Nationalism in hybrid spaces: the production of impurity out of purity

In this article, I reflect on the symbolic position assigned to Indo-Trinidadians within national narratives of homogenization in Trinidad. By contrasting the Trinidadian case to Western European modular forms, I explore how historical particularities of this New World region have resulted in novel and creative ways of imagining a national community-namely, by foregrounding impurity or hybridity-that run counter to master narratives of nationalism as these are cast in Western Europe. Trinidadians simultaneously celebrate hybridity (mixture) and their plural society, but, in the final instance, like all nationalist narratives, the Trinidadian narrative remains a logic of exclusion.