ACADEMIA Letters

Mosaic Livelihoods in the Caribbean in the Twentieth

Century
Riva Berleant, University of Connecticut

The creative use of time, materials, and environmental resources to piece a livelihood together
has a long history in the Caribbean. Even before emancipation in 1834, the enslaved persons
in British colonies had developed survival pursuits that both supported the plantation econ-
omy and made up an internal economy that was the foundation for rural livelihoods in freedom
(Sheridan 1984:51). It was a successful and persistent adaptation very much alive in the twen-
tieth century. Lambros Comitas noted this “occupational multiplicity” in Jamaica. His paper
influenced Caribbean field research thereafter (1964). Another source of our understanding
of creative mosaic livelihoods in the rural Caribbean was Sidney Mintz (e.g., 1989).
My interest in the economic pursuits that make up rural mosaic livelihoods in the Caribbean
emerged from field observations in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles, from 1971 to 1987. The special
feature of society and economy that drew me to Barbuda was its system of customary, unpar-
alleled, communal land tenure and the kinds of land use associated with it, especially shifting
cultivation and open-range stockkeeping (e.g., Berleant-Schiller 1977a, 1983, 1987,1991). I
discovered in the field the mosaic pattern of daily livelihood and its relation to the Barbudan
commons.
This report consists mainly of an inventory of small-scale economic pursuits, but first I will
write a little more about Barbuda, the 62 square mile island that is part of the independent state
of Antigua and Barbuda. The outstanding fact is that a hurricane not merely devastated but
destroyed Barbuda. Barbuda . When Hurricane Irma struck on September 6, 2017, barely ten
percent of buildings escaped destruction. Barbuda’s 1600 residents were evacuated (Guardian
2017). By 2019 some had returned, but central government in Antigua opposes a return to the
status quo ante and wants them removed. No infrastructure has been restored. Overwhelming
commercial development—disaster capitalism—threatens (Gould and Lewis 2018).

Academia Letters, February 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Riva Berleant, [email protected]

Citation: Berleant, R. (2021). Mosaic Livelihoods in the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century. Academia
Letters, Article 230. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL230.

1
 The inventory I present is therefore a document significant for a social and historical un-
derstanding of Barbuda and its economy in the twentieth century. Indeed, everything I have
written about Barbuda is now part of history only, as there can be little continuity with the post-
catastrophe present (e.g., Berleant-Schiller 1997a, 1977b, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1991a, 1991b;
Berleant-Schiller and Pulsipher 1986, Berleant-Schiller and Maurer 1993).
Surely there are additional Caribbean small-scale pursuits elsewhere. My addendum lists
a few I’ve seen. This inventory can be used as checklist for both historical and field research
elsewhere, and I hope will become a contribution to larger synthesizing work on internal
economies and mosaic livelihoods in the Caribbean.

Activities for Both Men and Women

Beach gleaning: plastic buckets, fishnet fragments, net floats, glass jugs and bottles, strands
of rope for new rope, creative use of plastic and synthetic beach mess.

1. Gathering wild and feral plant foods: coffee, sea grapes, sea moss, tree fruits (e.g.,
tamarind, cocoplum, coconuts), medicinal plants and tisanes
2. Gathering straw for bedding, thatch, baskets; making these objects for use and sale
3. Salt-gathering from inshore salt ponds
4. Breaking stone by hand for building and road projects
5. Charcoal-making
6. Crop theft
7. Small-plot cultivation for subsistence crops
8. Keeping pigs and chickens
9. Herbalist: making medicines from wild and domestic plants
10. Making and selling salt fish
11. Wage labor: seasonal, temporary
12. Barber
13. Shopkeeper
14. Collecting honey
15. Mortuary specialist: preparing the dead
16. Wake person: keeps people awake at all-night wakes

Academia Letters, February 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Riva Berleant, [email protected]

Citation: Berleant, R. (2021). Mosaic Livelihoods in the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century. Academia
Letters, Article 230. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL230.

2
Men’s Pursuits
17. Netting small birds
18. Poaching feral domestic stock
19. Sail making
20. Making fish and lobster pots
21. Fishing
22. Lobster-diving
23. Lobster-pot theft
24. Raising livestock: sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, cattle
25. Cattle-running: lassoing branded, open-range cattle on horseback
26. Foraging animal food: land crabs, tortoises, conchs, whelks.
27. Hunting: deer, guinea fowl, sea turtles
28. Breaking horses, donkeys, mules
29. Butchering
30. Selling meat
31. Sailing: inter-island trade
32. Shoe repair
33. Smuggling
34. Hides, tanning, leatherwork.
35. Quarrying, stone-cutting, masonry
36. House building
37. Boat building
38. Gathering tree knees and crucks for building houses and boats
39. Gathering and selling withies for fences, fish pots, lobster pots
40. Carpentry
41. Knitting fish nets
42. Exporting small garden surplus
43. Dock work, loading cargo
44. Musician: steel drum performer
45. Possibility: drug trade: I saw a sloop arrive at a beach remote from the village.
46. When I saw the crew, knives in belts, bringing packages ashore I did not stay to observe
further.

Academia Letters, February 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Riva Berleant, [email protected]

Citation: Berleant, R. (2021). Mosaic Livelihoods in the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century. Academia
Letters, Article 230. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL230.

3
Women’s Pursuits
47. Petty back door trade: matches, single cigarettes, kerosene, copy books, bottled sweet
drinks, notions
48. Making and selling sweets and treats: tamarind jam, coconut rolls, frozen joy, etc.
49. Street hawking: fish, bread, sweets, garden produce; anything foraged, grown, or made.
50. Nursing and midwifery, unofficial
51. Domestic work, cooking
52. Wage work, especially laundering and cleaning
53. Sex work
54. Periwinkle gathering
55. Kitchen gardening
56. Growing useful non-food plants: prickly pear, lemongrass, sugar cane, balsam
57. Baking bread for sale
58. Sewing

Children’s Pursuits
59. Beach gleaning
60. Beach gathering: periwinkles, sea grapes
61. Fruit gathering
62. Street hawking
63. Helping at adult work sites

Addendum
Observed in Montserrat 1981:
64. Cassava processing and baking
65. Squatting on unused land
66. Renting out land
Observed in Antigua 1971:
67. Obeah practice.
Observed in Martinique 1983:
68. Pottery making

Academia Letters, February 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Riva Berleant, [email protected]

Citation: Berleant, R. (2021). Mosaic Livelihoods in the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century. Academia
Letters, Article 230. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL230.

4
References
Berleant-Schiller, Riva

1991a Hidden Places and Creole Forms: Naming the Barbudan Landscape. The Professional
Geographer 43:92-101.

1991b Statehood, the Commons, and the Landscape in Barbuda. Caribbean Geography 3:43-
52.

1986 Ecology and Politics in Barbudan Land Tenure. In Land and Development in the
Caribbean, ed. Jean Besson and Janet Momsen. London: Macmillan. Pp. 116-131.

1983 Grazing and Gardens in Barbuda. In The Keeping of Animals, ed. by R. Berleant-
Schiller and E. Shanklin. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld. Pp.73-92.

1981 Development Proposals and Small-Scale Fishing in the Caribbean. Human Organiza-
tion 40:221-230.

1978 The Failure of Agricultural Development in Post-Emancipation Barbuda: Social and

Economic Continuity in a West Indian Community. Boletin de Estudios Latino-americanos
y del Caribe, no. 25:21-36.

1977a Production and Division of Labor in a West Indian Peasant Community. American
Ethnologist 4:253-272.

1977b The Social and Economic Role of Cattle in Barbuda. Geographic Review 67:299-309.

1993 Berleant-Schiller, Riva and Bill Maurer Merging Domains and Women’s Roles in
Barbuda and Dominica. William Maurer, joint author. In Women and Change in the
Caribbean, ed. Janet Momsen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pp. 65-79.

1986 Subsistence Cultivation in the Caribbean. Lydia Pulsipher, joint author. Nieuwe West-
Indische Gids/New West Indian Guide 60:1-40.2017.

1964 Comitas, Lambros Occupational Multiplicity in Rural Jamaica. In Symposium on Com-

munity Studies in Anthropology, ed. Viola E. Garfield and Ernestine Friedl. Pp. 41-50.

Academia Letters, February 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Riva Berleant, [email protected]

Citation: Berleant, R. (2021). Mosaic Livelihoods in the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century. Academia
Letters, Article 230. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL230.

5
2017 Guardian (newspaper) The Night Barbuda Died: How Hurricane Irma Created a Caribbean
Ghost Town. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/nov/20the-night barbuda-
died-how-hurricane-irma-created-a-caribbean-ghost-town. Consulted 11/17/20.

2018 Kenneth A. Gould & Tammy L. Lewis Green Gentrification and Disaster Capitalism in
Barbuda, NACLA Report on the Americas, 50:2, 148-153, DOI:10.1080/10714839.2018.1479466.
Link to https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2018.1479466. Consulted 11/17/20.

1989 Mintz, Sidney Poverty and Creativity in the Caribbean. In Pauvrété and Développement,
ed. Singaravelou. Bordeaux: Editions CEGET. Pp. 389-395.

1984 Sheridan, Richard B. The Domestic Economy. In Colonial British America. ed. Jack
P. Greene and J. R. Pole. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. 43-85.

Academia Letters, February 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Riva Berleant, [email protected]

Citation: Berleant, R. (2021). Mosaic Livelihoods in the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century. Academia
Letters, Article 230. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL230.