic intellectuals," and, today, the production of fear. To provide a narrative for this history the project examines the motion of capital in the island and its consistent triumph over labour across the cultural, economic and political movements identified as colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism. The dissertation concludes in present day Woodbrook, an urban district of Port of Spain, Trinidad's capital, to illustrate how the colonial logic of divide and conquer intersects with contemporary class politics to exacerbate social stratification, economic division and the continued exclusion of the "masses" from the "people.".