Dr Gertrude Shotte Ph.D.
BIODATA
Dr. Gertrude Shotte has more than two decades experience in education, coupled with an insatiable desire to ‘educate’ which has sustained an enduring interest in the educational experiences of youths as well as adults of the post-1995 diaspora, particularly those in the UK. She contends that sustaining Montserratness within a wider cultural philosophy is key to personal, communal and national development on all levels.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the importance of Montserratness in the personal, communal and national development. It reflects on what constituted Montserratness in pre-volcano years and explains how in post-volcano times it is evolving as a recreated brand of ethics from among shifting principles and values at home, but more so abroad. It also explains how the post 1995 diaspora along with their post-war counterparts in the United Kingdom (UK) are battling to sustain Montserratness in a ‘foreign Motherland’.
The paper offers three frames within which the expression ‘foreign Motherland’ should be interpreted: (1) adapting to the ‘newness’ of an ultramodern metropolis; (2) exiles on the basis of prolonged separation from homeland; and (3) ‘outsiders’ despite a longstanding British connection. These three aspects work in conjunction with other cultural elements to produce identity clashes. Despite the ongoing psychological warfare that these contested identities wage on relocated migrants, a ‘sense of place’, which is an integral part of ethnic identity, remains pivotal to Montserratness.
Based on personal experience, formal and informal data, I assert that in spite of the setback brought about by forced relocation, Montserratness is still being celebrated, albeit as an emergent neo-cultural philosophy within a social milieu that embodies fundamental moral standards from various traditions. I contend that it is this said recognition of the need to celebrate and sustain Montserratness, which acts as the fuel to flame the desire to sustain personal, communal and ultimately national development.
© Gertrude Shotte, 2008. Page last revised November 3, 2008.
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