CULTURE UNDER CONSTRUCTION - THE FUTURE OF NATIVE ARUBIAN IDENTITY

This article suggests an interpretive futures approach to the future o f culture and society from the interpretation of qualitative and cultu re-centric data. This approach is illustrated through the exploration of the formation, expression and possible future for native cultural i dentity on the small Caribbean island of Aruba. There ave several fact ors and actors that are likely to play a role in the continued shaping of native culture-different culturally influential ethnic island grou ps, an increasing global orientation of the economy, and a self-protec ting countertrend based on a reevaluation of the 'traditional' which i s attempting to define and build a distinct indigenous culture with it s own language and selectively defined cultural origins. Thus a common question today 'ken ta Arubiano'-or who is a real Arubian,(1) is like ly to be answered differently in the next millennium as outsider style s, values and behaviour ave rejected or absorbed into expressions of ' nativeness'.