Miskitu Or Creole? Ethnic Identity And The Moral Economy In A Nicaraguan Miskitu Village[Note . This article is based mainly on materials collected ...]

This article examines dual ‘ethnic identity’ in a bilingual and ‘mixed’ Miskitu and Creole village in eastern Nicaragua. Following Kindblad's (2001) discussion of the existence of Parry and Bloch's (1989) ‘short‐term’ and ‘long‐term cycles of exchange’, concerned respectively with individual appropriation and the reproduction of ‘the social and cosmic order’, among the Miskitu of neighbouring Tasbapauni, it concludes that the terms of ‘ethnic identity’, Miskitu and Creole, are used in neighbouring Kakabila to situate actions within competing moral orders. It also shows that from any given vantage‐point a particular transaction may be thought of as being socially reproductive and therefore ‘Miskitu’, while from another it may be deemed to be motivated by individualistic concerns and therefore ‘Creole’. The distinction between ‘long‐term’ and ‘short‐term’ is thus shown, like that between Miskitu and Creole in Kakabila, to be relative rather than absolute.