The Belizean Garifuna identity : migratory and transnational space and its effects on the home community

Abstract

In this Thesis, I endeavor to trace the migratory paths of the forebears of the Garífunas; explore their self-identification as Afro-Indigenous; study their culture of where “home” is at any given time; investigate their commonalities and fierce sense of nationhood even though their dwelling crosses four borders; and I examine their religious rites and rituals which connect them to the past and bind them together as a unified and stable people: the worship of the Gubidas through the call of the ancestors to the family Dügü.