AbstractsSociology

Located in South America, and being a post-colonial Dutch colony, Suriname has an ethnically diverse population of transplants. After its independence in 1975, Suriname underwent gruesome civil unrest while ruled by a Militia coup that killed specific ethnic groups for claiming their own identities, juxtaposed to its acceptance of ethnic diversity. The film, Suriname’s Identity Construction and Negotiation by Danielle Celeste Castillo, follows a select group of people who claim to be Surinamese and something else, as they reject or claim prescribed forms of identities further negating ethnicity and nationality’s relationship with a person’s internal and external selves. This project shows identity is fluid and also fixed depending on the context while also expanding anthropological, psychological and sociological works on ethnic and national identities.