"To be alike is to think alike" : locating differences in narratives of racial/ethnic, class and moral boundaries in St.Thomas, U.S.Virgin Island

St. Thomas is one of the three main islands in the West Indies that constitute the United States Virgin Islands. This tiny island was part of the Danish West Indies and was under Danish colonial rule for 245 years rule before the United States purchased them in 1917. The U.S. Virgin Islands are now an unincorporated territory of the U.S. At present, the population of St. Thomas comprises a diverse group of people, including descendants of African slaves and of European settlers, as well as immigrants from the Anglo, French and Spanish West Indies, East Indians, Arabs and Continentals from the U.S. mainland. This thesis is concerned with delineating definitions of cultural membership and mapping diverging cognitive constructs expressed by West Indians and Continentals in general, and salesclerks and managers (working on Main Street, the capital's thoroughfare) in particular, through the ways in which they construct and maintain boundaries. Following the main analytical framework of Michèle Lamont (1992) I investigate the salience of racial, class and moral boundaries drawn by West Indians and Continentals articulated through first-hand narratives, how they are interrelated and under what circumstances they are variously drawn. In the process, I attempt to identify the differences that are at the centre of individual cognitive maps as well as the differences in the way people discuss identity, status, and equality by pin-pointing the categories through which members view one another as significant others who share fundamental moral worldviews and/or cultural traits. The theoretical framework has been designed to disclose relevant problems related to the encounter: the meanings of alternate styles of communication and relations of power between the differing ethnic/racial groups on the island. Further, by looking at how the different groups link identity and belonging with place, in other words their attachment to place, I aim to illustrate boundaries which are tied to territories and notions of 'home' in order to sketch alternative cognitive maps among the groups. The study shows that racial/ethnic, class and moral distinctions are articulated differently across contexts and that the various groups attach different meanings to the various attributes they use to define their own positioning and that of others in a hierarchy. Continentals and West Indians alike used cultural and moral arguments closely tied to concepts of race, ethnicity, class and morality to discern differences and similarities in defining collective identities, but differed regarding the pattern in which these cultural and moral arguments took shape