UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
Money Order Economy: Remittances in the
Island of Utila
A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
Anthropology
by
David George Lord
December, 1975
Dissertation Committee:
Professor Eugene N. Anderson, Jr., Chairman
Professor Alan R. Beals
Professor Michael Kearney
Copyright by
David George Lord
1975
The dissertation of David George Lord is approved:
Committee Chairman
University of California, Riverside
December, 1975
Acknowledgements
I first became acquainted with the BayIslands of Honduras while doing field research in a British Honduran fishing village in the summer of 1966. Sacasa Gough, a good friend and informant in Ambergris Caye, interested me in his home island of Roatan. Subsequently, I spent four months in 1972 surveying various sites throughout the BayIslands as future research areas. Utila seemed especially suited to investigating a number of economic phenomena, and research was conducted there during September and October, 1973; and January through May, 1974, while I was on academic leave of absence from CaliforniaStatePolytechnicUniversity.
Information employed in this study includes both quantitative and qualitative data obtained from a wide variety of sources through a variety of collection techniques. A major portion of the qualitative data were gathered via participant observation in the island where I lived first as a single male in a boarding house, and subsequently as a householder and family head in my own dwelling. I spent nearly five months of the research period as a secondary school teacher at the Methodist parochial "college," thus giving both my wife and myself a definite position within the community.
Data for Chapter II on historical background have been derived from literary sources and from many "old heads"--the elder generation of Utilians, aged 70 and up--who provided information on the island's past. Among those to whom I am indebted for their assistance in my study are Rev. F. Gideon Cooper, Mr. Edward Senhouse Rose, Mrs. Sarah Ann Bodden (all octogenarians), Mr. L. Dempsey Thompson, and approximately twenty other sometime informants who gave valuable information through life histories and open-ended interviews. In order to preserve their privacy, pseudonyms have been used except where such disguise would clearly be useless (e.g., Miss Hester, Chief of Police in Utila). To all of these people I tender a sincere thanks not only for the necessary temporal perspective of Chapter II, but also for the substance of Chapters IV, V, and VI.
Thanks are also extended to my colleagues Dr. Joan Greenway and Dr. Thomas Blackburn at CaliforniaStatePolytechnicUniversity for their encouragement and criticisms in bringing this study to completion. Dr. Robert Thorne of Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens, Claremont, gave the invaluable identification of plant materials referenced in Chapter III.
To the members of my committee I am deeply indebted for the guidance and nurturance they provided throughout the preparation of this study. I am especially grateful to Dr. Eugene Anderson, Jr., who was involved in every facet of the study and unselfishly gave an inordinate amount of time and energy to the project.
Finally, to my wife and helpmate Judith Bogdanoff-Lord, my daughter Christina, and to my parents, I gratefully acknowledge the tremendous support they have given me throughout the
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research and writing of this study. To them and to the people of Utila this is lovingly dedicated.
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
Money Order Economy: Remittances in the
Island of Utila
by
David George Lord
Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Anthropology
University of California, Riverside, December 1975
Professor Eugene N. Anderson, Jr., Chairman
Utila, one of the BayIslands off the north coast of Honduras, is representative of many societies throughout the world; it is an economically dependent society supported largely or entirely by remittance monies. Remittances, funds sent home by people who have emigrated or are sojourning out of country, have given rise to a sociocultural system resting heavily on traditional aspects of Utilian society and culture.
The contemporary interface between economy, society and polity shows that Utila was preadapted to requirements of a remittance style economy. Such things as the traditional importance of the nuclear family as the production and consumption unit, and a heritage of maritime activity in shipping and fishing are just two preadaptive features. Underlying these and other preadaptations were the extremely important orientations of individualism, commercialism, consumerism, and community atomism or non-cooperation.
Utila's remittance economy depends on males serving in United States or Scandinavian merchant marines, and therefore being absent for nine or ten months of every year. On the one
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hand, therefore, individualism fosters the independent action needed in shipping out and selling one's skills and labor. On the other hand, individualism allows continued nuclear family functioning even in the absence of males. Commercialism and community atomism have allowed loose social and political organization that easily accommodate male absenteeism. Finally, consumerism provides the impetus to continue in the remittance economy in order to acquire the various symbols of the good life such as land, a private dwelling, nice clothes and furniture, and so on.
Beyond consumerism men on leave are indulged in their heavy drinking and partying behavior; laws and social norms are not strictly enforced if they are breached by the men, and women generally tend to pamper male whims in order to make their stay at home enjoyable. This "rest and recreation" atmosphere in the island provides encouragement for men to participate in the remittance economy throughout their productive years (generally from age 18 to 55). Such an atmosphere serves as an intermediary reward for men until they can retire and reap the full benefits of the remittance system. Women and other stay-at-home islanders benefit from providing a relaxed environment through the continued flow of money into the island.
Social organization itself helps to perpetuate the remittance economy by providing motivation either to maintain the status quo by white Utilians, to try to move within the various social strata by "Spaniards," or to change social organization by Utila's colored population. In each case it is money, and what can be accomplished with money, that islanders believe would affect social organization; only through the remittance system could funds be obtained.
The underlying orientations noted above originally combined with an image of limited good (i.e., of diminishing opportunities for the good life) that arose during times of economic recession and depression. Assessing their social and economic condition from the resulting perspective, Utilians opted for a remittance economy when that opportunity arose at the start of the Second World War.
The option for a remittance economy was, and continues to be, the most logical and viable economic alternative open to islanders. Support for the remittance economy has subsequently derived both from the traditional society and culture, and from the new benefits accruing to those who participate in the overall remittance system. Ultimately, a system such as Utila's may prove to answer the needs of many underdeveloped countries throughout the world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgements...... iv
Abstract...... vi
I.INTRODUCTION...... 1
Economic Studies in the Caribbean...... 3
Remittances and Economic Studies in the Caribbean...... 5 Migration and Characteristics of a Remittance Economy 7
Specific Aims of the Study16
II.PREADAPTATIONS FOR A REMITTANCE ECONOMY: HISTORICAL FACTORS 19
Presettlement20
The Agricultural Phase28
The Remittance Phase36
Analysis39
III.PREADAPTATIONS FOR A REMITTANCE ECONOMY: THE
PHYSICAL SETTING AND ITS LIMITATIONS42
Department of the BayIslands42
Utila's Maritime Setting and Shoreline43
Geology47
Topography48
Hydrography49
Climate51
Flora and Fauna54
Conclusions57
IV.REMITTANCE SYSTEM INTERRELATIONSHIPS: ECONOMICS59
The Agricultural Phase: 1836-194161
Production and Consumption Bases61
Trade66
Land Ownership and Utilization69
The Distribution of Wealth74
Migration76
The Remittance Phase: 1941 to Date78
Production and Consumption Patterns78
Land Ownership and Utilization86
Page
Migration...... 92
Analysis...... 97
V.REMITTANCE SYSTEM INTERRELATIONSHIPS: SOCIAL
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ORGANIZATION...... 103
Stratification...... 105
Social Groupings...... 119
Religious Groups...... 120
Educational Groups...... 126
Economic Groups...... 129
Residential Groups131
Informal Groups139
Status and Role141
Analysis154
VI.REMITTANCE SYSTEM INTERRELATIONSHIPS: POLITICAL
ORGANIZATION159
Local Level Politics160
Utila's Larger Political Involvements169
Analysis177
VII.SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS180
Economic Studies in the Caribbean181
The Interface between Economy, Society, and Polity187
Contributions of the Study199
REFERENCES201
APPENDICES207
LIST OF TABLES
1. Chronology of Events Important in Utila s History21
2. Summary of Meteorological Data, The Bay Islands52
3. Utilian-Owned Ships During the Fruit Boom67
4. Per Capita Income Figures from Central America and the Caribbean83
5. Visas Issued by the United States Embassy, Tegucigalpa95
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In the following pages a remittance economy--that of Utila--will be described in detail and hypotheses will be developed concerning the remittance economy as a type. Hypotheses will also be developed concerning the impact of Utila's remittance economy on the nature and structure of the local community.
Unlike many remittance economies, Utila's does not arise primarily from islander emigration to another geographical area, whether elsewhere in Honduras or to a foreign country. I am not, therefore, as one example, concerned with problems of assimilation or acculturation as are other students of remittance systems. Utilian males, upon whom the greatest burden of the remittance system falls, emigrate only in the sense of going away from the island. As merchant mariners, they are not subjected to a foreign culture (as urban migrants could be) that lures them permanently from their home. Their absence could be characterized as migratory labor--in the strictest sense--and yet Utila is much more than just a home base from which workers operate. Utila represents, in fact, an accommodation to limited local opportunities, and the forging of a viable economy and lifestyle
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from the merchants marine and remittances.
A primary focus of my investigation is, of course, the remittance aspect of Utila's economy, but this is not just an economic study perse. Rather, it is a close examination of the interface between economy, society, and polity in order to see how Utila continues to persist with such apparent facility. Just as importantly, that interface should have both predictive and postdictive value showing where similar systems might appear in the future and why they were likely to have developed in the first place.
In addition to investigating the phenomenon of remittance economics, and all that it entails, this study is also offered as a work that contributes insights into small community structure and functioning, island dwellers with their maritime background, and English-speaking peoples in a part of the Caribbean culture area that is politically attached to Central America.
I will let descriptive material in the succeeding pages carry the weight of how this study sheds light on small, island communities of English-speaking peoples in the Caribbean. The relevance to economic studies in general, and to remittance systems specifically, merits particular attention.
In the overview of economic studies in the Caribbean, immediately following, several general areas of investigation are enumerated which relate directly to findings in Utila but do not adequately explain systems such as Utila's. In the generalizations no reference is made to the actual mechanisms used by people like the Utilians to either develop or cope with their dependent economic status. The general areas are therefore refined in this study by emphasizing the importance of remittances and migration--dual aspects of a single phenomenon--to a dependent condition wherever it appears. Subsequently, the remittance economy is shown to be a strong, positive factor in the continuance not only of Utilian society but of other sociocultural systems in Asia, Africa, Europe and throughout the world.
Economic Studies in the Caribbean
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Adlith Brown and Havelock Brewster have recently surveyed the study of economics in the English-speaking Caribbean (1974). The result of their investigation is the observation that economic discussion has generally revolved around considerations of size and dependency, with the result that a number of hypotheses deriving from these two factors--hypotheses remaining largely untested--stand out in economic investigations. According to them (1974:52-53), the hypotheses deriving from various studies are:
First, that the level of economic activity is externally determined, and is outside the control of national decision-centres, public or private. Production, consumption and investment depend directly or indirectly on exogenous factors.
They then go on to say in the article
that consumption patterns, diverging widely and increasingly from production patterns as they do, provide the basis for continuing technological, and therefore economic dependency. Fifth, that the level of domestic saving is determined more by institutional characteristics, such as the value system, the distribution of income and the ownership pattern of the surplus than by the average size of disposable incomes.
In concluding their survey and inventory of the hypotheses coming from economic studies in the Caribbean, Brown and Brewster also observe (1974:53) that
the domestic price-level is determined from outside the system, principally by import prices and the effect of export propelled income generation on domestic supply. Eighth, that wage rates are, in effect, fixed throughout the economy above their equilibrium level by the export sector and as a result the path to full employment is obstructed. Ninth, that since industrial cohesiveness can be developed only to a limited extent on a national basis, the prospects for the creation of an internal economic and technological dynamic hinge on regional integration.
The analysis of Utila's economy is clearly relevant to the discussion of several of the preceding points (particularly the first, fourth, fifth, and seventh) and thus in some measure helps to test these hypotheses. For example, information in Chapter IV indicates that Utila's contemporary economy functions, or does not function, as the result of external demand for its single marketable commodity: the labor power of trained merchant mariners who work world-wide shipping lines. Should this demand diminish or disappear, Utila's economy would be sorely affected. Consumption patterns in Utila, established with the first settlers of the island, have enmeshed the local economy in consumerism--i.e., the tendency to spend or invest income in non-capital goods so that wealth does not in turn produce more income.
Subsequently, consumerism has irrevocably bound islanders to a life style that undermines any local self-sufficiency. By the same token, saving of income has held a low priority in Utila due to the well-ingrained pattern of consumerism, a seeming unconcern for the future, and--at the same time--an assurance that there will always be income available to meet future needs. Finally, because it depends totally on outside sources for cash income as well as goods and many important services, Utila's domestic price-levels are determined from outside the system.
At first glance the data from Utila might seem limited in the degree to which they could test the foregoing hypotheses; Utila is, after all, merely one island in a small department (state) that constitutes a minute fraction of a national polity and economy. The smallness in size and the economic dependency, however, are the very things that create linkages to the larger economy of the United States and through these linkages confirm the applicability of these hypotheses to Utila. The specific factors--or factor--that might be involved in establishing dependency relationships are not, of course, dealt with by Brown and Brewster since these could, hypothetically, differ from one situation to another. In an earlier article, however, Robert Manners (1965) stresses the importance of the precise mechanism whereby Utila and many other Caribbean islands have developed dependent economic relationships; this mechanism is the remittance.
Remittances and Economic Studies in the Caribbean
Anticipating the total lack of reference to remittances in the Brown and Brewster survey, Manners says (1965:185) that
while several Caribbean researchers have remarked on the importance of remittances to some of the islands (e.g., Steward et al. 1956; Manners 1957; O'Laughlin 1959; Lowenthal and Comitas 1962; Frucht 1963) and have even suggested that conditions might be gravely altered by the cutting off of this source of cash, a great many more have failed even to mention this interdependency feature in their treatment of small group structure and function. Yet without the inflow of cash represented by remittances, the present condition of many families, and most of the islands in the Caribbean would be seriously altered. Some would move from a position of relative adequacy to marginality; others would plunge from marginality to inadequacy, extreme poverty and crisis [emphasis added].
The quotation was written almost ten years earlier than the survey; yet as of 1974, consideration of remittances had not obviously increased. A review of literature on Caribbean islands would--as just noted above--demonstrate the fact that it is money sent home by absentee personnel that keeps many a local system from total collapse, but at the same time ties those local systems ever closer to places like Great Britain and the United States.
The remittance is one of the prime factors, then, that creates and maintains a dependent relationship between Caribbean islands and more developed socioeconomic systems.
Two fundamental problems, however, attend any study of remittance economies, the first of which is the simple lack of a common definition for the term. Are funds sent home by absentee migratory workers "remittances," or does the term apply only to monies sent back to their natal home by people who have permanently emigrated? Or further, does "remittance" refer to money supplied by stay-at-home family members to support an overseas member? In fact, the term remittance has been applied to money allotments in all three--as well as other--examples. Lowenthal and Comitas (1962:200) use remittance to apply to all of the foregoing situations, while Manners (1965:185) considers the return flow of money from "migrants" to be remittances (which is the same usage as Philpott's [1973:140 etpassim]); Watson (1974:217-218) talks about any money sent home by overseas community members (in this case from Hong Kong) as remittances. Before resolving this issue, however, I must bring in the second problem area referred to above, the inevitable concomitant of a remittance system: migration. "Migration" subsumes not just the fact of absenteeism for varying amounts of time, but also the adjustments made by those who migrate and those who send migrants, the results of remitting, and the like. Here it is useful to examine material that bears specifically on migration to the end that not only the term remittance may be defined, but also some of the characteristics of a remittance system may be isolated.