Archive for February, 2012

Monthly Archive

Some Aspects of Work Organization on Sugar Plantations in Barbados

Posted under Sugar, Arrowroot, and Pottery Production

1965    Some Aspects of Work Organization on Sugar Plantations in Barbados. Ethnology 4:16-38.

This paper is specifically concerned with the more salient features of work organization on several small-scale sugar plantations in the Scotland or highland district of Barbados in the early 1960s. Emphasis is less upon the plantation as a productive enterprise or social system than upon the organization of work activities and the statuses which workers fill as they perform these activities.

Some Aspects of Work Organization on Sugar Plantations in Barbados

 

The History of Arrowroot Production in Barbados and the Chalky Mount Arrowroot Growers’ Association, a Peasant Marketing Experiment that Failed

Posted under Sugar, Arrowroot, and Pottery Production

1965    The History of Arrowroot Production in Barbados and the Chalky Mount Arrowroot Growers’ Association, a Peasant Marketing Experiment that Failed. Jl. of the Barbados Mus. and Hist. Soc. 31:131-52.

Over the years Barbados has produced and exported a variety of minor cash crops, including arrowroot. In the village of Chalky Mount arrowroot played an important role, and the production of arrowroot starch involved was the first attempt in Barbados to provide an organisation for the processing and marketing of a crop produced by small farmers. The Chalky Mount Arrowroot Growers’ Association had a short life span from 1936 to about 1942. In this paper I discuss the history of arrowroot production in Barbados and the techniques employed in its production and conversion to starch. I also chronicle the short life of the C.M.A.G.A, describe its organisation and problems, and offer some explanation for its demise.