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Dancing on the Divide: Examining the creation of youth cultures in the Dominican Republic and South Africa

Author: Tené Adero Howard


Introduction

This paper will explore the diversity of ways in which youth culture manifests itself in marginalized communities in the US, the Dominican Republic and South Africa. The marginalized youth examined here are street children of South Africa, oppressed children of the Dominican Republic, and my own experience as an immigrant to New York City. By gaining an understanding of these distinct groups of young people, the notion that youth culture is monolithic and that young people around the world buy into the same cultural codes will be challenged. It is imperative that educators and community leaders engage young people in a dialogue where youth can articulate their identity and posit ideas about their possible role in society if we are to encourage more of their participation in the decision-making processes in their communities.

My own experience immigrating from Guyana to the US as a child, as well as my work in youth development in the US, South Africa and the Dominican Republic has reinforced the notion that though certain global processes influence the way young people understand their lives, their own lived experiences are a product of the particular political, social, and economic pressures that they face in their homelands. Young people are constantly creating unique spaces with which to understand, negotiate and rework their positions in the world. What often connects different youth cultures is a shared sense of struggling to define their own identity and ways of negotiating meaning amidst powerful pressures to succumb to the commercial and media definitions of their youth culture.  The fact remains that,  “youth centered definitions of their lives remain largely absent. Young people have not been enfranchised by the research conducted on their lives. The history of youth cultural studies of the last four decades tells us more about the politics of academic research than it does about young people.”(Valentine, Skelton and Chambers, 1998, 21). Because youth culture has been largely defined from the outside, and often not by young people themselves, the definitions often dismiss their individual and collective views.

Youth culture can be defined by the agency young people claim over their own ideas, and the moments that they seize to create their own spaces that enable them to negotiate their identities and realities. As Austin and Willard describe in the Introduction to Generations of Youth, “Of the institutions that interactively construct youth cultures, the least studied by historians and American cultural studies scholars are young peoples’ own (often, informal) self organized institutions such as peer groups, fan clubs, gangs, friendship networks, and “communities of practice” among youth” (1998, p.13). These self-organized institutions are organically formed out of the needs of its own members to enable themselves to negotiate their positions as youth in their societies.

The youth communities examined in this paper show evidence of young peoples’ desire to organize support networks that respond to their needs-- the first being a young women’s group in San Felipe de Villa Mella that organized around practicing Dominican traditional music and dance as well as creating ‘Danza Fuzion’ which integrated traditional Dominican dance and music with popular hip hop and reggae. Following is an in depth examination of the Thuthukani Youth Shelter in Durban, South Africa, and the impact that a weekly dance program had on helping the young people to create a feeling of a safe and nurturing environment for themselves. Youth culture does not exist in a vacuum, where youth access the same mass-produced ideas, music, or cultural fads and trends. But rather, it is dynamic, and represents the willingness and openness of youth to access some common media while assimilating these into their own lives in a way that addresses their unique perspectives. The following examples also illustrate the way that artistic manifestations of youth culture serves as a stage for redefinitions and new negotiations.

Situating the Self

The movement of my own family throughout the Caribbean diaspora has created connections that extend from Guyana to New York, Atlanta, Toronto, and London. Though the negotiation of identity does not often transpire in the confines of one particular geographical locale, my own negotiations often took place on my subway rides to and from home. It was in this space that I could choose to be who I wanted or needed to be. At the same time that I was shuttled from my primarily West Indian neighborhood of Crown Heights to the mostly white upper-class neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, where I went to school, I was able to make the necessary switches, from home to school, from Guyanese to American. While the Subway served as a personal space where I explored the complexities of the cultures in which I lived, many youth construct spaces, both real and imagined, within the metaphysical space of the self and their relationships with other young people. In my own experience, my identity was like a carefully shuffled deck of cards, and I acted as a sort of magician, able to pull out the appropriate card and act in the manner that my environment dictated. In many ways the negotiation of these many identities was a magic trick, and one at which many other immigrant and transnational youth are skilled.

My own movement and experience within the Caribbean diaspora heavily influence my own understanding of global youth culture. I have always envisioned my own culture and identity as located on the edges of many different cultural and societal plates. In order to avoid being designated to the periphery of all these cultures, I struggled to find ways to make these border spaces construct my center.  As a first/second generation Guyanese American (I moved to the US with my family at age 5) I empathize with the struggle to define oneself when caught on the edge of many social identifiers. Negotiating the borders of my identity has been a life long process—whether they are borders imposed by myself or by others. I am in a constant state of flux, defining and re-defining my relationship to my Guyanese heritage, negotiating my role as a consumer of popular culture, and not only justifying my own claims to an authentic ethnicity but evaluating others’ claims as well.

Background

Prior to delving deeper into the identity formation process of the young people in question, it is essential to redefine the terms employed to describe these young people. The youth described below are youth in flux, in a constant state of change due to society’s and their own changing notions of themselves. Thus, I argue, the theoretical basis used for delineating the experiences of immigrant and transnational youth are relevant here. These young people often function on the periphery of society, even when they are in their homelands. Therefore, by being marginalized youth, some of the theories on youth culture that have been previously applied to the immigrant experience can be made relevant here. With this premise in mind, the following paragraphs seek to make theories on youth culture relevant to the unique lived experiences of the young people examined below.

In his book From Bomba to Hip Hop, Juan Flores describes transnational youth in the following way,  “ their idea of culture and identity was for the most part practical and spontaneous, based on the blows of racism, elitism, sexism, cultural chauvinism, and all the other forms of prejudice and exclusion they encounter in daily life, and the wellspring of pride and defiant affirmation with which they commonly respond” (Flores, 1999, p.1). While Flores’s subjects are the Latino youth living in New York City, the notion of culture as a product of ones’ lived experiences is one that applies to the young people who are the subjects of this investigation. The young people discussed below define themselves, in part, in opposition to the wealthy, lighter skinned, power-weilding elite. For these young people, the “wellspring of pride and defiant affirmation” with which they respond to their oppression is their art.

Gilroy interprets culture not as a progression that ends in a finite or essential categorization, but rather “ in complex, dynamic patterns of syncretism in which new definitions of what it means to be black emerge from raw materials provided by the black populations elsewhere in the diaspora (Paul Gilroy, 1987, cited in Valentine, Skelton, 1998, p. 21). The raw materials that provide for the re-imagining of cultures in the black diaspora are similar to those used by immigrant youth in negotiating their identity.  These raw materials include the music, dance, fashion and attitudes drawn from popular and mainstream culture often transmitted through the media. The also include unique ideas about adolescence, gender, class, privilege and art, drawn form the individual and collective experience of the youth. Identity formation where several seemingly opposing narratives can be layered on top of the other and still coexist, is vital for these young people. 

Central to an understanding of young peoples’ creation of culture is the understanding of youth spaces. In studying second-generation youth in the United States, several theorists have investigated youths’ creation of their own space as a central feature of youth culture. In her text Desi’s in the House: Indian American youth culture in New York City, Sumaina Marr Maira highlights the meanings embedded in the space Indian American youth create on the dance floor. Maira defines this space as, “not a fixed location but an emerging set of disparate, sometimes contradictory, experiences and narratives of hybridity and nostalgia in the second generation.” (2002, p. 87) What she calls a ‘third space’, can exist as an ideological space, but as Maira points out, second generation youth also create these spaces physically, in music, and on the dance floor. In each of the three cases below, the locus of these exchanges is the artistic venue. While these sites vary: in South Africa youth met in the street, in the Dominican Republic they attended a dance program, the function of these sites is the same. The youth voluntarily immerse themselves in these situations in which the primary goal, spoken or not, is to use the artistic medium to express their experiences and develop ways of coping with them. 

Dominican Girls Creation of Dance and Self

San Felipe de Villa Mella is a large neighborhood north of the Dominican Republic’s capital city, Santo Domingo. Mata los Indios sits as a poor, semi-rural community with deep ties to the often suppressed African heritage of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is a nation of 8.9 million people that is 95% Roman Catholic with European, Afircan and Indigenous cultures all contributing to the ethnic makeup of its citizens (CIA Factbook). According to UNICEF, 3, 358,000 of its population are under 18 with a little over half of those youth, girls. Many Dominican youth, especially in poor areas such as Mata los Indios, have few opportunities when it comes to changing their own or their communities’ circumstances.

I met the young women of Mata los Indios through a former professor of mine who had offered me the opportunity to live for two months in the Dominican Republic and work with her international NGO, Fundación Melassa. Her work in Mata los Indios had focused on collaborating with the community on youth arts projects, and collaboratively working with the young women of the community to create a one hour documentary, “Congo Pa’Ti which gave “recognition to the resistance facing Afro-Dominican cultural expressions against a backdrop of poverty and denial, in particular, the role of the Black woman in these communities, and addresses racial issues in the Dominican Republic, perhaps the only country in the world in which the Black people do not want to be called "Black" (Melassa Website). The work being done in the talleres (workshops) run by the Melassa Foundation served as a place where the young women of the community could involve themselves in creating art and culture in a way that many other youth were unable to.

After initially meeting the group of girls, and fumbling through an introductory sentence in Spanish, I discovered that the easiest way to communicate would be through our connection to music and dance. Our classes started out with the young women teaching me Afro-Dominican dances such as Palos and Pri-Pri and then followed with my teaching of hip hop dances. What I discovered over the two months that we worked together, was that the young women had created not only a space in which they could listen to music and dance—but they had constructed a network within their larger community. Their community space allowed for a seamless switching between traditional understandings of the place of Dominican youth  (especially female youth) as receivers of traditional culture and their own understanding of themselves as creators of their own modern cultures. The space allowed for free and open discussion of culture, community change and self-empowerment. The young women were able to communicate with each other using both words and movements about all of these issues while the Congo drums and the boom box were blasting.

What emerged form both the Danza Fuzion talleres that I facilitated, as well as the documentary workshops run by Karin Weyland, director of Fundación Melassa, was a multitude of voices speaking about the power of art and exchange in understanding and laying stake in ones own culture. Some of the comments recorded in the Danza Fuzion evaluations were:

“I liked the workshops with Tené because we learned about empowerment, which is not a person who has power but a cultural exchange.” Rosemeilyn, 17

“I liked the dance workshops with Tené because we learned about her culture and she learned about our culture. I like my culture very much because I can’t deny it” Eugenia, 12

“I learned that it is important to value our Black race because it is who we are and we have to be proud of it.” Leonela, 16
                                (Fundación Melassa, para.  2)

They are proud of their culture, and are open to and embrace their blackness, creating a cultural norm among themselves that does not exist in the same way in the larger Dominican culture.

While my experience in the Dominican Republic left me wanting more opportunities to engage with youth in these sorts of cultural creations, I was able to be satisfied in the connection that we made through a similar process that I had gone through. In my experience as an immigrant girl in the US, understanding and feeling proud of my race and cultural background was often a struggle. Through strong connections and cultural exchanges with other young women, I was able to gain an understanding of myself I could not come to alone. The young women of Mata los Indios, while building connections with each other and their home through dance, forged a deeper connection to their heritage and their own youth culture.

Art and Survival for South African Street Children

Street children are among the most marginalized communities on the new post-apartheid South African landscape. According to Hickson and Gaydon (1989), "What is unique about South African street children is the role that apartheid ideology has played in their lives.... For this reason [they] must be located within a political context" (p. 85). Undoubtedly, apartheid has created many of the conditions that allow the growth of an estimated 250,000 population of street children in South Africa (2005, The New Internationalist). LeRoux (1996), in his survey of literature about South African street children finds that street children range in age from 7 to 18, and are 81.1% male and only 18.9% female, with the reason being that it is the girls' responsibility to stay home and look after smaller children. These statistics speak to the gender and age breakdown, but the culture of street children is also heavily influenced by the histories of these young people, 80% of whom have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused (Le Roux, 1996). LeRoux writes that,  “Although some children flee in search of excitement, adventure, personal freedom and self-fulfillment, a comfortable, independent, and financially secure life, and to become part of the "action" in society (personal factors), the majority leave as a result of socioeconomic and other factors within the family or immediate environment”(1996, p. 426). These are some of the push and pull factors that create the conditions for street children in South Africa along with a  “desire to take control of one's life and displace old values and conditions with new ones” (Hickson & Gaydon, 1989, p. 85). This desire to take control of ones own life, though not exclusive to street children, plays a large part in their development of their cultural codes.

I first became aware of the struggle of street children while working with the Thuthukani Centre in Durban, South Africa. The center was looking for a way in which to engage more of the homeless youth population in Durban in fun activities as well as the educational, medical and nutrition services offered by the center. As a volunteer I was required only to hang out with the youth during the activity times. A group of youth at the center had already organized activities around teaching each other dance steps, and passing music back and forth between each other on a walkman. I was naturally attracted to this group because I was a dancer, and had been looking forward to learning some South African dances during my stay. What slowly began as a daily session of listening to music and showing each other dance steps, after a few days, turned into a dance club with 15 youth participating in teaching each other and teaching me.

The response of the center was originally to formalize the dance club and ask me to give the group of students’ formal instruction in dance. This was not, however, why the young people in the club had joined in the first place. They enjoyed the club because they were at the center of creating the look and feel of the club, and deciding what dances they enjoyed and what music they wanted to listen to. After deliberation between the most outspoken dancers and the director of the center, it was decided that we would do a mix of dance instruction (which I was to lead) and free dance which would be led by a different dancer each week. What came out of our two months together was a dance that blended hip-hop and pantsula (popular Zulu dance) and was danced to a kwaito (South African popular music) song.

More than simply creating choreography and killing time, the dancers were beginning to see themselves through different lens. Many of them began coming to the center more regularly and taking advantage of the housing facilities and the other academic activities offered. One of the more consistent attendees, Sipho, once told me that his friends though that he was smart because he could teach an American something. What they taught me was more than the kwaito lyrics of the local songs or township dances—they were able to show me the power that youth can feel when taken seriously and listened. Beyond that it was clear to recognize the importance of providing support for even what could be considered a lost group of youth. Their youth culture was marked by resilience and a creativity borne out of the necessity to make something form what appeared to be nothing.

The wants and desires of many of these children speak to the basic needs of all human beings—care and community. In an interview with the BBC, former street child Skhumboso Dlamini describes:  “ After a couple of months here, I think I have settled down. I think the routine and discipline are good for me, and I want to learn…what I would like most of all would be to see my brother and sister. Like many of the boys here, I long to have a family of my own” (Dlamini, BBC Article). What Skhumboso is highlighting is that young street children, and to a certain extent, all young people are thirsty for a community and often struggle to define it on their own in the absence of one. Many street children in South Africa, without access to positive communities of other youth or adults, suffer from their marginalized positions in society. John Wilkensen, another former street child explained, “At 18, I was crippled in my hands and feet, due to sniffing glue. The vast majority of us did it. I went to yet another home, where they sent me for hospital treatment. Although they managed to straighten my fingers, I still struggle to lift my feet” (Dlamini and Wilkenson, BBC Interview). John’s story rings true for many street children in South Africa, living in a culture where their needs are often ignored by those in power. Having power over creating their own cultural codes and values, especially through the creation of their own art, can be a powerful and positive force in their lives.

Conclusion

The examples looked at in this chapter speak to the way that these youth have used artistic creation as way to form their identities, to be able to create something for themselves, on their own terms. In both the Dominican Republic and South Africa there is a sense that these youth are defining their culture from the ’ground up’ and that they trickle down theory of youth culture, whereby young people accept the widely distributed images of themselves, is false. Their cultures are created with in their individual and unique contexts, however the same tools of negotiation such as dance and art may be used.

The artistic creations produced by youth culture are an integral part of their identity formation. The dynamic nature of these artistic creations is two-fold: they are clues into young people process of negotiating identity while they are also the product of this process. Thus, researchers and educators must continue to study these youth and their art in order to gain a holistic understanding of the young
people in question. As an immigrant youth and now as an adult and educator, these processes are fascinating for both personal and professional reasons. As an educator, these models of organic youth culture are a model for positive channeling of youthful energy. And while the organic nature is intrinsic to these particular models, we as educators must find ways to establish formal structures that can support this type of activity.

Bibliography

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      Austin, J., Willard, M. (Eds.) New York: NYU Press

CIA- World Factbook (n.d.) Dominican Republic. Retrieved June 27, 2005 from The World Factbook website: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/dr.html

Dlamini, S. and Wilkenson, J. (2002). SA youths tell of street life. (Online) Retreived July 18, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1910693.stm

Fundación Melassa. (n.d.) Delegation Evaluation. (Online), Retrieved June 25, 2005. from http://www.melassa.org/evaluationdelegation.htm

Hine, T. (1999). The rise and fall of the American teenager. New York: Perennial.   

Hickson, J., & Gaydon, V. (1989). Counseling in South Africa. The challenge of Apartheid "Twight children": The street children of Johannesburg. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 17.  85-89

Ho, Christine. (2001) Globalization and Diaspora-ization of Caribbean People and
      Popular Culture. Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora. 4 (1).   
      Retreived: February 15, 2005, from www.inmotionaaame.com .

Le Roux, Johann. (1996). Street children in South Africa: Findings from interviews on the background of street children in Pretoria, South Africa. Adolescence,  31.  423 – 432

Lipstiz, George. (1994). Dangerous crossroads: Popular music, postmodernism and the poetics of place. London. Verso.

Maira, S.M. (2002). Desis in the house: Indian American youth culture in New York City.
      Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

The New Internationalist (2005, April) Street children: the facts. Retrieved June 27, 2005, from the New Internationalist website: http://www.newint.org/issue377/facts.htm

Tupuola, Dr. Anne Marie.(2000, April). To be ethnic is to be cool—the pasifika flavour in New Zealand: A cultural renaissance or passing trend?. Paper presented at Asians in  America 2000: FreeZone symposium, New York University.

UNICEF (n.d.) At a glance: Dominican Republic. Retrieved June 27, 2005, from the UNICEF website: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/domrepublic_statistics.html


Valentine, G, Skelton, T., Chambers, D. (1998). Cool Places: An Introduction to Youth
      and Youth cultures. In Valentine, G, Skelton, T., Chambers, D. (Eds.). Cool Places:  
      Geographies of Youth cultures. London: Routledge

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Statement of Proposed Study - Alisa Alston, 2006-2007 Applicant to United Kingdom (Economics/Social Policy)

Tourism in Sustainable Economic Development

Tourism is unquestionably one of today’s leading global industries, with the ability to significantly impact developing nations.  For the governments of many countries in the developing world, tourism is a very sought-after source of foreign investment.  However, their focus is primarily economic and often neglects the environmental and socio-cultural repercussions for the host population.  In my research, I propose to examine the comprehensive effects of using tourism as a primary means of sustainable development in developing countries against the backdrop of the countries’ socio-political environments and existing development policy frameworks.
Following the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, poverty reduction though tourism has become a primary focus of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) as a part of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.  The WTO has even launched a platform, ST-EP (Sustainable Tourism-Eliminating Poverty), to focus on encouraging sustainable tourism in order to bring development and job creation to citizens of the world’s poorest countries.  However, very few of the works of global organizations like this have focused on the concept of the comprehensive practical planning needed to make tourism an effective tool that promotes the overall development of a nation in the best interests of its general population. 
Economically, developing nations stand to benefit from foreign exchange earnings, contributions to government revenues, and generation of employment and business opportunities.  However, the potential downside to poorer nations is that they are often unable to fully realize these benefits due to the transfer of tourism revenues out of the host country and the exclusion of local businesses and products.  With respect to the environment, both natural and man-made, the development of tourism has the potential to benefit the environment by contributing to local environmental protection and conservation through increased awareness of environmental values and inflows of financial resources for environmental preservation and maintenance.  On the other hand, this inevitably leads to the physical development of the general infrastructure, which can gradually destroy these same environmental resources. 
A substantial part of my research will focus on the socio-cultural implications of tourism in developing countries.  They are the most difficult to identify and measure empirically, as they depend heavily on personal value judgments, and therefore are the most often discounted in policy decisions.  While the interactions between hosts and guests can foster a deeper sense of cross-cultural understanding, they can also cause changes in community structure and longstanding traditions for which the local population is often unprepared.  In addition, the existing social environment of the country influences to what extent the economic and environmental dimensions of tourism development impact certain groups of citizens, positively or negatively.  In many cases, in developing nations, the considerable disparity of economic resources between the social classes has demarcated an easily identifiable social identity that permeates all aspects of life in the country.  This cultural dynamic impedes upward mobility for the members of the poorer classes, regardless of the positive impacts of tourism.  It might be argued that this type of social stratification would generate the same result regardless of the industry, however, the very nature of tourism, as a means of economic development, requires that an area be marketable and appear attractive to foreigners from wealthier nations.  This further exacerbates the potential for social exclusion as great measures are taken to separate foreign tourists from the true reality of the majority of the population of these countries.
    The MSc in Social Policy and Planning in Developing Countries (MSc SPPDC) program within the Social Policy department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is an ideal academic environment for the realization of my research proposal.  LSE is considered to be one of the leading social science institutions in the world, and more specifically, the Department of Social Policy at LSE has consistently been recognized for the superior quality of its research, teaching staff, and engagement in global policy analysis and social planning.  Students of the department have the opportunity to study policy analysis and planning concepts with world-renowned experts who have research and advisory connections with key international development organizations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In addition to the academic resources provided by LSE, I believe that the culture of the United Kingdom, and London in particular, will enhance the quality of my project due to the value placed on the pursuit of international exposure and global understanding within the British culture.  In my opinion, this intangible quality attracts a tremendous international student population from all over the world and creates an environment that provides for and promotes an open exchange of ideas across very varied cultures and backgrounds. 
My interest in pursuing the MSc SPPDC is a result of wanting to study not only the theories and models of international economic development, but to also to learn how to incorporate social development concepts into practical and effective business models for the overall benefit of citizens in developing nations.  Upon my return to the United States, I expect to enter into an MBA program and subsequently return to a professional career in international economic development finance and investment.  Obtaining the two degrees will allow me to expand my existing analytical capabilities related to the primary principles of business and management, while supplementing these skills with a specialization in international economic development. 
The MSc SPPDC program is completed over a 12-month period, culminating in a 10,000-word dissertation on a selected topic of research.  As a taught masters program, the teaching in the MSc SPPDC program is done through a combination of lectures, student-led seminars, workshops and tutorials. The compulsory course of the program, “Social Policy, Planning, and Participation in Developing Countries,” is taught across the three terms of the academic year (Sept. – June).  The compulsory course will be supplemented by 2-4 elective courses that will serve to further my research and complement my specific area of interest.  In addition to the required readings of the courses at LSE, throughout the year, my specific focus on tourism will require independent readings, analysis of tourism statistics compared with relevant economic indicators, personal interviews with international development and tourism professionals, as well as personal interviews with individual citizens from developing nations whose lives have been affected by the presence or absence of tourism in their nation.  Following the end of formal classes in June, the remaining portion of the summer will be devoted solely to the completion of the final paper.  The dissertation will be completed on or before September 1, 2007.

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