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A Trinidadian Tradition Returns to Africa
I would like to suggest that a movement towards the source is also diasporic.
President Obasanjo of Nigeria, FESTAC '77
Calabar Carnival in Cross River State (CRS), Nigeria, is billed as "the biggest street party in Africa."1 Resembling its model - carnival or "mas" in Trinidad & Tobago (T&T)1- Calabar Carnival is a street parade that is organized by bands with sections of performers dressed in identical costumes and masks (Figs. la-c). There is loud music, dancing, competitions, floats, and even a Cross River Steel Band (Figs. 2a-b). However, Calabar Carnival is unique in that it is a Trinidadian -style carnival held in an African city without preexisting Caribbean influence.
While Calabar Carnival is only five years old, carnival in T&T has evolved over several centuries. Originally a Christian pre-Lenten celebration, Trinidadian Carnival (or Trini-Carnival, as it is popularly known) has evolved into an intoxicatingly hybrid festival shaped by African, Asian, and native performance traditions. Due to the influx of African slaves into the Caribbean, African influences have made a significant contribution to carnivals since the eighteenth century with regard to dancing, drumming, and masquerades. In the nineteenth century, post-emancipation carnivals in Trinidad (after 1834) offered a social space for Afro -Trinidadian s to protest racial hierarchies and social structures. By the end of the twentieth century, Trini-Carnival had become more international and more commercial. Calabar Carnival emulates Trinidad's twenty-first century carnival, which is associated with global (and racial) identities performing a "balancing act" between innovation and tradition. In addition, both Trini-Carnival and Calabar Carnival aim to build political capital as well as to produce local economic growth that will supplement dwindling oil revenues which both are experiencing or anticipating.
T&T has been exporting its carnival tradition outside of its borders and outside of the Caribbean for almost a century. The majority of the sixty carnivals that take place around the world are in North America and Europe, where there are large Caribbean communities.3 Some of the largest diasporic carnivals are held in London, New York, and Toronto. According to Keith Nurse, these carnivals provide the Caribbean diaspora a way to express a cultural identity in a new home. He writes, "diasporic Caribbean carnivals have developed into a...