Multiple traditions and the question of cultural integration*

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Abstract
Several current problems in social anthropology are confronted in this essay. The main theoretical and epistemological issue raised is the relationship between agency and structure, or between holist and individualist orientations in social analysis. The main empirical and methodological problem is the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to conceptualise society and culture as units of study when we study systems which are in important senses unbounded. The empirical material is mainly drawn from the population of Indian origin in Trinidad, and it is shown in which ways systemic levels as well as agency and structure interact in the creation of Indo‐Trinidadian identity, which, it is argued, is to a great extent created through abstract mediating structures and not exclusively through face‐to‐face contact.

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