Creation of an Exportable Culture: a Cosmopolitan West Indian Case

This paper describes a recent cultural plan debated by members of the West Indian diaspora in Canada which sought to promote carnival as a multicultural expression of pan-Caribbean identity at the Hong Kong New Year International Festival, China. It deconstructs a cultural plan which did not succeed in its realization. As the Canadian West Indian carnival has its stylistic origin in the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago, this proposition combines three different geographical areas and the related diasporas' displacements under the notion of a local and global cultural promotion. In the article, I discuss the modes of creation and enactment of a diasporic patrimony as a culture to be presented in answer to foreign expectations of spectacle. The analysis approaches diasporic Canadian reflections about displacement, marginalization, and matters of cultural belonging, alongside economic dependencies, reflections that aim to gain visibility and international recognition through the production of an 'ethnic spectacle'.