- Institute for Gender and Development Studies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies
- 1-868-662-2002 Ext 83573 / 83577
- Gender and Development Studies, Trinidad and Tobago, The Caribbean, Caribbean Studies, Gender, Caribbean, and 21 moreSexuality, Neocolonialism, Masculinity, Gender And Violence, Sex and Gender, Hegemonic Masculinity, Gender Studies, Feminist Geography, Gender and Development, Violence, Masculinities, Caribbean Literature, Caribbean masculinities, Transnational Feminism, Homosexuality, Liberation movements, Feminist Theory, Migration Studies, Feminist activism, Feminism, and Jamaicaedit
- The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies stimulates cross-cultural exchanges among Caribbean peoples within the region,... moreThe Caribbean Review of Gender Studies stimulates cross-cultural exchanges among Caribbean peoples within the region, those in the Caribbean Diaspora, as well as those who bring a comparative perspective to bear on Caribbean gender and feminist concerns. The journal is established around an identity and voice emanating from Caribbean realities of power in gender, ethnicity and class relations, and their effects. The journal welcomes critical disciplinary or multi-disciplinary scholarly articles and creative contributions that broaden networks and enhance the global understanding and reach of Caribbean feminist theory and praxis.edit
Teaching should be a liberatory act says noted Black feminist intellectual and feminist pedagogue bell hooks in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Over the last few decades, feminist theorizing has been a... more
Teaching should be a liberatory act says noted Black feminist intellectual and feminist pedagogue bell hooks in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Over the last few decades, feminist theorizing has been a framework for advancing the women’s liberation movement across the globe. Critical pedagogues who see education and social change as inextricable, have long since lauded feminism’s intersectional potentiality for liberating enchained humanity (Freire, 1970; Giroux and McLaren, 1994; hooks, 1994; Hill Collins, 2000). Neo-liberal educational reforms have however ruptured ideas of teaching and learning as necessarily emancipatory. We are now living in a climate where education is largely a profit-driven endeavour, where primacy is given to skill development at the expense of critical thinking, and where independent ideas that challenge the status quo are seen as inimical to the profit economy. Under the neo-liberal order, pedagogy and teaching practice are primarily about meeting market demands, and less about emboldening learners to transform inequitable power relations that pervade society. At the same time, we have seen a resurgence in discussions about the meanings, significance and usefulness of politicized pedagogies to learners and to our social world today (Crawford & Best, 2017; Hosein 2011; Patai and Koertge, 2003).
Read more by downloading the PDF.
Read more by downloading the PDF.
Research Interests:
The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (CRGS) is inviting proposals for Guest Editorship for upcoming Special Issues. Selected Guest Editors will direct the entire Special Issue process, including preparing and publicising the Call for... more
The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (CRGS) is inviting proposals for Guest Editorship for upcoming Special Issues.
Selected Guest Editors will direct the entire Special Issue process, including preparing and publicising the Call for Papers, managing the peer review process and curating submissions such as interviews and personal testimonies, as well as poetry, art and photo and video essays for the Gender Dialogues section.
You will work along with the journal’s editorial assistant who will provide administrative support towards publication. We invite you to submit proposals that contribute to feminist scholarship and theorising of gender relations in the Caribbean. We suggest but do not limit Guest Editors to the
following themes:
Gender and Covid-19
Gender and Climate Change
Caribbean Feminisms
Gender and Migration
Gender Mainstreaming, CEDAW and the SDGs
Future of Feminisms - Beijing +25 and beyond
Reproductive Justice
Geographies of Violence
Teaching Feminisms
Gender and Science
Submit: June through to December 2021
Email: igds.crgs@sta.uwi.edu
Selected Guest Editors will direct the entire Special Issue process, including preparing and publicising the Call for Papers, managing the peer review process and curating submissions such as interviews and personal testimonies, as well as poetry, art and photo and video essays for the Gender Dialogues section.
You will work along with the journal’s editorial assistant who will provide administrative support towards publication. We invite you to submit proposals that contribute to feminist scholarship and theorising of gender relations in the Caribbean. We suggest but do not limit Guest Editors to the
following themes:
Gender and Covid-19
Gender and Climate Change
Caribbean Feminisms
Gender and Migration
Gender Mainstreaming, CEDAW and the SDGs
Future of Feminisms - Beijing +25 and beyond
Reproductive Justice
Geographies of Violence
Teaching Feminisms
Gender and Science
Submit: June through to December 2021
Email: igds.crgs@sta.uwi.edu
CALL FOR GUEST EDITORS The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (CRGS) is inviting proposals for Guest Editorship for upcoming Special Issues. Selected Guest Editors will direct the entire Special Issue process, including preparing and... more
CALL FOR GUEST EDITORS
The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (CRGS) is inviting proposals for Guest Editorship for upcoming Special Issues. Selected Guest Editors will direct the entire Special Issue process, including preparing and publicising the Call for Papers, managing the peer review process and curating submissions such as interviews and personal testimonies, as well as poetry, art and photo and video essays for the Gender Dialogues section. You will work along with the journal’s editorial assistant who will provide administrative support towards publication. We invite you to submit proposals that contribute to feminist scholarship and theorising of gender relations in the Caribbean. We suggest but do not limit Guest Editors to the following themes:
Gender and Climate Change
Caribbean Feminisms
Gender and Migration
Gender Mainstreaming, CEDAW and the SDGs
Future of Feminisms - Beijing +25 and beyond
Reproductive Justice
Geographies of Violence
Teaching Feminisms
Gender and Science
The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (CRGS) is inviting proposals for Guest Editorship for upcoming Special Issues. Selected Guest Editors will direct the entire Special Issue process, including preparing and publicising the Call for Papers, managing the peer review process and curating submissions such as interviews and personal testimonies, as well as poetry, art and photo and video essays for the Gender Dialogues section. You will work along with the journal’s editorial assistant who will provide administrative support towards publication. We invite you to submit proposals that contribute to feminist scholarship and theorising of gender relations in the Caribbean. We suggest but do not limit Guest Editors to the following themes:
Gender and Climate Change
Caribbean Feminisms
Gender and Migration
Gender Mainstreaming, CEDAW and the SDGs
Future of Feminisms - Beijing +25 and beyond
Reproductive Justice
Geographies of Violence
Teaching Feminisms
Gender and Science
Media narrates life, framing significance, memory and social character. Media technologies, as they continue to evolve, enhance and nuance our experience of identity, relationships, culture and representations. In the contemporary moment,... more
Media narrates life, framing significance, memory and social character. Media technologies, as they continue to evolve, enhance and nuance our experience of identity, relationships, culture and representations. In the contemporary moment, our connectivity can be immediate, precise, quick and low cost. The effects of these dynamic characteristics of media, both traditional communication and digital technologies (especially social media), preoccupy our attention in this issue of the CRGS. We are interested in how technological developments and the changes in accessibility have impacted gendered social relations and perspectives on intersecting social identities such as gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, ability, nationality, etc. We are also interested in how digital media technologies are used to create change by feminist and other social activists.
Therefore, we ask for engagements in the Caribbean context with the following questions: What are the new and continuing conversations about gender and sexual justice and feminist activisms taking place through digital media? How have these conversations been transformed or are being transformed through these technologies? What is particular and unique within Caribbean media in terms of how we read, write, and see gender and/or sexual identities? How have new forms of media been used by community organisers and activists around issues related to gender and sexuality?
Overall, we seek to understand how gender and sexuality are read, written and seen in contemporary Caribbean societies, especially through digital media technologies.
Therefore, we invite you to submit critical essays (no more than 6,000 words), which explore any of the following themes:
Caribbean digital media and intersecting social identities
Caribbean Cyberfeminism and social justice activism
Performances of gender and sexuality in Caribbean digital media
Building movements for gender and sexual justice through Caribbean digital media
Community building, safer spaces, and digital media in the Caribbean
Gender, Sexuality and Race on social media in the Caribbean
Therefore, we ask for engagements in the Caribbean context with the following questions: What are the new and continuing conversations about gender and sexual justice and feminist activisms taking place through digital media? How have these conversations been transformed or are being transformed through these technologies? What is particular and unique within Caribbean media in terms of how we read, write, and see gender and/or sexual identities? How have new forms of media been used by community organisers and activists around issues related to gender and sexuality?
Overall, we seek to understand how gender and sexuality are read, written and seen in contemporary Caribbean societies, especially through digital media technologies.
Therefore, we invite you to submit critical essays (no more than 6,000 words), which explore any of the following themes:
Caribbean digital media and intersecting social identities
Caribbean Cyberfeminism and social justice activism
Performances of gender and sexuality in Caribbean digital media
Building movements for gender and sexual justice through Caribbean digital media
Community building, safer spaces, and digital media in the Caribbean
Gender, Sexuality and Race on social media in the Caribbean
Research Interests:
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES
INSTITUTE FOR GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES (IGDS)
JOB VACANCY
APPLICATIONS ARE INVITED FOR THE POST OF
UNIVERSITY DIRECTOR IGDS
Based at the Regional Headquarters, Kingston, Jamaica
INSTITUTE FOR GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES (IGDS)
JOB VACANCY
APPLICATIONS ARE INVITED FOR THE POST OF
UNIVERSITY DIRECTOR IGDS
Based at the Regional Headquarters, Kingston, Jamaica
The CRGS is currently seeking experienced Copy Editors.
The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies is a journal of Caribbean perspectives on gender and feminism. It stimulates cross-cultural exchanges among Caribbean peoples within the... more
The CRGS is currently seeking experienced Copy Editors.
The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies is a journal of Caribbean perspectives on gender and feminism. It stimulates cross-cultural exchanges among Caribbean peoples within the region, those in the Caribbean Diaspora, as well as those who bring a comparative perspective to bear on Caribbean gender and feminist concerns.
First published in 2007, this Open Access Online Journal is intended to offer a forum both to persons already recognized in the field, as well as to new scholars, to present work which is easily accessible and available to our students and to readers as far and as wide as the web can take it. Issues are published annually with the twelfth issue coming out in 2018.
The journal is seeking copy editors to review and correct written material to improve accuracy, readability, and fitness for its purpose, and to ensure that it is free of error, omission, inconsistency, and repetition for the journals relevant, forward thinking and sometimes controversial submissions. Copy editors must also ensure that each submission follows the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition reference style, inclusive of checking for correct use of the author-date format and references.
Please send your CV, along with 2 references to igds@sta.uwi.edu copy crgs.igds@sta.uwi.edu by December 14th, 2017.
The journal is seeking copy editors to review and correct written material to improve accuracy, readability, and fitness for its purpose, and to ensure that it is free of error, omission, inconsistency, and repetition for the journals relevant, forward thinking and sometimes controversial submissions. Copy editors must also ensure that each submission follows the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition reference style, inclusive of checking for correct use of the author-date format and references.
Please send your CV, along with 2 references to igds@sta.uwi.edu copy crgs.igds@sta.uwi.edu by December 14th, 2017.
Research Interests:
READING, WRITING, SEEING GENDER: CARIBBEAN VOICES, IDENTITIES, AND POLITICS IN MEDIA Media Technologies have evolved, moving from mass information transmitters with incomplete feedback to computer mediated technologies and social media... more
READING, WRITING, SEEING GENDER: CARIBBEAN VOICES, IDENTITIES, AND POLITICS IN MEDIA
Media Technologies have evolved, moving from mass information transmitters with incomplete feedback to computer mediated technologies and social media offering real time, frequently instantaneous connections. Online technologies in particular have created more spaces for people to produce and transform media. In the Caribbean, this has facilitated multiple and varied voices and representations across the region. We are interested in the gendered implications of these changes in terms of media representation and production. Further, we are concerned with how the media is used to produce or produces gendered voices, identities and politics. We ask what kinds of evolving gender and feminist conversations emerge in this moment of media transformations and Caribbean productions of media. What is particular and unique within Caribbean media in terms of how we read, write, and see gender, notions of masculinity and femininity, and/or sexual identities? What is the role of feminist politics in Caribbean media? How do feminist politics get represented in new forms of cyberactivism and social media advocating for gender and sexual justice? How have new forms of media been used by community organisers and activists around issues related to gender and sexuality?
We seek to understand how gender and sexuality are read, written and seen in contemporary Caribbean societies, especially from the point of view of persons now using available technologies to assert their perspectives, identities, and politics.
Therefore, we invite you to submit critical essays, creative work, interviews, reviews, and/or multimedia pieces, which may fall under any of the following themes:
– Feminist activism in media
– Gender and sexual minority activism in media
– Cyber activism, social networking and Caribbean feminist politics
– Performances of gender and sexuality in Caribbean media
– Producing gender and/or sexual identity – changing forms of masculinity and femininity
– Connecting, surveillance, co-veillance – social media in the Caribbean
– Media as cultural industry – gendered norms, values, attitudes
Sexuality in Caribbean media – reading, writing and seeing the sexual subject
– Gender, labour and class – reading, writing and seeing the worker
– Representations of self and subjectivity
– Representing movements for gender and sexual justice
– Online campaigns and Caribbean feminist politics
– Caribbean feminist blogs and social networking
– Global curcuits, representations, and language of gender in media
– Changing media technologies in the Caribbean
– Gender and sexual politics in media
Media Technologies have evolved, moving from mass information transmitters with incomplete feedback to computer mediated technologies and social media offering real time, frequently instantaneous connections. Online technologies in particular have created more spaces for people to produce and transform media. In the Caribbean, this has facilitated multiple and varied voices and representations across the region. We are interested in the gendered implications of these changes in terms of media representation and production. Further, we are concerned with how the media is used to produce or produces gendered voices, identities and politics. We ask what kinds of evolving gender and feminist conversations emerge in this moment of media transformations and Caribbean productions of media. What is particular and unique within Caribbean media in terms of how we read, write, and see gender, notions of masculinity and femininity, and/or sexual identities? What is the role of feminist politics in Caribbean media? How do feminist politics get represented in new forms of cyberactivism and social media advocating for gender and sexual justice? How have new forms of media been used by community organisers and activists around issues related to gender and sexuality?
We seek to understand how gender and sexuality are read, written and seen in contemporary Caribbean societies, especially from the point of view of persons now using available technologies to assert their perspectives, identities, and politics.
Therefore, we invite you to submit critical essays, creative work, interviews, reviews, and/or multimedia pieces, which may fall under any of the following themes:
– Feminist activism in media
– Gender and sexual minority activism in media
– Cyber activism, social networking and Caribbean feminist politics
– Performances of gender and sexuality in Caribbean media
– Producing gender and/or sexual identity – changing forms of masculinity and femininity
– Connecting, surveillance, co-veillance – social media in the Caribbean
– Media as cultural industry – gendered norms, values, attitudes
Sexuality in Caribbean media – reading, writing and seeing the sexual subject
– Gender, labour and class – reading, writing and seeing the worker
– Representations of self and subjectivity
– Representing movements for gender and sexual justice
– Online campaigns and Caribbean feminist politics
– Caribbean feminist blogs and social networking
– Global curcuits, representations, and language of gender in media
– Changing media technologies in the Caribbean
– Gender and sexual politics in media
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Media Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Gender Equality, Caribbean Studies, and 10 moreGender and Work, Gender Discourse, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Gender and Development, Gender and religion (Women s Studies), Women and Gender Studies, Globalization and Gender, Labor market regulation and workers’ rights, Empowerment and inequality, Social and welfare policy, Caribbean literature, gender politics, Dominican Republic, Caribbean Feminisms, Sexualities, Politics and Indo-Caribbean identities, and Caribbean Gender Studies
In the preamble of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), it is recognized that “disability” is a temporally and spatially evolving concept. Disability, under the UN Convention, is a consequence of “the... more
In the preamble of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), it is recognized that “disability” is a temporally and spatially evolving concept. Disability, under the UN Convention, is a consequence of “the interaction between persons with impairments (physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” This social model of understanding disability emphasizes that social barriers are disabling, not the impairment itself. Mental health, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), is “a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.” These definitions offer points of departure that can allow us to discuss and develop deeper understandings of how conceptions of disability, mental health, mental illness, and madness affects us all – albeit in differing ways – and the ways in which they are also integrally linked to our identities, broader communities, social environments, social determinants, and bodily factors. Caribbean women, like Tifa, provide narratives that call us to examine these multifaceted entanglements, with particular emphasis on gender, sex, and sexuality in the region.
Feminist, post-colonial, and transnational scholarship and research on disability and mental health have been successful in expanding our understandings and theorizations through and beyond the social model lens (Erevelles, 2011; Gorman, 2010; Parekh, 2007; Soldatic and Grech, 2014; Edge, 2008; Rowley, 2003, hooks, 1994; Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). In Caribbean Diasporic spaces, Black Feminist Theory has been used to illuminate the voices and knowledge of Caribbean women to explore their experiences of depression, techniques for mental health management, and coping strategies (Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). Research of this kind facilitates an analysis of how women conceptualize and negotiate their intersectional identities and mental health and disability within oppressive environments. Caribbean feminisms, as a project and conceptual paradigm, pushes to include diverse dimensions of identity; however, discussions of disability, mental health, and disablement are conspicuously absent. This leads to a silencing of critical interventions, which further normalizes ideals about gender, sex, and sexuality in the Caribbean and its Diasporas. When embodied experiences of gender, sex, and sexuality are rendered outside of Caribbean notions of “normal” and normalcy, the consequences of this apathy and disengagement are felt in spaces of disablement where “inequality begets inequality, spawning gradual and perpetual debilitating outcomes that influence the social, political, and economic wellbeing of people” (Persaud, 2014).
Feminist, post-colonial, and transnational scholarship and research on disability and mental health have been successful in expanding our understandings and theorizations through and beyond the social model lens (Erevelles, 2011; Gorman, 2010; Parekh, 2007; Soldatic and Grech, 2014; Edge, 2008; Rowley, 2003, hooks, 1994; Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). In Caribbean Diasporic spaces, Black Feminist Theory has been used to illuminate the voices and knowledge of Caribbean women to explore their experiences of depression, techniques for mental health management, and coping strategies (Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). Research of this kind facilitates an analysis of how women conceptualize and negotiate their intersectional identities and mental health and disability within oppressive environments. Caribbean feminisms, as a project and conceptual paradigm, pushes to include diverse dimensions of identity; however, discussions of disability, mental health, and disablement are conspicuously absent. This leads to a silencing of critical interventions, which further normalizes ideals about gender, sex, and sexuality in the Caribbean and its Diasporas. When embodied experiences of gender, sex, and sexuality are rendered outside of Caribbean notions of “normal” and normalcy, the consequences of this apathy and disengagement are felt in spaces of disablement where “inequality begets inequality, spawning gradual and perpetual debilitating outcomes that influence the social, political, and economic wellbeing of people” (Persaud, 2014).
Research Interests:
DEADLINES EXTENDED
Abstracts – July 31, 2016
Manuscripts – September 30, 2016
Abstracts – July 31, 2016
Manuscripts – September 30, 2016
Research Interests:
OVERVIEW The decades between the First and Second World Wars witnessed intensified challenges to both European and US imperialism in the Caribbean. Issuing demands for self-determination and full citizenship rights, activists utilized... more
OVERVIEW
The decades between the First and Second World Wars witnessed intensified challenges to both European and US imperialism in the Caribbean. Issuing demands for self-determination and full citizenship rights, activists utilized new mass organizations—such as trade unions, political parties, and nationalist associations—as well as older collectives such as mutual aid societies, religious groups, and cultural clubs to contest the legitimacy of foreign rule. The duration, scale, and militancy of anti-colonial mobilizations varied widely across the region, as activists employed tactics ranging from formal negotiation with the state to armed guerrilla warfare. Yet, as an interdisciplinary literature has demonstrated, the surge in grassroots protest during the interwar years occurred throughout the colonial Caribbean as well as in the formally independent nation-states of Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Thus, the political ferment of the interwar era not only laid the groundwork for post-World War II independence movements, but also created an opening to contest hegemonic constructions of race, gender, and nation.
This special issue will examine how gender shaped anti-colonial thought and praxis in the interwar Caribbean (1919-39). Studying the global origins of anticolonialism, feminist scholars have deconstructed the “citizen/subject” binary, highlighting the relationship among political exclusion, racial hierarchies, and gender inequality. They have also illuminated how oppositional movements throughout the colonized world reconfigured and reproduced ideas about sexual difference, articulating citizenship claims through gendered ideologies that often affirmed—rather than dislodged—patriarchy.
Intervening in this burgeoning literature, Caribbeanist scholars have investigated how local understandings of “womanhood” and “manhood” shaped resistance to colonialism in the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. In addition, they have documented women’s myriad roles in struggles against colonial rule, excavating the forgotten connections between anti-colonial and feminist movements. Disrupting the longstanding focus on the “fathers” of Caribbean nationalism, groundbreaking biographical accounts of female activists have revealed women’s crucial contributions as intellectuals, organizers, and foot soldiers during the interwar years. Building on these foundational works, an important body of scholarship has also begun to interrogate “the sexual inheritances of nationalism” and the “heterosexual imperative of citizenship” in the postcolonial era (Alexander 1994: 11, 6).
For this special issue, we invite submissions that deepen the literature on gender and anticolonialism in the interwar Caribbean (including the global Caribbean diaspora). We hope to include essays based on specific case studies as well as theoretical works that grapple with the gendered implications of anticolonialism in a region forged through centuries of colonial incursions. Possible topics for exploration include (but are not limited to):
— Constructions of masculinity and femininity in interwar anti-colonial movements
Organized labor in the Caribbean and the fight against colonialism
— Caribbean feminist thought in the interwar era
— Nationalism, gender, and the circum-Caribbean press
— The campaign against the U.S. occupation of Haiti and the Dominican Republic
— Challenges to Canadian annexation campaigns in the British Caribbean
— Anti-colonial currents in literary and cultural movements (e.g. Négritude, surrealism, indigenism, and Afrocubanismo)
— The ideology and praxis of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
— The role of Caribbean activists in the Communist International and other leftist organizations
— Movements for Puerto Rican independence
— Transnational ties between Caribbean anti-colonial activism and post-World War I nationalism in Asia and Africa
— The role of religion and spirituality in anti-colonial movements
The decades between the First and Second World Wars witnessed intensified challenges to both European and US imperialism in the Caribbean. Issuing demands for self-determination and full citizenship rights, activists utilized new mass organizations—such as trade unions, political parties, and nationalist associations—as well as older collectives such as mutual aid societies, religious groups, and cultural clubs to contest the legitimacy of foreign rule. The duration, scale, and militancy of anti-colonial mobilizations varied widely across the region, as activists employed tactics ranging from formal negotiation with the state to armed guerrilla warfare. Yet, as an interdisciplinary literature has demonstrated, the surge in grassroots protest during the interwar years occurred throughout the colonial Caribbean as well as in the formally independent nation-states of Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Thus, the political ferment of the interwar era not only laid the groundwork for post-World War II independence movements, but also created an opening to contest hegemonic constructions of race, gender, and nation.
This special issue will examine how gender shaped anti-colonial thought and praxis in the interwar Caribbean (1919-39). Studying the global origins of anticolonialism, feminist scholars have deconstructed the “citizen/subject” binary, highlighting the relationship among political exclusion, racial hierarchies, and gender inequality. They have also illuminated how oppositional movements throughout the colonized world reconfigured and reproduced ideas about sexual difference, articulating citizenship claims through gendered ideologies that often affirmed—rather than dislodged—patriarchy.
Intervening in this burgeoning literature, Caribbeanist scholars have investigated how local understandings of “womanhood” and “manhood” shaped resistance to colonialism in the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. In addition, they have documented women’s myriad roles in struggles against colonial rule, excavating the forgotten connections between anti-colonial and feminist movements. Disrupting the longstanding focus on the “fathers” of Caribbean nationalism, groundbreaking biographical accounts of female activists have revealed women’s crucial contributions as intellectuals, organizers, and foot soldiers during the interwar years. Building on these foundational works, an important body of scholarship has also begun to interrogate “the sexual inheritances of nationalism” and the “heterosexual imperative of citizenship” in the postcolonial era (Alexander 1994: 11, 6).
For this special issue, we invite submissions that deepen the literature on gender and anticolonialism in the interwar Caribbean (including the global Caribbean diaspora). We hope to include essays based on specific case studies as well as theoretical works that grapple with the gendered implications of anticolonialism in a region forged through centuries of colonial incursions. Possible topics for exploration include (but are not limited to):
— Constructions of masculinity and femininity in interwar anti-colonial movements
Organized labor in the Caribbean and the fight against colonialism
— Caribbean feminist thought in the interwar era
— Nationalism, gender, and the circum-Caribbean press
— The campaign against the U.S. occupation of Haiti and the Dominican Republic
— Challenges to Canadian annexation campaigns in the British Caribbean
— Anti-colonial currents in literary and cultural movements (e.g. Négritude, surrealism, indigenism, and Afrocubanismo)
— The ideology and praxis of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
— The role of Caribbean activists in the Communist International and other leftist organizations
— Movements for Puerto Rican independence
— Transnational ties between Caribbean anti-colonial activism and post-World War I nationalism in Asia and Africa
— The role of religion and spirituality in anti-colonial movements
Research Interests:
This workshop/book will foreground the gendered experiences and historical trajectories of ontological erasure, cultural genocide, land dispossession, community survival, and collective resistance of Indigenous people in the Caribbean.... more
This workshop/book will foreground the gendered experiences and historical trajectories of ontological erasure, cultural genocide, land dispossession, community survival, and collective resistance of Indigenous people in the Caribbean. The political aim is to explicitly articulate the responsibility that Caribbean feminisms have to:
1. Recognize and promote Indigenous peoples’ rights to sovereignty and self-determination;
2. Confront, decolonize, and abolish the hierarchical and dehumanizing social relationships that continue to impact Indigenous communities and define the region.
Submissions for the collection should seek to grapple with the dynamics of how Indigenous people in the Caribbean are situated within neoliberalizing postcolonial nation-states, as well as how they are positioned amidst settler-Creole practices of belonging, processes of deterritorialization, systemic denials of political representation, and (false) assertions of extinction – without adopting a politics of blame.
1. Recognize and promote Indigenous peoples’ rights to sovereignty and self-determination;
2. Confront, decolonize, and abolish the hierarchical and dehumanizing social relationships that continue to impact Indigenous communities and define the region.
Submissions for the collection should seek to grapple with the dynamics of how Indigenous people in the Caribbean are situated within neoliberalizing postcolonial nation-states, as well as how they are positioned amidst settler-Creole practices of belonging, processes of deterritorialization, systemic denials of political representation, and (false) assertions of extinction – without adopting a politics of blame.
Research Interests:
In the preamble of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), it is recognized that “disability” is a temporally and spatially evolving concept. Disability, under the UN Convention, is a consequence of “the... more
In the preamble of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), it is recognized that “disability” is a temporally and spatially evolving concept. Disability, under the UN Convention, is a consequence of “the interaction between persons with impairments (physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” This social model of understanding disability emphasizes that social barriers are disabling, not the impairment itself. Mental health, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), is “a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.” These definitions offer points of departure that can allow us to discuss and develop deeper understandings of how conceptions of disability, mental health, mental illness, and madness affects us all – albeit in differing ways – and the ways in which they are also integrally linked to our identities, broader communities, social environments, social determinants, and bodily factors. Caribbean women, like Tifa, provide narratives that call us to examine these multifaceted entanglements, with particular emphasis on gender, sex, and sexuality in the region.
Feminist, post-colonial, and transnational scholarship and research on disability and mental health have been successful in expanding our understandings and theorizations through and beyond the social model lens (Erevelles, 2011; Gorman, 2010; Parekh, 2007; Soldatic and Grech, 2014; Edge, 2008; Rowley, 2003, hooks, 1994; Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). In Caribbean Diasporic spaces, Black Feminist Theory has been used to illuminate the voices and knowledge of Caribbean women to explore their experiences of depression, techniques for mental health management, and coping strategies (Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). Research of this kind facilitates an analysis of how women conceptualize and negotiate their intersectional identities and mental health and disability within oppressive environments. Caribbean feminisms, as a project and conceptual paradigm, pushes to include diverse dimensions of identity; however, discussions of disability, mental health, and disablement are conspicuously absent. This leads to a silencing of critical interventions, which further normalizes ideals about gender, sex, and sexuality in the Caribbean and its Diasporas. When embodied experiences of gender, sex, and sexuality are rendered outside of Caribbean notions of “normal” and normalcy, the consequences of this apathy and disengagement are felt in spaces of disablement where “inequality begets inequality, spawning gradual and perpetual debilitating outcomes that influence the social, political, and economic wellbeing of people” (Persaud, 2014).
Feminist, post-colonial, and transnational scholarship and research on disability and mental health have been successful in expanding our understandings and theorizations through and beyond the social model lens (Erevelles, 2011; Gorman, 2010; Parekh, 2007; Soldatic and Grech, 2014; Edge, 2008; Rowley, 2003, hooks, 1994; Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). In Caribbean Diasporic spaces, Black Feminist Theory has been used to illuminate the voices and knowledge of Caribbean women to explore their experiences of depression, techniques for mental health management, and coping strategies (Jackson and Naidoo, 2012). Research of this kind facilitates an analysis of how women conceptualize and negotiate their intersectional identities and mental health and disability within oppressive environments. Caribbean feminisms, as a project and conceptual paradigm, pushes to include diverse dimensions of identity; however, discussions of disability, mental health, and disablement are conspicuously absent. This leads to a silencing of critical interventions, which further normalizes ideals about gender, sex, and sexuality in the Caribbean and its Diasporas. When embodied experiences of gender, sex, and sexuality are rendered outside of Caribbean notions of “normal” and normalcy, the consequences of this apathy and disengagement are felt in spaces of disablement where “inequality begets inequality, spawning gradual and perpetual debilitating outcomes that influence the social, political, and economic wellbeing of people” (Persaud, 2014).
Research Interests:
We encourage submissions that engage the ways in which policy matters to women. We invite a consideration of policy as an instrument and process that might be queered, the latter being a term that we use capaciously, not only in the ways... more
We encourage submissions that engage the ways in which policy matters to women. We invite a consideration of policy as an instrument and process that might be queered, the latter being a term that we use capaciously, not only in the ways in which the instruments of the state might be used to achieve LGBT-based equity, but, additionally, as an invitation to think about policy in atypical, non-normative applications. For example, what might the ramifications of state activity hold for affective modes of daily life in the region? What people think, feel, and imagine themselves to be? We are also deeply interested in the policy histories in which women have appeared. Historical, colonial, nationalist moments all configure Caribbean women as very distinctive modes of actors (but more often as passive recipients) in state activity. We would like to re-engage how women have been imagined historically in these periods.
We are soliciting papers that address one or more of the following themes or questions:
• Historicizing Gender Policy-Making in the Caribbean
• Traditional Notions of Policy-Making and Contestations of Gender
• Emerging Issues in Gender Planning and Development
• Caribbean Gender Planning Post 2015 and Post Beijing +20
• Shifting Global Structures and Gender Policy-Making
• Caribbean Political Economies and Policy-Making with a Body
• Social Media Social Organizing and Policy Development
• Policy-Making as a Creative Enterprise: Subverting the disciplinary language of policy making
• Affect and Policy: “When Policy Feels ‘dread’”
• Brief Retrospectives on Gender Based Policy Activists and Practitioners
• Queering Caribbean Policy
• Policy and Sexuality
• National Gender Policies — failures, successes, and other sleights of hand
• Policy For and Policy With: Grassroots Governance and Methodologies
• Caribbean Policy and Gender Migration or Queer Asylum
We are soliciting papers that address one or more of the following themes or questions:
• Historicizing Gender Policy-Making in the Caribbean
• Traditional Notions of Policy-Making and Contestations of Gender
• Emerging Issues in Gender Planning and Development
• Caribbean Gender Planning Post 2015 and Post Beijing +20
• Shifting Global Structures and Gender Policy-Making
• Caribbean Political Economies and Policy-Making with a Body
• Social Media Social Organizing and Policy Development
• Policy-Making as a Creative Enterprise: Subverting the disciplinary language of policy making
• Affect and Policy: “When Policy Feels ‘dread’”
• Brief Retrospectives on Gender Based Policy Activists and Practitioners
• Queering Caribbean Policy
• Policy and Sexuality
• National Gender Policies — failures, successes, and other sleights of hand
• Policy For and Policy With: Grassroots Governance and Methodologies
• Caribbean Policy and Gender Migration or Queer Asylum
Research Interests:
About We are honoured to present this issue on disability, mental health, and disablement for the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies. The thematic focus of this issue was borne out of numerous conversations and a shared interest in... more
About We are honoured to present this issue on disability, mental health, and disablement for the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies. The thematic focus of this issue was borne out of numerous conversations and a shared interest in engaging with ongoing discussions about the intersections of gender, disability, and mental health in the Caribbean and Diaspora. We remain deeply inspired by the words of Audre Lorde, whose lessons from her germinal text, A Burst of Light and Other Essays, continue to resonate: "Caring for myself is not selfindulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare" (Lorde 1988, 130). Forever a visionary, by linking care to her survival, Lorde reminds us that participating in liberatory work necessitates a prioritization of our wellness and well-being. We have seen other Black and Caribbean feminists make similar assertions: Angela Davis (2016) says, "Self-care and healing and attention to the body and the spiritual dimension-all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles." And Llana James (2007), who writes: "Feminist activism and theorizing within the African Diaspora […] must include discussions about our physical and psychic well-being in order to truly generate strategies for surviving and thriving" (229). Grounded by these reminders, this issue is offered as a contribution to our collective care, and we hope it will be utilized as a mechanism for survival and our eventual liberation. The contributions in this issue mirror the many ways mental health, disability, and disablement are spoken about, worked through, and actioned on in our communities. The papers, commentaries and reviews hone in on the academic work that has been generated on these major themes. The contributions to the Gender Dialogues section provide arts-based approaches that explore these topics.
Research Interests:
About The title for this Special Issue was inspired by the work of poet, literary scholar and writer Tatiana Nascimento, and the poet formiga (both of whom have work featured in this Special Issue). The word kuírlombo is a play on the... more
About
The title for this Special Issue was inspired by the work of poet, literary scholar and writer Tatiana Nascimento, and the poet formiga (both of whom have work featured in this Special Issue). The word kuírlombo is a play on the words quilombo and cuir. The word quilombo is the word maroon, palenque and cumbe in English, Spanish and Portuguese respectively. The word cimarrón (Spanish), marron (French), quilombola (Portuguese) refers to the people who liberated themselves from enslavement. Quilombo comes from the word Kilombo, which is from the Kimbundu language of the Ngola nation of the Congo.
In Eurocentric historical texts written about the Americas, these communities are referred to as runaway slave communities. In fact, they were societies of people, many of whom liberated themselves from enslavement, and were (what we would call today) multiracial and multi-ethnic societies given the type of democratic (for lack of a better word) societies that they created. As a result of the democratic social and religious structures that emerged in these communities, they were often implicitly/explicitly anti-capitalist. Members of these communities were living another vision of social order in the face of the oppressive societies established by various forms of European colonialism in the Americas.
Abdias do Nascimento, one of the key figures in the founding of contemporary Brazilian Black Studies, defined Kilombismo as a competing vision of social organization that emerged from the political and economic engagement of Africans in the Americas. It is an Afrocentric perspective that Nascimento argued is reflected in movements such as the Haitian Revolution, Garveyism and the Pan-African movement. Kilombismo is a form of African resistance centred on building free communities rooted in economic, political, social and cultural structures that are rooted in African cultural legacies.
The title for this Special Issue was inspired by the work of poet, literary scholar and writer Tatiana Nascimento, and the poet formiga (both of whom have work featured in this Special Issue). The word kuírlombo is a play on the words quilombo and cuir. The word quilombo is the word maroon, palenque and cumbe in English, Spanish and Portuguese respectively. The word cimarrón (Spanish), marron (French), quilombola (Portuguese) refers to the people who liberated themselves from enslavement. Quilombo comes from the word Kilombo, which is from the Kimbundu language of the Ngola nation of the Congo.
In Eurocentric historical texts written about the Americas, these communities are referred to as runaway slave communities. In fact, they were societies of people, many of whom liberated themselves from enslavement, and were (what we would call today) multiracial and multi-ethnic societies given the type of democratic (for lack of a better word) societies that they created. As a result of the democratic social and religious structures that emerged in these communities, they were often implicitly/explicitly anti-capitalist. Members of these communities were living another vision of social order in the face of the oppressive societies established by various forms of European colonialism in the Americas.
Abdias do Nascimento, one of the key figures in the founding of contemporary Brazilian Black Studies, defined Kilombismo as a competing vision of social organization that emerged from the political and economic engagement of Africans in the Americas. It is an Afrocentric perspective that Nascimento argued is reflected in movements such as the Haitian Revolution, Garveyism and the Pan-African movement. Kilombismo is a form of African resistance centred on building free communities rooted in economic, political, social and cultural structures that are rooted in African cultural legacies.
Research Interests:
This Special Issue of the CRGS includes articles that have been developed from a two-year project of collaboration between London South Bank University and the Institute for Gender and Development Studies Mona Campus Unit at The... more
This Special Issue of the CRGS includes articles that have been developed from a two-year project of collaboration between London South Bank University and the Institute for Gender and Development Studies Mona Campus Unit at The University of the West Indies. The project was led by Suzanne Scafe (LSBU) and Leith Dunn (IGDS Mona) and was funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for twenty months from 2017. Its purpose was to establish a Research Network of scholars from the Caribbean, Canada and the UK. The title of the research network was African-Caribbean Women’s Mobility and Self-Fashioning in Post-Diaspora Contexts. The aim was to explore specific ways in which gender enables or necessitates African-Caribbean women’s mobility, and the unexpected intimacies and experiences that emerge from these mobilities. The project developed a concept of “post-diaspora” in order to articulate the political, imaginative, affective and economic affiliations that challenge the proscriptions of the nation-state. It asked how this concept can be used to reimagine new ways in which African-Caribbean women achieve agency through mobility in twenty-first century contexts of globalization, transnationalism and deterritorialization.
Research Interests:
Editors: Reena Goldthree and Natanya Duncan About In this issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, we examine the political ferment of the interwar period (1918-1939), tracking how gendered conceptions of rights, respectability,... more
Editors: Reena Goldthree and Natanya Duncan
About
In this issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, we examine the political ferment of the interwar period (1918-1939), tracking how gendered conceptions of rights, respectability, leadership, and belonging informed anti-colonial thought and praxis. Rather than constructing a singular narrative of Caribbean anti-colonialism, we grapple with the varied political visions and modes of resistance that animated critiques of colonial rule, attending at once to place-specific strategies and to shared regional agendas. The articles featured in this issue present new research on gender and anti-colonialism in Jamaica, Haiti, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Trinidad, British Guiana (Guyana), and Caribbean diasporic communities in Panama and the United States. We seek to disrupt the longstanding focus on the "fathers" of Caribbean nationalism by excavating women's contributions to the region's nationalist struggles. In addition, we foreground gender and sexuality as crucial sites of contestation within nationalist struggles to show how Caribbean women and men alike employed gender ideologies to assess grassroots resistance movements and new forms of belonging. Bridging the fields of women's history and gender and sexuality studies, this issue offers a feminist analysis of the social, material, and discursive dimensions of anti-colonialism in the interwar-era Greater Caribbean.
About
In this issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, we examine the political ferment of the interwar period (1918-1939), tracking how gendered conceptions of rights, respectability, leadership, and belonging informed anti-colonial thought and praxis. Rather than constructing a singular narrative of Caribbean anti-colonialism, we grapple with the varied political visions and modes of resistance that animated critiques of colonial rule, attending at once to place-specific strategies and to shared regional agendas. The articles featured in this issue present new research on gender and anti-colonialism in Jamaica, Haiti, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Trinidad, British Guiana (Guyana), and Caribbean diasporic communities in Panama and the United States. We seek to disrupt the longstanding focus on the "fathers" of Caribbean nationalism by excavating women's contributions to the region's nationalist struggles. In addition, we foreground gender and sexuality as crucial sites of contestation within nationalist struggles to show how Caribbean women and men alike employed gender ideologies to assess grassroots resistance movements and new forms of belonging. Bridging the fields of women's history and gender and sexuality studies, this issue offers a feminist analysis of the social, material, and discursive dimensions of anti-colonialism in the interwar-era Greater Caribbean.
Research Interests:
About Issue 11 Editors: Michelle V. Rowley and Deborah McFee This eleventh issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies invites us to reflect on the fraught and at times contentious relationship that sits at the intersections of... more
About Issue 11
Editors: Michelle V. Rowley and Deborah McFee
This eleventh issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies invites us to reflect on the fraught and at times contentious relationship that sits at the intersections of gender, sexuality, geography and policy making in the Anglophone Caribbean. The precarious experience of post-colonial states , the vulnerability of the local and regional to the economic and political whims of the global compels us to look again at the significance of policy making, but to do so from the vantage points of those who are most disadvantaged by the state's precarity. In this issue, we centre these voices and examine how policy might work toward achieving a more just Caribbean region. The essays, interviews, artistic contributions and commentaries carefully capture a host of researched positions, perceptions and viewpoints that facilitate an interwoven mapping of the politics of policy making as it pertains to women, gender and development.
Editors: Michelle V. Rowley and Deborah McFee
This eleventh issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies invites us to reflect on the fraught and at times contentious relationship that sits at the intersections of gender, sexuality, geography and policy making in the Anglophone Caribbean. The precarious experience of post-colonial states , the vulnerability of the local and regional to the economic and political whims of the global compels us to look again at the significance of policy making, but to do so from the vantage points of those who are most disadvantaged by the state's precarity. In this issue, we centre these voices and examine how policy might work toward achieving a more just Caribbean region. The essays, interviews, artistic contributions and commentaries carefully capture a host of researched positions, perceptions and viewpoints that facilitate an interwoven mapping of the politics of policy making as it pertains to women, gender and development.
Research Interests:
About Issue 10 This tenth issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies aptly highlights student research, some of which may not have otherwise been read outside of the university, and also provides a niche for current students and... more
About Issue 10
This tenth issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies aptly highlights student research, some of which may not have otherwise been read outside of the university, and also provides a niche for current students and recent graduates to begin publishing their work in scholarly publications. The majority of pieces in this issue represent the research of current students and graduates of the IGDS units across the three campus units that offer a graduate programme. The issue exemplifies the rich tapestry of scholarly work and diverse research interests investigated though traditional and non-traditional modalities by students of the IGDS. It also includes work by postgraduate students who have been influenced by the work and tradition of Caribbean feminist theorising. The issue includes four peer reviewed papers, three gender dialogues, a photo essay, poetry, research in action and book review. The variety of entries not only speaks to the diversity in the output of the IGDS, but also to the range of issues still relevant to Caribbean gender and development studies. While grounded in the solid foundation of Caribbean feminist tradition, the entries challenge existing epistemologies, tease out critical ideas relating to gender identity, construct innovative dimensions for investigating 21st century challenges and force us to reckon with the future of gender studies as an ever-evolving space of discursive criticism.
This tenth issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies aptly highlights student research, some of which may not have otherwise been read outside of the university, and also provides a niche for current students and recent graduates to begin publishing their work in scholarly publications. The majority of pieces in this issue represent the research of current students and graduates of the IGDS units across the three campus units that offer a graduate programme. The issue exemplifies the rich tapestry of scholarly work and diverse research interests investigated though traditional and non-traditional modalities by students of the IGDS. It also includes work by postgraduate students who have been influenced by the work and tradition of Caribbean feminist theorising. The issue includes four peer reviewed papers, three gender dialogues, a photo essay, poetry, research in action and book review. The variety of entries not only speaks to the diversity in the output of the IGDS, but also to the range of issues still relevant to Caribbean gender and development studies. While grounded in the solid foundation of Caribbean feminist tradition, the entries challenge existing epistemologies, tease out critical ideas relating to gender identity, construct innovative dimensions for investigating 21st century challenges and force us to reckon with the future of gender studies as an ever-evolving space of discursive criticism.
Research Interests:
CRGS Special Issue, From the Archives Gender Perspectives in Education: Caribbean Impact, Global Reach; Professor Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s work and legacy Editors: Leith Dunn is Senior Lecturer and Head of the IGDS, Mona Unit. Her academic and... more
CRGS Special Issue, From the Archives
Gender Perspectives in Education: Caribbean Impact, Global Reach; Professor Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s work and legacy
Editors:
Leith Dunn is Senior Lecturer and Head of the IGDS, Mona Unit. Her academic and professional career spans over 25 years of teaching, research, publishing and programming on a wide range of human development issues with gender as a cross-cutting theme. She has worked in areas including gender and development, sexual and reproductive health, gender and HIV/AIDS and gender and governance. She has also done research in labour, trade and social policy.
Barbara Bailey was the first regional coordinator of the Institute (formerly Centre) for Gender and Development Studies, The UWI between 1995 and 2010. Prior to that she was the Specialist Lecturer in Curriculum Studies in the School of Education, Mona. Her teaching and research focused on gender and education, with particular emphasis on gender issues in education and the relationship of educational outputs to outcomes in the economic,
social and political spheres for either sex.
About Issue 9
Unlike the majority of our journal issues, this special issue is both
commemorative and archival. It contains a selection of papers, keynote speeches and working papers presented over two decades by the Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS), now, Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), that are brought together in one volume for easy recall and retrieval by scholars and students. In this issue, we highlight in particular, papers from the CGDS 15th Anniversary Conference
which honoured Professor Elsa Leo-Rhynie, the first Professor appointed in the field of Women and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies. The issue is valuable in its own way as a recognition that, important as contemporary scholarship is, access to the unfolding history of the institution is key in understanding the intellectual tradition in Caribbean feminism and a critical component of Caribbean feminist discourse. As an
open access online journal, the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies seeks to play a role both in producing contemporary research, as we have done in past issues, and in also making available to scholars the long tradition of research produced by the IGDS that may otherwise not be available to the increasing range of users who draw on the internet for their resources.
Gender Perspectives in Education: Caribbean Impact, Global Reach; Professor Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s work and legacy
Editors:
Leith Dunn is Senior Lecturer and Head of the IGDS, Mona Unit. Her academic and professional career spans over 25 years of teaching, research, publishing and programming on a wide range of human development issues with gender as a cross-cutting theme. She has worked in areas including gender and development, sexual and reproductive health, gender and HIV/AIDS and gender and governance. She has also done research in labour, trade and social policy.
Barbara Bailey was the first regional coordinator of the Institute (formerly Centre) for Gender and Development Studies, The UWI between 1995 and 2010. Prior to that she was the Specialist Lecturer in Curriculum Studies in the School of Education, Mona. Her teaching and research focused on gender and education, with particular emphasis on gender issues in education and the relationship of educational outputs to outcomes in the economic,
social and political spheres for either sex.
About Issue 9
Unlike the majority of our journal issues, this special issue is both
commemorative and archival. It contains a selection of papers, keynote speeches and working papers presented over two decades by the Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS), now, Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), that are brought together in one volume for easy recall and retrieval by scholars and students. In this issue, we highlight in particular, papers from the CGDS 15th Anniversary Conference
which honoured Professor Elsa Leo-Rhynie, the first Professor appointed in the field of Women and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies. The issue is valuable in its own way as a recognition that, important as contemporary scholarship is, access to the unfolding history of the institution is key in understanding the intellectual tradition in Caribbean feminism and a critical component of Caribbean feminist discourse. As an
open access online journal, the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies seeks to play a role both in producing contemporary research, as we have done in past issues, and in also making available to scholars the long tradition of research produced by the IGDS that may otherwise not be available to the increasing range of users who draw on the internet for their resources.
Research Interests:
About Issue 8 Guest Editors: Wesley Crichlow, Halimah DeShong and Linden Lewis The study of Caribbean men is by no means new. However, the emergence of men and masculinities studies in the Caribbean, or what Rhoda Reddock refers... more
About Issue 8
Guest Editors:
Wesley Crichlow, Halimah DeShong and Linden Lewis
The study of Caribbean men is by no means new. However, the emergence of men and masculinities studies in the Caribbean, or what Rhoda Reddock refers (2004) to as the study of men as "gendered beings," can be located within a larger body of gender and sexuality studies research produced within the last three decades. This Caribbean Review of Gender Studies special issue on Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities represents a series of critical conversations intended to track a range of concerns related to gender, sexuality, men and masculinities in the Caribbean. This issue has been in the making for a very long-time and indeed persistence pays off. The study of Caribbean men and masculinities is an interdisciplinary research field focusing on non-western masculinities studies. The current special issue reflects the diverse sub-themes that have characterised men and masculinities research in the Caribbean to date.
Guest Editors:
Wesley Crichlow, Halimah DeShong and Linden Lewis
The study of Caribbean men is by no means new. However, the emergence of men and masculinities studies in the Caribbean, or what Rhoda Reddock refers (2004) to as the study of men as "gendered beings," can be located within a larger body of gender and sexuality studies research produced within the last three decades. This Caribbean Review of Gender Studies special issue on Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities represents a series of critical conversations intended to track a range of concerns related to gender, sexuality, men and masculinities in the Caribbean. This issue has been in the making for a very long-time and indeed persistence pays off. The study of Caribbean men and masculinities is an interdisciplinary research field focusing on non-western masculinities studies. The current special issue reflects the diverse sub-themes that have characterised men and masculinities research in the Caribbean to date.
Research Interests:
Cover art Courtesy Steve Ouditt
From the Series "Proceed to Mental Health" 2013
From the Series "Proceed to Mental Health" 2013
Research Interests:
Chevannes, Paulette, Roy Moodley and Patsy Sutherland. 2013. Caribbean Healing Traditions: Implications for Health and Mental Health. Edited by Pauletta Chevannes, Roy Moodley and Patsy Sutherland. New York and London: Routledge, Tayor &... more
Chevannes, Paulette, Roy Moodley and Patsy Sutherland. 2013. Caribbean Healing Traditions: Implications for Health and Mental Health. Edited by Pauletta Chevannes, Roy Moodley and Patsy Sutherland. New York and London: Routledge, Tayor & Francis Group.
Research Interests:
This short story is based on Avril-a phantom character from the 2015 novel, The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson. Focusing on Avril, who largely is a silent character, was an intentional literary approach that was inspired by the... more
This short story is based on Avril-a phantom character from the 2015 novel, The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson. Focusing on Avril, who largely is a silent character, was an intentional literary approach that was inspired by the iconic Caribbean book Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Like Wide Sargasso Sea, Avril's Voice also focuses on a Caribbean woman who is experiencing an undisclosed mental illness. By amplifying Avril's voice here, we seek to make space to centre her narrative and provide a first-hand description of her mental health challenges and intersecting family issues.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Despite its prevalent usage within soca music, little scholarly literature has explored how sonic, lyrical and embodied representations of dis/ability permeate throughout the genre to perform critical genealogies of transgressive... more
Despite its prevalent usage within soca music, little scholarly literature has explored how sonic, lyrical and embodied representations of dis/ability permeate throughout the genre to perform critical genealogies of transgressive Caribbean gender practices. In this article I interrogate the dissemination and deployment of madness as metaphor in soca performance, particularly through embodiments of Carnivalesque sensibilities and the pedagogies of non- normativity they articulate. Such performances, I argue, position soca as an inherently “mad music” where disruptive ontological methodologies of speaking, sounding, and embodying cultural resistance have been cultivated through explorations of disability. These representations and methods of using such “mad archives” in projects of self-making, and more specifically Afro- Caribbean masculinity, is explored through the “madman” personae (c. 2003) of Machel Montano and recent soca star Uncle Ellis. Simultaneously, I critique these representations for the ways they perpetuate mental health stigma and ableism in the realms of Caribbean popular culture.
Research Interests:
This article examines the extent to which the issue of double discrimination is adequately addressed in Commonwealth Caribbean jurisprudence. Double discrimination is an acute concern of women with disabilities whose marginalisation is... more
This article examines the extent to which the issue of double discrimination is adequately addressed in Commonwealth Caribbean jurisprudence. Double discrimination is an acute concern of women with disabilities whose marginalisation is amplified by the intersection of their gender and their disability. As such they face higher rates of domestic violence, unemployment and poverty in comparison to other members of society. Commonwealth Caribbean law, particularly in the areas of criminal law, family law and constitutional law, has not adequately responded to the plight of the disabled women. In certain instances, the law promotes negative stereotypes about women with disabilities. In other instances, it fails to address the complexity of discrimination claims by adopting a formal approach to equality, i.e. treating like cases alike. These shortfalls can be contrasted with the growing recognition in international law of the gendered dimensions of disability and the problem of double discrimination. These international developments, combined with recent jurisprudence emanating from Belize and Guyana in the cases of Wade v Roches and McEwan et al v Attorney General of Guyana, provide hope that Commonwealth Caribbean law can be re-crafted to ensure a dignity-centric approach which addresses the disadvantages and prejudices faced by women with disabilities.
Research Interests:
James Berger, in his 2004 article "Trauma without Disability, Disability without Trauma: A Disciplinary Divide," examines the prominent place of metaphor within the discourse of trauma studies and the conversely problematic reception of... more
James Berger, in his 2004 article "Trauma without Disability, Disability without Trauma: A Disciplinary Divide," examines the prominent place of metaphor within the discourse of trauma studies and the conversely problematic reception of metaphor in the field of disability studies. Contemporary Guadeloupian author Gisèle Pineau's memoir of her parallel careers as a writer and a psychiatric nurse, Folie, aller simple (2013), imagines a more fluid coexistence of trauma and disability within the Francophone Caribbean and its diaspora. Her memoir lays the framework for re-imagining representations of psychiatric illness within the context of immigration, displacement and postcolonial relations in France and its overseas Caribbean departments through the metaphor of the natural disasters that shape and potentially devastate Caribbean islands.
Research Interests:
This commentary paper presents key findings from a maternal depression research study conducted in Barbados and a global-health focused systematic review of stigma, both initiated by the author. These studies provide evidence that mental... more
This commentary paper presents key findings from a maternal depression research study conducted in Barbados and a global-health focused systematic review of stigma, both initiated by the author. These studies provide evidence that mental illness stigma amongst Caribbean women exists, but questions why so few retrievals from a systematic review of stigma focused on this group and this specific topic. It makes the case for increased research on mental illness stigma and physical disability stigma focused on Caribbean women across racial, linguistic, geographic, and ethnic differences.
Research Interests:
Students, at all levels of learning, continue to grapple with multiple challenges including mental illness and its complications. In this paper, I set up a peer-to- peer conversation to offer plausible strategies to confront and manage... more
Students, at all levels of learning, continue to grapple with multiple challenges including mental illness and its complications. In this paper, I set up a peer-to- peer conversation to offer plausible strategies to confront and manage the effects of mental illness on a student’s academic journey. These students who contributed their perspective and experiences reinforce “finding your anchor” as foundational to building their own capacity to thrive while managing challenges presented by mental illness, and explained that such involves more than seeking medical and counselling help but requires consciously confronting the fear of social and cultural taboos and stereotypes. To interpret and clarify their explanations I utilize a case study research design, collecting data through in-depth interviews and elaborating significant meanings within that data through content and narrative analysis. Ultimately, students provide more than testimony, they map routes to take and express an encouraging voice that demonstrates how, though confronting challenges, they were able to harness available resources to help them live with mental illness and still achieve their goals as students.
Research Interests:
An introduction to the issue titled "Disability, Mental Health, and Disablement". The thematic focus of this issue was borne out of numerous conversations and a shared interest in engaging with ongoing discussions about the intersections... more
An introduction to the issue titled "Disability, Mental Health, and Disablement". The thematic focus of this issue was borne out of numerous conversations and a shared interest in engaging with ongoing discussions about the intersections of gender, disability, and mental health in the Caribbean and Diaspora.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Graffiti and Watercolor
This essay that is being continuously rewritten by tatiana nascimento, an artist, and researcher from brasília, since 2016, asks the following main assumptions: why does the intelligibility of the literature produced by black and/or... more
This essay that is being continuously rewritten by tatiana nascimento, an artist, and researcher from brasília, since 2016, asks the following main assumptions:
why does the intelligibility of the literature produced by black and/or lgbtqi people seem to be related to the thematic presence of the pain/resistance/ denouncement triad?
in which ways does this triped approach meet the expectations of the whiteist colonial cis-hetnormative gaze’s typical sadism?
does “exorbitating the paradigm of pain.” acknowledging the literary complexity of/among the researched poets, create the risk of overlapping layers of unintelligibility to the texts?
can fostering this risk be a bet on the future? meaning: is this literature afrofuturistic? y: could it make sense in a present so deeply marked by the genocism/epistemicide promoted by the cis-hetnormative whitist supremacy’s coloniality?1
the absurd, the daydream, the weightlessness, the refusal, the impreciseness, the crossing-out – how do they arise as power in this literature, turning the risk into fertile material for new criticism gazes, theory, literary diffusion? or would they be mere fugitive points from the harsh reality, escapism, tangencies, and useless lyricisms?
is it possible, really possible, to reconjure a concept founded on two brazilian contemporary black thought pillars – beatriz nascimento and abdias nascimento, in their respective propositions on quilombos [maroon societies] and quilombismo –, that still engage with a heterocentered perspective on blackness, to put on a base to the notion of queerlombism cuíerlombism as one in which the notions of black diaspora and sexual dissidence are settled in the same ancestral ground?
why does the intelligibility of the literature produced by black and/or lgbtqi people seem to be related to the thematic presence of the pain/resistance/ denouncement triad?
in which ways does this triped approach meet the expectations of the whiteist colonial cis-hetnormative gaze’s typical sadism?
does “exorbitating the paradigm of pain.” acknowledging the literary complexity of/among the researched poets, create the risk of overlapping layers of unintelligibility to the texts?
can fostering this risk be a bet on the future? meaning: is this literature afrofuturistic? y: could it make sense in a present so deeply marked by the genocism/epistemicide promoted by the cis-hetnormative whitist supremacy’s coloniality?1
the absurd, the daydream, the weightlessness, the refusal, the impreciseness, the crossing-out – how do they arise as power in this literature, turning the risk into fertile material for new criticism gazes, theory, literary diffusion? or would they be mere fugitive points from the harsh reality, escapism, tangencies, and useless lyricisms?
is it possible, really possible, to reconjure a concept founded on two brazilian contemporary black thought pillars – beatriz nascimento and abdias nascimento, in their respective propositions on quilombos [maroon societies] and quilombismo –, that still engage with a heterocentered perspective on blackness, to put on a base to the notion of queerlombism cuíerlombism as one in which the notions of black diaspora and sexual dissidence are settled in the same ancestral ground?
Research Interests:
The main objective of this research is to present a study on the artivism of sexual and gender dissidents in Brazilian popular culture, through a focus on the performative production of the Guerreiro tradition in the city of Juazeiro do... more
The main objective of this research is to present a study on the artivism of sexual and gender dissidents in Brazilian popular culture, through a focus on the performative production of the Guerreiro tradition in the city of Juazeiro do Norte in the countryside of Ceará, Brazil. By taking into account the mode of subjectivation and the performative politics of Deborah Bomfins, a member of the group “Guerreiras de Joana D'arc,” coordinated by Mestra Margarida Guerreira, we seek to understand the way in which sexuality permeates the artivism of the Northeastern regional tradition, by distorting the “cabra macho” [macho man] ideal in popular culture through visibility and resistance in the scenic dance performance.1 We argue that the Guerreiro tradition arises as a way of life for Deborah's lesbian existence, mainly because, as a brincante2 [player], she faces prejudices by standing between her lesbian identity and heteronormativity.
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This article is a discussion of the results of field research about the collective experiences of different LGBT movements. That is, currently there is an investment of some groups in proposing, whenever possible, the inclusion of... more
This article is a discussion of the results of field research about the collective experiences of different LGBT movements. That is, currently there is an investment of some groups in proposing, whenever possible, the inclusion of non-feminine lesbians into various definitions of transmasculinities.2 This produces deterministic regulations on the bodies and practices of non-feminine lesbians, like when the gaze on that body identifies it as “a ‘transmacho,’ but an inadequate one, because it has boobs.”3 Considering the empirical data, it is reasonable to ask what are the historical conditions of possibilities that have contributed to this move to frame the body with this level of determinism. Beyond this, it also raises a political-epistemological issue. It is a political matter because it shows a hierarchy of transgressive gender experiences, in which transmasculinity is more valued than the non-feminine lesbian experience. Epistemological, on the other side, because it demonstrates a “will to truth” and the production of narratives about bodies and practices, in order to move the non-feminine lesbians body from the scene, by transforming it into more of the same. That is, a masculine body that is closer to the heteronormative ideal. In this sense, it is possible to question if this move is related to historical sexism and lesbophobia which have, for a long time, produced a non-place for non- feminine lesbian bodies and practices.
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The Siriricando Block is a carnival block of lesbian and bisexual protagonism that has been out on the streets of downtown São Paulo, Brazil, since 2016. Founded by a group of lesbians and bisexual women, Siriricando seeks to promote... more
The Siriricando Block is a carnival block of lesbian and bisexual protagonism that has been out on the streets of downtown São Paulo, Brazil, since 2016. Founded by a group of lesbians and bisexual women, Siriricando seeks to promote spaces for socializing and strengthening of the lesbian and bisexual identities, sexual freedom, and awareness of the reproduction of prejudices existing in Brazil’s sexist and patriarchal society. Welcoming to the entire LGBTQIA+ community, it is based on lesbian and feminist protagonism and visibility. We reframe the lyrics of well-known Brazilian carnival songs in a creative and funny way. Siriricando also promotes the coalition and collaboration of artists from different areas, since it is organized in a network through collaborative work. It also seeks forms of social intervention through awareness and creative economy in the events it holds. Since 2016, it seeks to act politically and socially beyond carnival in the Brazilian context (which has been experiencing an authoritarian setback).
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In Brazil, being a lesbian or a bisexual woman represents an important social determinant of health. An important aspect of the health-sickness process is the non-recognition by lesbians and bisexual women of the healthcare system as a... more
In Brazil, being a lesbian or a bisexual woman represents an important social determinant of health. An important aspect of the health-sickness process is the non-recognition by lesbians and bisexual women of the healthcare system as a possible safe environment. This is due both to the LGBT-phobia they face in health units and to the lack of knowledge and training skills by health professionals on the specificities of this population. It is important to acknowledge that this community is in the intersection of at least two different social oppressions: sexism and heteronormativity. This article aims to systematise the main doubts and questions of family physicians, medical residents, and students from Brazil concerning the care of LGBT people at the primary healthcare level, in order to stimulate and guide training activities with this theme both in undergraduate and postgraduate courses as well as in continuing education for health professionals.
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This article presents a partial overview of my perceptions – so far – on the reception of the book “Dossiê sobre lesbocídio no Brasil: entre 2014 e 2017” [Dossier on the Killing of Lesbians in Brazil: from 2014 to 2017], launched by... more
This article presents a partial overview of my perceptions – so far – on the reception of the book “Dossiê sobre lesbocídio no Brasil: entre 2014 e 2017” [Dossier on the Killing of Lesbians in Brazil: from 2014 to 2017], launched by Milena Cristina Carneiro Peres, Suane Felippe Soares (author of this article) and Maria Clara Marques Dias, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 7 March 2018, in collaboration with the research and extension groups in which we take part as members as well as coordinators at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The perspective on the receptions analysed here will be that of direct contact with society, specifically the public presentations of the Dossiê. The Dossiê had great repercussion among academic, activist and civil groups with a focus on the lesbian public; it was also presented internationally. The main goal of this paper is to analyse the possible impacts of studying lesbocide on the transformation of violence paradigms against lesbians.
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This work aims to analyse the socio-spatial invisibilities of Black sapatonas in the cultural dimension of the centre of Salvador. It seeks to provoke and debate the occupation of urban spaces from the perspective of entertainment not... more
This work aims to analyse the socio-spatial invisibilities of Black sapatonas in the cultural dimension of the centre of Salvador. It seeks to provoke and debate the occupation of urban spaces from the perspective of entertainment not only for Black sapatonas, but also for bisexual and trans women (LBT), who have their existence erased due to institutional racism and LGBT-phobia. In this sense, Ocupação Sapatão Bahia is a cultural activity in response to the hegemonic and cis-heteronormative spaces of public and private entertainment. By boosting the presence of Black and female bodies in Salvador’s centre, the event seeks to promote the visibility of the Black LBT women’s community. The main goal of the party is to claim the right to the city by materially and symbolically subverting the spatial delimitations imposed to these women, taking into consideration that the geographical space produced/reproduced under the norms of the colonizing and capitalist processes impose the dehumanization of Black and female bodies. Ocupação Sapatão is constituted by seven Black women, sapatonas and bisexual, residents of the outskirts of Salvador. The actions developed in the last three editions of the event gathered a significant number of women from different neighbourhoods in the city, especially the peripheral ones.2 The women occupied a bar owned by the Black sapatonas couple Ray and Lucy. In the following we discuss the results of these events, highlighting the potential of Black women who have their existence denied every day when it comes to access to urban spaces.
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This article presents reflections on the lesbophobia aimed at the bodies of sapatonas in the academy, and how these aggressions occur similarly in different hierarchical spaces. It also discusses the bathroom paradigm as a gender barrier,... more
This article presents reflections on the lesbophobia aimed at the bodies of sapatonas in the academy, and how these aggressions occur similarly in different hierarchical spaces. It also discusses the bathroom paradigm as a gender barrier, as the white gaze regime, which operates as a locus of structural advantage, imprisoning and eliminating bodies considered unsuitable for the male-female, white-black binary scheme. I aim to insert trajectories of black sapatonas from the south of Brazil in the field of discussions in order to destabilize the official narrative that popularises this territory as a legitimate European colony: white and heterosexual.
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This study is an approach to the subject of Afro-descendant lesbians who have had to rescue history and to reinvent themselves within the potentialities that characterize the group such as resistance to difficulties. For this they have... more
This study is an approach to the subject of Afro-descendant lesbians who have had to rescue history and to reinvent themselves within the potentialities that characterize the group such as resistance to difficulties. For this they have resorted to, among other strengths, arming themselves with the energies inherited from their grandmothers, ancestors who never let themselves be overcome, no matter how difficult the period. They always found a strategy to resist their harsh and historical realities, slavery being a principal example. The stereotyped thinking, internal and external, still imposed on many of these women, causes them to suffer multiple discriminations - as women, as lesbians, as Black and, in some cases, as transgender, and inhibits the practical expression of the true sorority which characterizes them. The advantage of this resistance, as noted by Michel Foucault, is that it is as inventive, it is as mobile and productive as power. It seeks ways of organizing to resist the effects of power, to not let oneself be dominated, going to the forefront at any cost, expanding and sharing creative ideas, leaving behind that domain of erased subjects and establishing dialogues of understanding with the alter ego. Using their voice with or without music.
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This paper examines the brief, remarkable presence of leftist Brazilian lesbian politician Marielle Franco, who was executed 14 March 2018 in what is a still unresolved case. Memorialising and examining Franco's case, this co-authored... more
This paper examines the brief, remarkable presence of leftist Brazilian lesbian politician Marielle Franco, who was executed 14 March 2018 in what is a still unresolved case. Memorialising and examining Franco's case, this co-authored piece is a form of transnational Black lesbian feminist scholar-activism that both investigates her intersectional agendas of race, class, geography, gender, sexuality, and her institutionalised political struggles during her term as a minority force in Rio de Janeiro parliament. From this study of Franco’s life, we theorise the stakes, successes, and the limits of visibility and invisibility of a Black lesbian woman favelada mobilising an intersectional Black lesbian coalitional politics within Brazil’s established necropolitical infrastructure during a distinctly conservative political turn. With the support of an assembled archive of decolonial transnational feminism, we also consider Franco's agenda and theory-in-praxis – as she did – within a genealogy of diasporic Black (lesbian) intersectional struggles against (neo) colonialism. Speaking across languages and global Southern geographies, we situate our respective research and positional experiences of witnessing challenges and erasures of Black lesbians in genealogies of transnational feminism and mainstream politics in Brazil. We consider Franco’s embodiment a premier site of transnational Black feminist theoretical possibility for delineating the diasporic, transnational phenomenon of Black lesbian symbolic annihilation, and look to Franco’s case to illuminate survival strategies and limitations of Black lesbian existence in an environment of annihilation for questions about our futures.
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In the following, we briefly discuss the epistemology of translating lesbian and sapatão texts from Brazilian Portuguese into English. In this article, we bring out and theorise about some of the black sapatão translation strategies we... more
In the following, we briefly discuss the epistemology of translating lesbian and sapatão texts from Brazilian Portuguese into English. In this article, we bring out and theorise about some of the black sapatão translation strategies we applied while translating, proofreading, and copyediting the texts – articles, essays and a poem – for the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Special Issue on Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Brazil. Furthermore, we point out the huge gap between the amount – and the production conditions (when, how and by whom) – of texts that are produced in Brazil by LGBTQI+ and/or black authors and the amount that actually gets translated into English. After examining some examples of word choices and translation strategies adopted by us, we intend to demonstrate how working with particular texts, particular themes, and especially with black lesbian and sapatão authors, is part of and produces a black sapatão epistemology. In addition, we intend to contextualise our knowledge production within the politics discussed and practiced by our research group Traduzindo no Atlântico Negro [Translating in the Black Atlantic], coordinated by Professor Denise Carrascosa at the Federal University of Bahia.
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Excerpt. Introduction The title for this Special Issue was inspired by the work of poet, literary scholar and writer Tatiana Nascimento, and the poet formiga (both of whom have work featured in this Special Issue). The word kuírlombo is... more
Excerpt. Introduction
The title for this Special Issue was inspired by the work of poet, literary scholar and writer Tatiana Nascimento, and the poet formiga (both of whom have work featured in this Special Issue). The word kuírlombo is a play on the words quilombo and cuir. The word quilombo is the word maroon, palenque and cumbe in English, Spanish and Portuguese respectively. The word cimarrón (Spanish), marron (French), quilombola (Portuguese) refers to the people who liberated themselves from enslavement. Quilombo comes from the word Kilombo, which is from the Kimbundu language of the Ngola nation of the Congo.
In Eurocentric historical texts written about the Americas, these communities are referred to as runaway slave communities. In fact, they were societies of people, many of whom liberated themselves from enslavement, and were (what we would call today) multiracial and multi-ethnic societies given the type of democratic (for lack of a better word) societies that they created. As a result of the democratic social and religious structures that emerged in these communities, they were often implicitly/explicitly anti-capitalist. Members of these communities were living another vision of social order in the face of the oppressive societies established by various forms of European colonialism in the Americas.
The title for this Special Issue was inspired by the work of poet, literary scholar and writer Tatiana Nascimento, and the poet formiga (both of whom have work featured in this Special Issue). The word kuírlombo is a play on the words quilombo and cuir. The word quilombo is the word maroon, palenque and cumbe in English, Spanish and Portuguese respectively. The word cimarrón (Spanish), marron (French), quilombola (Portuguese) refers to the people who liberated themselves from enslavement. Quilombo comes from the word Kilombo, which is from the Kimbundu language of the Ngola nation of the Congo.
In Eurocentric historical texts written about the Americas, these communities are referred to as runaway slave communities. In fact, they were societies of people, many of whom liberated themselves from enslavement, and were (what we would call today) multiracial and multi-ethnic societies given the type of democratic (for lack of a better word) societies that they created. As a result of the democratic social and religious structures that emerged in these communities, they were often implicitly/explicitly anti-capitalist. Members of these communities were living another vision of social order in the face of the oppressive societies established by various forms of European colonialism in the Americas.
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This Special Issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (CRGS) includes articles that have been developed from a two-year project of collaboration between London South Bank University and the Institute for Gender and Development... more
This Special Issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (CRGS) includes articles that have been developed from a two-year project of collaboration between London South Bank University and the Institute for Gender and Development Studies Mona Campus Unit at The University of the West Indies. The project was led by Suzanne Scafe (LSBU) and Leith Dunn (IGDS Mona) and was funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for twenty months from 2017. Its purpose was to establish a Research Network of scholars from the Caribbean, Canada and the UK. The title of the research network was African-Caribbean Women’s Mobility and Self-Fashioning in Post-Diaspora Contexts. The aim was to explore specific ways in which gender enables or necessitates African-Caribbean women’s mobility, and the unexpected intimacies and experiences that emerge from these mobilities. The project developed a concept of “post-diaspora” in order to articulate the political, imaginative, affective and economic affiliations that challenge the proscriptions of the nation-state. It asked how this concept can be used to reimagine new ways in which African-Caribbean women achieve agency through mobility in twenty-first century contexts of globalization, transnationalism and deterritorialization. In our meetings, workshops and conferences, Network members returned to expanded concepts of diaspora and examined how existing definitions of diaspora might be used as a way of describing Caribbean women’s plural identities and multiple sites of belonging. Post-diaspora, then, is neither a departure from, nor a continuation of contemporary usages of diaspora: rather the “post” signals a new problem space that allows us to imagine new futures by focusing on mobility both as a defining feature of Caribbean identities and as a route to self-fashioning for African-Caribbean women. Rather than linear journeys that result in the reconstitution of a remembered past in a present of new physical and cultural geographies, post-diasporic journeys are rhizomatic: they radically reconfigure the assumed significance of “home” and “away”. In rhizomatic journeys, roots are provisional and unfixed. Routes are often circuitous, and return – physical, rhetorical and economic – is a key component of Caribbean women’s mobility in an increasingly globalized world (Trotz 2006; Mullings and Trotz 2013; Fog Olwig 2012; Putnam 2014; Lawson 2013 Reynolds 2008, 2011). In this Special Issue, contributors use concepts of diaspora/post-diaspora to examine the ways in which Caribbean women reimagine their affiliations and identities beyond those that pertain either to the nation state or to fixed notions of culture (Rushdy 2009; Thomas 2007; Gilroy 2004, 2011; Hall 2007).
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Through close readings of Beryl Gilroy’s In Praise of Love and Children (1996), Joan Riley’s The Unbelonging (1985), and Makeda Silvera’s The Heart does not Bend (2003), this article offers a comparative literary history of Black... more
Through close readings of Beryl Gilroy’s In Praise of Love and Children (1996), Joan Riley’s The Unbelonging (1985), and Makeda Silvera’s The Heart does not Bend (2003), this article offers a comparative literary history of Black Caribbean women’s experiences in London and Toronto in the mid-twentieth century, from the 1950s to the 1970s. By foregrounding the novels’ forgotten female characters, the article examines Caribbean women’s migration stories as a narrative of un/belonging, marking their distinctive relationship to the settler colonial state and the British empire as an ongoing search for independent self-actualization. The article argues that the incongruity between Caribbean migrant women’s dreaming of a romanticized home/coming and the reality of recurring traumatic loss creates a constant dystopic tension that plays out in the novels as a struggle between an imagined be/longing and familial, national and cultural disarticulation. This tension between a “post-diasporic” desire for national be/longing and a diasporic reality of displacement and loss also implicates the novels’ characters in the designs of empire. Characters’ movements away from the hegemonic nation and toward a diasporic condition, therefore, mark a journey toward a more critical self-awareness in which they develop a greater capacity to both critique colonial imperialism and the family as the bedrock of the Caribbean nation, and to articulate non-hierarchical terms of community be/longing.
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Using Avtar Brah's concept of 'diaspora space', this paper argues that black women in the UK have organised in diaspora space to challenge inequities in health and develop strategies to improve health outcomes for black communities. The... more
Using Avtar Brah's concept of 'diaspora space', this paper argues that black women in the UK have organised in diaspora space to challenge inequities in health and develop strategies to improve health outcomes for black communities. The paper explores the post-war contribution of black women nurses in the UK to public health, both as activists for change and as organisers of change. The paper concludes by exploring the confluences and synergies between the concept of ‘diaspora space’ and that of ‘(post) diaspora’ as espoused by Scafe (2018). The paper argues that both concepts are useful for understanding the ways in which Black women have used their agency to challenge health inequities.
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Women from the English-speaking Caribbean have rarely fit into traditional theories of migration and Westernized ideal of the trailing and passive wife accompanying the male breadwinner and migrant. Caribbean migration from the 1960s... more
Women from the English-speaking Caribbean have rarely fit into traditional theories of migration and Westernized ideal of the trailing and passive wife accompanying the male breadwinner and migrant. Caribbean migration from the 1960s onwards, has shown that women, motivated by a complex range of factors, migrate independent of men, and play a critical role in facilitating the movement of other family and kin, as well as in the circular flows of goods, services, knowledge and technology. Drawing on the theory of love power migration by Baldwin and Mortley (2016) this paper demonstrates how Caribbean female migrants from the English Caribbean exercise love and care within the family, and use migration as a strategy for survival, rebuilding and empowerment. The paper argues that because Caribbean women’s migration is based on a complex decision-making process incubated and determined by love power migration, there are even more reasons to maintain strong ties with multiple households and communities in the country of origin. These ties, nurtured by women’s caring role, foster the creation of a transnational space linking multiple households, networks and diaspora communities.
The paper thus explores an under researched area in Caribbean migration scholarship, situating female migrants within the global policy agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the national policy agenda of Caribbean governments that seek to engage and harness remittances and skills of persons within diaspora communities. It provides examples of women's achievements and challenges as they navigate their host countries, as well as the creative ways through which they reconstruct, maintain and connect networks and communities.
Based on the analysis of secondary data and primary case data with Caribbean nurse migrants, the paper argues that if Caribbean development planners want to better leverage their diaspora they need to first look beyond remittances. Further, employing a gender lens, they need to develop a comprehensive understanding of who makes up the diaspora. Migrant women by virtue of their triple roles, represent a valuable resource in the migration process and within diaspora communities, and their voices and experiences must be central to advocacy and policy processes for development.
The paper thus explores an under researched area in Caribbean migration scholarship, situating female migrants within the global policy agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the national policy agenda of Caribbean governments that seek to engage and harness remittances and skills of persons within diaspora communities. It provides examples of women's achievements and challenges as they navigate their host countries, as well as the creative ways through which they reconstruct, maintain and connect networks and communities.
Based on the analysis of secondary data and primary case data with Caribbean nurse migrants, the paper argues that if Caribbean development planners want to better leverage their diaspora they need to first look beyond remittances. Further, employing a gender lens, they need to develop a comprehensive understanding of who makes up the diaspora. Migrant women by virtue of their triple roles, represent a valuable resource in the migration process and within diaspora communities, and their voices and experiences must be central to advocacy and policy processes for development.
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Abstract: Zadie Smith’s novel Swing Time (2016) traverses the geographies and temporalities of the Black Atlantic, unsettling conventional definitions of a black African diaspora, and restlessly interrogating easy gestures of... more
Abstract: Zadie Smith’s novel Swing Time (2016) traverses the geographies and temporalities of the Black Atlantic, unsettling conventional definitions of a black African diaspora, and restlessly interrogating easy gestures of identification and belonging. In my analysis of Smith’s text, I argue that these interconnected spaces and the characters’ uneasy and shifting identities are representative of post-diasporic communities and subjectivities. The novel’s representations of female friendships, mother-daughter relationships, and professional relationships between women, however, demonstrate that experiences of diaspora/post-diaspora are complicated by issues of gender. Forms of black dance and African diasporic music represent the novel’s concerns with mobility and stillness; dance is used by its young female characters as a “diasporic resource” (Nassy Brown 2005, 42), a means of negotiating and contesting existing structures of gender, class and culture.
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The female child protagonist has always been a major figure in the work of several Jamaican female fiction writers. More recently, however, Jamaican female writers from across the diaspora have begun to reveal a new kind of poetics... more
The female child protagonist has always been a major figure in the work of several Jamaican female fiction writers. More recently, however, Jamaican female writers from across the diaspora have begun to reveal a new kind of poetics through the presentation of their female child protagonist and the situations they encounter. This paper will explore the use of an emerging post-diasporic poetics in the work of Jamaican Children’s Literature author Diane Browne, which introduces fluid female identities constructed through the realities of globalisation and post-diasporic conditions. The female child protagonist represents a newly emerging female sensibility and consciousness, which enables readers to access both girlhood and womanhood through realities and perspectives tied to the migrant experience across different periods of time. Each protagonist portrays a self which exists beyond boundaries and outside of the dictates of the social ideals framing femaleness and the female migrant experience, embedded for so long in the Jamaican culture. Browne challenges both traditional and to some extent postmodern models of womanhood and female identity, through the way each of her female child protagonists are portrayed as they move through a post-diasporic process of navigation of both self and space in Browne’s texts.
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Black women are less likely to be retained in tenure-track faculty positions than any other gender and racial/ethnic group in higher education. We encounter “dual acts of race and sex discrimination” from the academic community, arguably... more
Black women are less likely to be retained in tenure-track faculty positions than any other gender and racial/ethnic group in higher education. We encounter “dual acts of race and sex discrimination” from the academic community, arguably leading to disparities in the number of tenure-track Black women faculty (Holmes, Danley Land, and Hinton-Hudson 2007, 107). As an expat in my “foreign homeland” (Stewart 2016), I am often reminded of how I must navigate power and privilege in the university as forms of resistance and subversion in a hetero-patriarchal hegemony. These various experiences of navigating the Caribbean academy while young, Black, and female serve as an ideal backdrop for understanding the impact of colonial patriarchy and what can be done to dismantle it. Accordingly, in this paper, I employ an Afro-Caribbean feminist autoethnographic frame to deconstruct everyday derogatory acts, comments, and behaviour in the academy that devalue female academics by persons of professional hierarchy (known as hierarchical microagressions). This work builds on Young, Anderson and Stewart’s (2015) framework on hierarchical microagressions by applying it to Afro-Caribbean feminist thought. To transgress some of these academic spaces, I illustrate some of the conditions needed to create agency and a strong sense of the emancipatory self.
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Dark skin on Black women’s bodies has become a Black Atlantic diasporic (post) colonial artefact circulating discursively within the skin value hierarchy of racial capitalism. This article uses a Black decolonial feminist approach to... more
Dark skin on Black women’s bodies has become a Black Atlantic diasporic (post) colonial artefact circulating discursively within the skin value hierarchy of racial capitalism. This article uses a Black decolonial feminist approach to analyse racial capitalism’s “second skin” discourses of dark skin as contemptible object established prior to and during enslavement and colonialism. Drawing out its contemporary manifestations in the narratives of/about Black women celebrities, the analysis shows that libidinal economies of dark skin continue to impact women’s lives. Indeed, the impact of “second skin” discourses can produce alienation from oneself if one begins from shadism and/or whiteness. However, this article argues that women with dark skin dis-alienate from “second skin” (Cheng 2011) discourses to construct the skins they live in as objects of love through naming and critiquing diasporic discourses which reproduce their skins as valueless. Through the routes of social media, their critiques of “second skin” discourses produce and maintain alter/native constructions of dark skin value, a radical Black aesthetic consciousness, a new “livity” (Chevannes 1994) within diaspora which unsettles dark skin’s negation.
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The novel Aunt Jen (2002) is used as a point of departure for engaging in a conversation on issues related to diaspora, migration, identity, gender and other post-colonial and diasporic issues. The article provides an overview of the... more
The novel Aunt Jen (2002) is used as a point of departure for engaging in a conversation on issues related to diaspora, migration, identity, gender and other post-colonial and diasporic issues. The article provides an overview of the novel, its epistolary structure, its focus on migration, and its effects on children. The issues are discussed and analysed for how they provide insight into family, maroon heritage, religious preferences and the resilience of a young girl faced with the silence of an absent mother. The meaning of silence in the novel is studied in relation to questions of diaspora The bildungsroman’s development amidst concerns with migration, questions of connection to country, individual identity and agency brings into focus several post-colonial and post-diasporic concerns of who wants to be part of a diaspora and of how individuals may engage in the reconstruction of new diasporic identities and links to communities and nations.
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Arbouin’s text tracks the educational experiences and career outcomes for ten African and Caribbean British graduates. In this review Pauline Muir provides a synopsis of some of the key themes.
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Gabriel and Tate’s edited book provides a collection of articles from Black women across a range of disciplines writing with striking linearity about the subtle, but persistent, direct and indirect ways that racism operates. Shattering... more
Gabriel and Tate’s edited book provides a collection of articles from Black women across a range of disciplines writing with striking linearity about the subtle, but persistent, direct and indirect ways that racism operates. Shattering the meritocratic and equal opportunities’ discourse that we come to know of the education system, each author describes the obstacles of navigating British academia. But the book goes further: it offers Black and other racial minorities the inspiration to keep going in spite of one’s circumstances, knowing that there are networks such as Black British Academics that support you along the way in tackling racial inequalities in higher education. In spite of a hostile racial environment, Black women in this book are thriving! However, this book simultaneously represents a call to action to institutions and those within, to explore critically, how “diversity” is used, who the beneficiaries are and the impact of racism on the health and safety of its employees.
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Feminist scholars recognize that knowledge is power so producing and disseminating new knowledge is important in tackling androcentric, enlightenment essentialist paradigms that contribute to gender and racial inequalities and devalue... more
Feminist scholars recognize that knowledge is power so producing and disseminating new knowledge is important in tackling androcentric, enlightenment essentialist paradigms that contribute to gender and racial inequalities and devalue women’s subjectivities. Since there is power in the “word”, it is only fitting that we highlight the scholarship of three distinguished female professors of The University of the West Indies for our Working Paper Series. Through their thought-provoking insights, two authors probe the complexity of heterosexual gender relations through the prism of love, sexuality, family and the political economy while the other author seeks to historicize and centre black women’s leadership from slavery and beyond through the “politics of memory.” The pieces are drawn from different perspectives - two are from lectures delivered at the annual Caribbean Women Catalysts for Change Lecture in honour of the late Dame Nita Barrow hosted by the IGDS: NBU, and the third is a critical essay reflecting the inter-disciplinary scope of women’s, gender and feminist studies. Readers are encouraged to critically consider whether post-colonial Caribbean realities can rectify the contradictory ways in which women are positioned inside and outside the nation and family when it comes to them exercising erotic agency and autonomy unencumbered by respectability politics and the lure of care work in their socio-sexual relationships, and how women strategize around power-plays in political and community leadership in forging new paths to power. By locating these pieces in Gender Dialogues, hopefully, students and scholars alike can build on these scholarly contributions in advancing Caribbean feminist thought.
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This paper explores heterosexual love, a neglected issue in Caribbean scholarship which has been preoccupied with the structure of family and conjugality and, more recently, focused on gender and sexuality. And yet, love is everywhere. In... more
This paper explores heterosexual love, a neglected issue in Caribbean scholarship which has been preoccupied with the structure of family and conjugality and, more recently, focused on gender and sexuality. And yet, love is everywhere. In private and public spaces, it is celebrated as essential to human happiness – heterosexual romantic love that is, since homosexual love is still outlawed, condemned and clandestine. Paradoxically though, love is enacted within an Afro-Caribbean culture of matrifocality characterized by male ‘marginality’ and hyper-heterosexual performance, and female-centered family solidarity, features which appear to be inimical, if not disruptive, to heterosexual love scripted as monogamous, intimate and enduring. Against this background, this research posed the question: Can there be love in the Caribbean?
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My talk this evening is about historical memory and what women of the Caribbean as individuals or as a collective, and Caribbean states more broadly, conscious of women’s historic contributions, have done with such memory. Memories can be... more
My talk this evening is about historical memory and what women of the Caribbean as individuals or as a collective, and Caribbean states more broadly, conscious of women’s historic contributions, have done with such memory. Memories can be both pleasant and upsetting and what we do with memories depends on the nature of the memories, our distance from them, our philosophy of life, our activism or political commitment and what Fabienne Viala in her excellent book The Post-Columbus Syndrome: Identities, Cultural Nationalism and Commemorations in the Caribbean, calls “the different national templates of memory. ”We can adopt a posture of willed ignorance – that is, develop historical amnesia, refusing to remember; or we can remember deliberately and act on them intentionally. It is the project of acting on those memories—should we choose not to forget— that is political about memory.
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Working Paper No. 17 is based on a lecture delivered on 10th November 2010 by Professor Violet Eudine Barriteau Deputy Principal, The University of The West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Professor Barriteau delivered the 16th lecture in the... more
Working Paper No. 17 is based on a lecture delivered on 10th November 2010 by Professor Violet Eudine Barriteau Deputy Principal, The University of The West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Professor Barriteau delivered the 16th lecture in the series Caribbean Women Catalysts for Change on November 12, 2010, which is dedicated to honouring the memory of Dame Nita Barrow, Governor General of Barbados 1990-1995, and the first subject of the research project, Caribbean Women Catalysts for Change.
The paper presents and expands Jónasdóttir’s concept of ‘love power’ and demonstrate its relevance to seeking explanations to contradictions in contemporary gender relations. Professor Barriteau is interested in the manifestations of areas of powerlessness in women’s lives, and attempts to apply this conceptual framework to various experiences and conditions faced by women in Caribbean societies.
Professor Barriteau begins her analysis at the point where politicized sexuality and political economy converge, where state policies, bureaucratic practices, societal norms and views interact with privatised and politicized sexual relations in women’s lives.
The paper presents and expands Jónasdóttir’s concept of ‘love power’ and demonstrate its relevance to seeking explanations to contradictions in contemporary gender relations. Professor Barriteau is interested in the manifestations of areas of powerlessness in women’s lives, and attempts to apply this conceptual framework to various experiences and conditions faced by women in Caribbean societies.
Professor Barriteau begins her analysis at the point where politicized sexuality and political economy converge, where state policies, bureaucratic practices, societal norms and views interact with privatised and politicized sexual relations in women’s lives.
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The short stories here compared articulate both agitation for and anxiety surrounding West Indian self-government, chiefly through the signifiers of “woman” and Obeah, two aspects of the imagined nation that are represented as volatile... more
The short stories here compared articulate both agitation for and anxiety surrounding West Indian self-government, chiefly through the signifiers of “woman” and Obeah, two aspects of the imagined nation that are represented as volatile outliers that must be subdued by their narratives, either by silence or by ridicule. These narratives illustrate the struggle regarding the incorporation of both women and Obeah into fledgling conceptions of national identity, at a time when the former were increasingly visible in the public sphere, and the latter was proving a most stubborn “vestige of the African past” to eradicate. Their elaborations of Obeah as enacted upon women’s bodies by men in pursuit of heteronormative sexual relations demonstrate the complex web of associations among women, Obeah, and “the folk,” an intersection that brings together, while tearing apart, the discursive imaginary of a future Jamaican/ West Indian nation.
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This interview took place at Princeton University (USA) in May 2018. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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About In this issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, we examine the political ferment of the interwar period (1918-1939), tracking how gendered conceptions of rights, respectability, leadership, and belonging informed... more
About In this issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, we examine the political ferment of the interwar period (1918-1939), tracking how gendered conceptions of rights, respectability, leadership, and belonging informed anti-colonial thought and praxis. Rather than constructing a singular narrative of Caribbean anti-colonialism, we grapple with the varied political visions and modes of resistance that animated critiques of colonial rule, attending at once to place-specific strategies and to shared regional agendas. The articles featured in this issue present new research on gender and anti-colonialism in Jamaica, Haiti, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Trinidad, British Guiana (Guyana), and Caribbean diasporic communities in Panama and the United States. We seek to disrupt the longstanding focus on the "fathers" of Caribbean nationalism by excavating women's contributions to the region's nationalist struggles. In addition, we foreground gender and sexuality as crucial sites of contestation within nationalist struggles to show how Caribbean women and men alike employed gender ideologies to assess grassroots resistance movements and new forms of belonging. Bridging the fields of women's history and gender and sexuality studies, this issue offers a feminist analysis of the social, material, and discursive dimensions of anti-colonialism in the interwar-era Greater Caribbean.
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In 1938, two young Irish women, Catherine (Kay) Donnellan and Eleanor Francis (Frank) Cahill, arrived in Trinidad to teach at a Catholic girls’ school. They soon got involved in working with the new trade unions and with young... more
In 1938, two young Irish women, Catherine (Kay) Donnellan and Eleanor Francis (Frank) Cahill, arrived in Trinidad to teach at a Catholic girls’ school. They soon got involved in working with the new trade unions and with young anti-colonial intellectuals who put out a monthly magazine. For these activities, they were first dismissed from their teaching posts, and then interned without trial in early 1941 under wartime regulations. Donnellan committed suicide a few months later while Cahill remained a detainee until early 1945. This article will examine how their gender intersected with their ethnicity, nationality, class, religion, age and sexual conduct to ensure that their admittedly brief involvement in radical politics in Trinidad just before and during World War II transgressed all the norms of colonial Caribbean society.
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The role of gender in (anti) colonial thought and praxis in Curaçao is a relatively unexplored area of research, and few scholars have studied the impact of the denial of citizenship to Curaçaoan women. Until 1948, women were not... more
The role of gender in (anti) colonial thought and praxis in Curaçao is a relatively unexplored area of research, and few scholars have studied the impact of the denial of citizenship to Curaçaoan women. Until 1948, women were not considered full citizens and were excluded from suffrage rights and participation in decision-making on the basis of race, ethnicity and gender. In Curaçao, similar to the rest of the Caribbean, citizenship has been gender-laden as well as class- and race-laden. This article examines the struggle for universal adult suffrage by Curaçaoan women. It explores how pioneering women in the 1940s understood citizenship and how they sought to construct new ideologies of gender within the context of the patriarchal, race- and class-based structures of Curaçaoan society. I also consider how their successful political struggle contributed in subsequent years to anti-colonialism, including both formal decolonization and popular nationalism.
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The participation of Indo-Guyanese and Indo-Trinidadian women in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sugar estate strikes and in the interwar development of trade unionism has been underestimated by colonial authorities, indentured... more
The participation of Indo-Guyanese and Indo-Trinidadian women in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sugar estate strikes and in the interwar development of trade unionism has been underestimated by colonial authorities, indentured men and historians. This essay combines historiography and literary analysis to contend with gendered archival gaps. First, I chronicle elided instances of Indo-Caribbean women’s participation in labour organizing, with a focus on British Guiana. I then argue that the Guyanese writer Ryhaan Shah’s novel A Silent Life (2015) is a jahaji bahin — “ship sister” — narrative that recovers the Indian ancestress as she was: not the Ramayanic Sita, wifely ideal adopted by Indo-Caribbean migrants, but a woman like the historical Sumintra, a martyred woman strike leader. I show that real women’s labour protests and fictional stories of their descendants speak to each other in a nonlinear, genredefying way across the spatiotemporal gap of archival absence, reshaping traditional narratives of Indo-Caribbean women.
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My article examines depictions of Chinese women in Victor Chang’s stories (“A Summer’s Tale,” “Light in the Shop” and “Mr. Chin’s Property”), Kerry Young’s novel, Pao (2011), and Herbert de Lisser’s cultural and literary interwar magazine... more
My article examines depictions of Chinese women in Victor Chang’s stories (“A Summer’s Tale,” “Light in the Shop” and “Mr. Chin’s Property”), Kerry Young’s novel, Pao (2011), and Herbert de Lisser’s cultural and literary interwar magazine Planters’ Punch (1922-45) to argue that racial and socio-economic battles in colonial and post-independence Jamaica were waged on Chinese women. In official accounts of Jamaican history and culture, Chinese women are largely invisible and their significance has been set into relief by the works of Chinese-Caribbean writers like Kerry Young and Victor Chang. An important exception was the presence of Chinese women in Planters’ Punch, where de Lisser fashioned Chinese women as part of the myth of Jamaica as a lush tourist spot, thereby promoting the interests of the country’s multiethnic business class. Chang and Young contest this myth through inclusive fictional narratives that address racial and sexual violence wreaked upon Chinese women.
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This article analyzes Una Marson’s short story “Sojourn” in tandem with fiction by West African journalist Mabel Dove, as well as contemporaneous newspaper references to fabric and attire. It uses the symbolic resonances of cloth to ask... more
This article analyzes Una Marson’s short story “Sojourn” in tandem with fiction by West African journalist Mabel Dove, as well as contemporaneous newspaper references to fabric and attire. It uses the symbolic resonances of cloth to ask what we might see if the colonial subject waiting in the wings is a desiring female subject. The interwar period coincides with key moments in Anglophone Caribbean nationalism as well as anthropological interest in working-class female intimate relations. If centering the middle-class Jamaican woman’s leisure and intimacy risks ideological conservatism, it offers an opportunity to be less sure about the endgame of nationalism – about what was desired – in a period that tends to be narrated in terms of the forward march to nationhood. Finally, it provides a chance to put West Africa and the Caribbean in a contemporaneous rather than diasporic, non-coeval relationship.
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This article examines the lives of two prominent Nationalist women from Puerto Rico: Dominga de la Cruz Becerril (1909-1981) and Trina Padilla de Sanz (1864-1957). These two women, one black and working-class and the other white and... more
This article examines the lives of two prominent Nationalist women from Puerto Rico: Dominga de la Cruz Becerril (1909-1981) and Trina Padilla de Sanz (1864-1957). These two women, one black and working-class and the other white and patrician, were emblematic figures of the existing tensions within the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and the broader independence movement. Tracing the social changes and political conflicts in Puerto Rico between the two world wars, I illustrate how both women have been positioned in the history of such conflicts and in the contentious 1930s debates over the Puerto Rican national question. Both women embodied racialized differences that, in turn, were emblematic of the multiplicity that accompanied being a Nationalist woman and the complexities inherent to how “the fatherland” was envisioned and fashioned during the interwar period.
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The 1930s and 40s saw a spike in anti-racist and women’s rights activism in Bermuda. This article explores the relationship between the whitedominated Bermuda Woman’s Suffrage Society (BWSS), its Secretary Gladys Morrell, and the... more
The 1930s and 40s saw a spike in anti-racist and women’s rights activism in Bermuda. This article explores the relationship between the whitedominated Bermuda Woman’s Suffrage Society (BWSS), its Secretary Gladys Morrell, and the Afro-Bermudian Recorder newspaper under editor David Tucker. Tucker and the Recorder expressed an ideological alliance with the BWSS in the 1930s, citing a shared battle against discrimination. Suffragists also mobilized against reactionary government policies targeting the black community. However, the Society’s failure to take up a broader anti-racist agenda coupled with political opportunism on Tucker’s part – led to a split in the early 1940s. These experiences illustrate both the potential of and difficulties sustaining alliances across race/class/gender lines in a deeply divided society. The tendency of both the Recorder and the BWSS to speak on behalf of (rather than providing a platform for) black women also fuelled the splintering of agendas in these years.
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This article uses Haitian anthropologist Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain’s study of burial practices and kinship networks in the rural town of Kenscoff to consider the relationship between rituals for the dead and women’s rights activism... more
This article uses Haitian anthropologist Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain’s study of burial practices and kinship networks in the rural town of Kenscoff to consider the relationship between rituals for the dead and women’s rights activism following the United States occupation (1915-1934). Observing her 1937-1938 field notes and unpublished writings on family cemeteries and ceremonies, alongside her publications in the feminist journal La Voix des Femmes during the interwar period, I argue that in Comhaire-Sylvain’s navigation of the tactile and ephemeral space of the dead she articulated the values of a nascent Haitian feminism. Understanding the spaces of death and political organizing as locations to establish and refashion culture and gendered meanings, I consider Comhaire-Sylvain’s research practice and production as a site of public mourning and an entry point for understanding elite women’s early twentieth-century intellectual thought in Haiti.
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In 1929 the Panamanian newsweekly, the Panama Tribune, inaugurated its "Of Interest to Women" section. Through an examination of the work of the first editor of this section, Amy Denniston, this article highlights the gendered nature of... more
In 1929 the Panamanian newsweekly, the Panama Tribune, inaugurated its "Of Interest to Women" section. Through an examination of the work of the first editor of this section, Amy Denniston, this article highlights the gendered nature of progress work in interwar Panama, and the double standard placed on women to brilliantly serve while also remaining at the 1 background of communal change. The article likewise explores how women like
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The interwar period witnessed the formation of a large number of Caribbean American benevolent associations and mutual aid societies, which served as forums to discuss Caribbean American affairs, hosted cultural activities, helped members... more
The interwar period witnessed the formation of a large number of Caribbean American benevolent associations and mutual aid societies, which served as forums to discuss Caribbean American affairs, hosted cultural activities, helped members find employment and provided charity assistance. Through an examination of female participation in these organizations, this article challenges the historiography of Caribbean immigration that tends to normalize the male experience. These associations empowered Caribbean women to become involved in political activism and served as training grounds for female leaders. Through relief efforts, charity work and collaboration with Caribbean organizations, female members created diasporic networks that kept them abreast of events in the islands and connected to their West Indian identities. This article reveals that an examination of Caribbean women’s involvement in social organizations is essential in shaping complex and diverse immigrant narratives, which place women at the centre of diasporic formation and highlight their role as indispensable agents in forging transnational connections.
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Healthcare was a cornerstone of black freedom movements in interwar Harlem. During the 1920s and 1930s, Caribbean-born healthcare providers organised local and transnational campaigns against medical abuse, racial discrimination, and... more
Healthcare was a cornerstone of black freedom movements in interwar Harlem. During the 1920s and 1930s, Caribbean-born healthcare providers organised local and transnational campaigns against medical abuse, racial discrimination, and fascism. Confronting Jim Crow medical industries that ostracized black medical professionals and “butchered” black patients, Caribbean Race Men of Medicine competed with white physicians and white colonial officials for authority over the bodies and health choices of black people. Engaged in broader strategies to eradicate social, political, and economic inequalities, these physicians successfully desegregated Harlem Hospital and marshalled their medical expertise and material resources in support of anticolonial and antifascist struggles in Ethiopia, Europe, and the Caribbean. Within varied liberation projects, they also selectively embraced eugenicist ideologies to eliminate poverty and uplift the race. Caribbean Race Men of Medicine empowered themselves as medical patriarchs, reproducing white supremacist stereotypes about gender, morality, and black families and asserting their authority over the sexual lives and reproductive choices of black women and girls.
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In this issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, we examine the political ferment of the interwar period (1918–1939), tracking how gendered conceptions of rights, respectability, leadership, and belonging informed anti-colonial... more
In this issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, we examine the political ferment of the interwar period (1918–1939), tracking how gendered conceptions of rights, respectability, leadership, and belonging informed anti-colonial thought and praxis. Rather than constructing a singular narrative of Caribbean anti-colonialism, we grapple with the varied political visions and modes of resistance that animated critiques of colonial rule, attending at once to place-specific strategies and to shared regional agendas. The articles featured in this issue present new research on gender and anti-colonialism in Jamaica, Haiti, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Trinidad, British Guiana (Guyana), and Caribbean diasporic communities in Panama and the United States. We seek to disrupt the longstanding focus on the “fathers” of Caribbean nationalism by excavating women’s contributions to the region’s nationalist struggles. In addition, we foreground gender and sexuality as crucial sites of contestation within nationalist struggles to show how Caribbean women and men alike employed gender ideologies to assess grassroots resistance movements and new forms of belonging. Bridging the fields of women’s history and gender and sexuality studies, this issue offers a feminist analysis of the social, material, and discursive dimensions of anti-colonialism in the interwar-era Greater Caribbean.
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View on the IGDS You Tube Channel Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Playlist https://youtu.be/SPsT_2xGC7w This interview with Professor Patricia Mohammed highlights her reflections on more than 20 years in gender policy making across... more
View on the IGDS You Tube Channel Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Playlist https://youtu.be/SPsT_2xGC7w
This interview with Professor Patricia Mohammed highlights her reflections on more than 20 years in gender policy making across the Caribbean. It includes her experiences within the field, with a focus on how the process of gender policy making expanded her understanding of Caribbean society in unique ways. It explores the importance of forming relations with those in the state, on building consensus as part of the process of policy development and how to address the challenge of difference within the Caribbean. This interview provides an important and personal source of knowledge for Caribbean students, thinking about the benefits and contributions of gender policy making as well as the lessons that can be learned in order to continue working within the field. It also forms part of the “Making of Caribbean Feminisms”, which is a research theme of the IGDS, St. Augustine Unit, dedicated to documenting the lives and contributions of Caribbean feminists and the development of Caribbean feminisms.
This interview with Professor Patricia Mohammed highlights her reflections on more than 20 years in gender policy making across the Caribbean. It includes her experiences within the field, with a focus on how the process of gender policy making expanded her understanding of Caribbean society in unique ways. It explores the importance of forming relations with those in the state, on building consensus as part of the process of policy development and how to address the challenge of difference within the Caribbean. This interview provides an important and personal source of knowledge for Caribbean students, thinking about the benefits and contributions of gender policy making as well as the lessons that can be learned in order to continue working within the field. It also forms part of the “Making of Caribbean Feminisms”, which is a research theme of the IGDS, St. Augustine Unit, dedicated to documenting the lives and contributions of Caribbean feminists and the development of Caribbean feminisms.
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Book Review of
Negotiating Gender, Policy and Politics in the Caribbean: Feminist Strategies, Masculinist Resistance and Transformational Possibilities. Hosein, Gabrielle Jamela and Jane L. Parpart. 2017.
Negotiating Gender, Policy and Politics in the Caribbean: Feminist Strategies, Masculinist Resistance and Transformational Possibilities. Hosein, Gabrielle Jamela and Jane L. Parpart. 2017.
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View on the IGDS You Tube Channel Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Playlist https://youtu.be/DaLtwiWIdsA
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Director Frédérique Bedos’ film Des Femmes et Des Hommes, shown worldwide to mark International Women’s Day 2017, takes viewers around the world to hear from highly-placed women experts on the plight of women globally and the need for... more
Director Frédérique Bedos’ film Des Femmes et Des Hommes, shown worldwide to mark International Women’s Day 2017, takes viewers around the world to hear from highly-placed women experts on the plight of women globally and the need for gender equality. Bedos notes, at the beginning of her 2014 film, that she was inspired to make the film in response to then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s statement that women’s rights have suffered setbacks in the years since the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established, which in turn has impeded achievement of those goals. Read on...
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In this interview, Ronelle King, founder of the hashtag and organisation, #LifeInLeggings in Barbados, discusses her experiences in raising awareness and advocating for policy to end gender-based violence in the Caribbean. The interview... more
In this interview, Ronelle King, founder of the hashtag and organisation, #LifeInLeggings in Barbados, discusses her experiences in raising awareness and advocating for policy to end gender-based violence in the Caribbean. The interview focuses on her motivation to build awareness about sexual violence through a feminist consciousness, the reception she received by other Caribbean women and men and, last, her evaluation of social media as a tool for organising. King converted the momentum of #LifeInLeggings on social media into a young women-led organisation dedicated to policy change in Barbados. Her movement adds to the growing interest in cyberfeminisms in the Caribbean and to the longer study of social movements for gender justice in the region.
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Intersections of activism best describes the work Folade Mutota has dedicated her life to from the 1970’s to present. In this interview she shared extensively about both her personal and public self. She reflected deeply on those... more
Intersections of activism best describes the work Folade Mutota has dedicated her life to from the 1970’s to present. In this interview she shared extensively about both her personal and public self. She reflected deeply on those individuals, places and drivers that shape the politics and processes of her activism over time. Mutota’s insights on our Caribbean reality, international public policy and her civil society work around gun violence provided an invaluable resource for deliberating on the possibilities inherent in reordering the regional human security agenda by strategically integrating into it a gender perspective.
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In this piece, I discuss the ways in which my art practice becomes an opportunity to explore questions of identity - individual and collective – in ways that are specific to the nuances and complexities of the Caribbean. At the core of my... more
In this piece, I discuss the ways in which my art practice becomes an opportunity to explore questions of identity - individual and collective – in ways that are specific to the nuances and complexities of the Caribbean. At the core of my creative interrogations is desire to facilitate the subversion of intersecting oppressions by providing new and innovative ways of merging critical thinking and problem-solving qualities through social science disciplines and creative expression. I use the piece to grapple with the ways in which my art is simultaneously an effort at developing a visual language that speaks directly to the issues of our region.
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Perspectives on gender mainstreaming, like all matters of gender, are socially constructed. The politics of that social construction intersects with complexities of geopolitical identities, professional backgrounds and envisioned goals... more
Perspectives on gender mainstreaming, like all matters of gender, are socially constructed. The politics of that social construction intersects with complexities of geopolitical identities, professional backgrounds and envisioned goals for gender equity and equality. In this reflection Jane L Parpart and Deborah N McFee both share their perspectives on gender mainstreaming. Parpart, a feminist scholar, is clear as she espouses on the limitations of gender mainstreaming. Her underlying concern with the inability of gender mainstreaming to provide that necessary shift in development theory to critically accommodate feminist thought is an observation that has dogged the transformational potential of gender mainstreaming since its inception. McFee, who comes to gender and development research via a practitioner grounded lens, remains invested in the need to provide a multi-sectoral language of gender equity and equality that recasts and complicates women and men in the development project. This co-reflection brings to the fore the disciplinary cross-fertilization involved in translating policy goals into action and the necessary global debates that situates the making of public policy in women, gender and development within the multiple realities in which it finds its relevance.
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Arif Bulkan and Tracy Robinson provide a legal commentary that challenges modern-day public policy making in the Anglophone Caribbean to build more gender just societies by rejecting longstanding colonial criminal codes steeped in racial,... more
Arif Bulkan and Tracy Robinson provide a legal commentary that challenges modern-day public policy making in the Anglophone Caribbean to build more gender just societies by rejecting longstanding colonial criminal codes steeped in racial, sexual and gendered discrimination. The commentary presents the work of the UWI Rights Advocacy Project (U-RAP), an outreach activity of the Faculty of Law at the UWI, a project focussed on promoting social justice and human rights in the Anglophone Caribbean through the use of strategic litigation as an advocacy tool for gender justice. This paper explores the work of the project in the territories of Guyana and Belize to secure the rights of sexual minorities.
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Online social movements have allowed for a deepening of democracy by allowing individuals to more easily link with causes and issues that are important to them. Especially for the women’s rights movement, social platforms have allowed the... more
Online social movements have allowed for a deepening of democracy by allowing individuals to more easily link with causes and issues that are important to them. Especially for the women’s rights movement, social platforms have allowed the ‘personal’ – through the sharing of stories - to significantly impact the way lay-persons understand the political. This is a critical element in achieving gender justice, since it directly impacts entrenched attitudes and beliefs which are the driving forces of discrimination against women.
However, the ‘gatekeepers’ of democratic decision making processes - governments and multilateral mechanisms - still have the power to decide who participates and how. The gatekeepers use the argument of ‘legitimacy’ as a way to suppress participation of online social movements/organisations. Legitimacy in this sense is often defined in legal terms (articles of registration, financial and governance structures), but also in terms of ‘constituencies’. It may be argued that the ways in which people come to join online social movements - through hashtagging, signing online petitions, participating in cause-related campaigns - make it difficult to identify ‘real’ constituencies. There are no annual general meetings, no membership fees, no voting in of the board, none of the traditional legitimacy and transparency requirements.
This paper will explore the ways in which online movements are bypassing the gatekeepers and are ‘claiming spaces’: creating the rules and expanding the definition of legitimacy. It will seek to identify the methodologies and tools used by women and gender-focused CSOs in the Caribbean to legitimize their virtual constituencies and examine their success in impacting policy.
However, the ‘gatekeepers’ of democratic decision making processes - governments and multilateral mechanisms - still have the power to decide who participates and how. The gatekeepers use the argument of ‘legitimacy’ as a way to suppress participation of online social movements/organisations. Legitimacy in this sense is often defined in legal terms (articles of registration, financial and governance structures), but also in terms of ‘constituencies’. It may be argued that the ways in which people come to join online social movements - through hashtagging, signing online petitions, participating in cause-related campaigns - make it difficult to identify ‘real’ constituencies. There are no annual general meetings, no membership fees, no voting in of the board, none of the traditional legitimacy and transparency requirements.
This paper will explore the ways in which online movements are bypassing the gatekeepers and are ‘claiming spaces’: creating the rules and expanding the definition of legitimacy. It will seek to identify the methodologies and tools used by women and gender-focused CSOs in the Caribbean to legitimize their virtual constituencies and examine their success in impacting policy.
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This paper examines the lived experiences of silence, secrecy and invisibility for HIV positive -young people, as identified by youth researchers partnering with a social worker in youth participatory action research (YPAR). The paper... more
This paper examines the lived experiences of silence, secrecy and invisibility for HIV positive -young people, as identified by youth researchers partnering with a social worker in youth participatory action research (YPAR). The paper draws on a study that examined HIV disclosure for young people. Disclosure is primarily conceptualized as an act of telling, a risk-laden endeavour with perceived detrimental consequences for people living with HIV. Through youth-led data analysis, the social work researcher partnered with youth collaborators to interrogate interview data as well as data produced from a photovoice element of the study. Examinations of the impact of HIV on youth have characteristically treated young people as mutually exclusive sub-populations, namely youth who are HIV negative, youth who are perinatally infected and youth who have contracted HIV through sexual contact. These categories however ignore the reality that these sub-populations form integral parts of each other’s social world. The study engaged youth across these categories to collaboratively investigate disclosure for HIV positive youth. The study findings unmasked various oppressive structures at the core of risk and vulnerability for young people. Among the key findings is the extensive ways in which structural vulnerability impacts the lives of HIV positive youth. It is argued that addressing the vulnerability faced by young people living with HIV has to begin by addressing the ways in which policy makers, service providers and caregivers fail to see young people as knowing and capable agents. Furthermore, the first step towards remedying this deficit is the inclusion of young people in participatory democratic processes that value self-determination and treat young citizens in non-tokenistic ways.
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National gender policies continue to be offered as redemptive, an instrument that saves us from inequity, and excessive – an instrument that challenges scarce resources if implemented. In this paper, I try to engage this tension by first... more
National gender policies continue to be offered as redemptive, an instrument that saves us from inequity, and excessive – an instrument that challenges scarce resources if implemented. In this paper, I try to engage this tension by first examining the ways in which engagements with these policies are rendered and narrativized by Caribbean nation-states. I then argue for an affective turn, noting that if policy is to be effective it must first matter – people must care (as distinct from want). To this end, I argue for the building of “gender polities” and point to the work of queer activism in the region as a possible model for how this idea of a “gender polity” might prove to be effective.
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Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gender Policy (NGP) up to the end of 2017 remains in a state of policy inertia. While the passage of the NGP is a critical space for feminist activism, the content of the policy is similarly important and... more
Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gender Policy (NGP) up to the end of 2017 remains in a state of policy inertia. While the passage of the NGP is a critical space for feminist activism, the content of the policy is similarly important and must never be overlooked. The policy priorities of any given NGP establish gendered discourses among state actors, non-state actors and populations. These priorities determine the efficacy of the NGP as a necessary tool to advance gender equity and equality and they instruct on the meanings of gender within the given national policy terrain. This paper uses the NGP experience of post-genocide Rwanda, and its refusal to engage with rape as a crime against humanity as a policy priority, to explore persistent invisibilities and the challenges inherent in reconciling violence against women, with public policy making. The paper uses the backdrop of the Rwandan experience to deliberate on Trinidad and Tobago’s capacity to carve out its own response to violence against women in the absence of a comprehensive NGP framework.
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Women's programmes in the Caribbean supported by private American foundations turned upside down the usual working relations between grantor and grantee. By drawing together the historical records of the foundations active in the region... more
Women's programmes in the Caribbean supported by private American foundations turned upside down the usual working relations between grantor and grantee. By drawing together the historical records of the foundations active in the region with my personal programmatic experiences, in this article I argue that the focus on women in the mid-1970s emerged as a foundation priority in response to societal changes in the United States and global discussions with and led by developing countries. These changes, not heretofore highlighted, brought significant actors from the region to the attention of foundation staff and led to their influential programme-shaping roles. The main premise of my paper is that starting in the mid-1970s and continuing for nearly 20 years, these actors, primarily women scholars and activists, played a significant role in shaping foundation priorities and programmes.
In the introduction I briefly discuss the early twentieth century history of the first two foundations active in the region, the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York. The core of the article focuses on these two American foundations, Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation that in the second half of the century supported programmes in the Caribbean related to women in development. I conclude with recommendations for ways to deepen the understanding of this history and make it accessible for scholars, philanthropic practitioners and policymakers.
In the introduction I briefly discuss the early twentieth century history of the first two foundations active in the region, the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York. The core of the article focuses on these two American foundations, Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation that in the second half of the century supported programmes in the Caribbean related to women in development. I conclude with recommendations for ways to deepen the understanding of this history and make it accessible for scholars, philanthropic practitioners and policymakers.
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Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls play a central role in the United Nations (UN) transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which is designed to catalyse action at the global and national levels during the... more
Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls play a central role in the United Nations (UN) transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which is designed to catalyse action at the global and national levels during the next 15 years in areas deemed critical for the attainment of sustainable development through its 17 goals and 169 targets. Many of the targets recognise women’s equality and empowerment as both the objective and as part of the solution. Goal 5, the stand-alone gender goal, is dedicated to achieving these ends.
In this regard, the SDGs represent a significant step forward in promoting gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, covering for the first time areas such as the recognition and valuing of unpaid care and domestic work.
This paper focuses attention on the economic empowerment of women and girls as a strategy for accelerating gender equality through implementation of the SDGs, which provides the framework for mainstreaming gender issues into national policies and programmes. In making this argument, the paper highlights some of the major development challenges facing the Caribbean sub-region in its efforts to achieve greater equality, particularly gender equality, and to promote sustainable development for all.
In this regard, the SDGs represent a significant step forward in promoting gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, covering for the first time areas such as the recognition and valuing of unpaid care and domestic work.
This paper focuses attention on the economic empowerment of women and girls as a strategy for accelerating gender equality through implementation of the SDGs, which provides the framework for mainstreaming gender issues into national policies and programmes. In making this argument, the paper highlights some of the major development challenges facing the Caribbean sub-region in its efforts to achieve greater equality, particularly gender equality, and to promote sustainable development for all.
Research Interests:
Women’s political participation has been a key area of feminist activism in the region with women’s access to formal political power understood axiomatically as a resource which must be secured. The Caribbean’s boast of the Americas’... more
Women’s political participation has been a key area of feminist activism in the
region with women’s access to formal political power understood axiomatically as a resource which must be secured. The Caribbean’s boast of the Americas’ first elected woman head of government in 1980 and two women prime ministers serving simultaneously in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago suggest that the study of women’s political participation in the region should be of global interest. This timely volume returns to familiar Caribbean feminist territory by offering a feminist analysis of the state, breaking new ground in assessing feminist strategies of various kinds of state engagement. As a text which claims that its “aim was to gather original data that examined four feminist strategies to advance gender justice – women’s political leadership, national gender policies, electoral quota systems and transformational leadership”, the first chapter by editor Gabrielle Hosein disappoints as it reproduces biographical summaries of women political leaders in the Caribbean, the bulk of which are taken from Cynthia Barrow-Giles’ notable Women in Caribbean Leadership (2011). This shaky start notwithstanding, the collection resounds with the cutting voices and forceful analyses of notable Caribbean feminist activists whose reflections and thought are not frequently captured in scholarship make it a singular and delightful text.
region with women’s access to formal political power understood axiomatically as a resource which must be secured. The Caribbean’s boast of the Americas’ first elected woman head of government in 1980 and two women prime ministers serving simultaneously in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago suggest that the study of women’s political participation in the region should be of global interest. This timely volume returns to familiar Caribbean feminist territory by offering a feminist analysis of the state, breaking new ground in assessing feminist strategies of various kinds of state engagement. As a text which claims that its “aim was to gather original data that examined four feminist strategies to advance gender justice – women’s political leadership, national gender policies, electoral quota systems and transformational leadership”, the first chapter by editor Gabrielle Hosein disappoints as it reproduces biographical summaries of women political leaders in the Caribbean, the bulk of which are taken from Cynthia Barrow-Giles’ notable Women in Caribbean Leadership (2011). This shaky start notwithstanding, the collection resounds with the cutting voices and forceful analyses of notable Caribbean feminist activists whose reflections and thought are not frequently captured in scholarship make it a singular and delightful text.
Research Interests:
About Issue 11 This eleventh issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies invites us to reflect on the fraught and at times contentious relationship that sits at the intersections of gender, sexuality, geography and policy making in... more
About Issue 11 This eleventh issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies invites us to reflect on the fraught and at times contentious relationship that sits at the intersections of gender, sexuality, geography and policy making in the Anglophone Caribbean. The precarious experience of post-colonial states , the vulnerability of the local and regional to the economic and political whims of the global compels us to look again at the significance of policy making, but to do so from the vantage points of those who are most disadvantaged by the state's precarity. In this issue, we centre these voices and examine how policy might work toward achieving a more just Caribbean region. The essays, interviews, artistic contributions and commentaries carefully capture a host of researched positions, perceptions and viewpoints that facilitate an interwoven mapping of the politics of policy making as it pertains to women, gender and development.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Postgraduate Research Degrees awarded by the
Institute for Gender and Development Studies The University of the West Indies Nita Barrow Unit, Cave Hill, Barbados Regional Coordinating Unit, Mona, Jamaica St. Augustine Unit, Trinidad... more
Postgraduate Research Degrees
awarded by the Institute for Gender and Development Studies
The University of the West Indies
Nita Barrow Unit, Cave Hill, Barbados
Regional Coordinating Unit, Mona, Jamaica
St. Augustine Unit, Trinidad and Tobago
awarded by the Institute for Gender and Development Studies
The University of the West Indies
Nita Barrow Unit, Cave Hill, Barbados
Regional Coordinating Unit, Mona, Jamaica
St. Augustine Unit, Trinidad and Tobago
Research Interests:
In this gender dialogue I write from the standpoint of a socialist feminist man, first as a graduate student and research assistant of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine... more
In this gender dialogue I write from the standpoint of a socialist feminist man, first as a graduate student and research assistant of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus and then as an activist involved in the depatriarchal struggle for gender justice in the Caribbean. From this position I argue for a greater emphasis on a critique of neoliberal discourse by Caribbean feminist theorising in order to productively engage the experiences and trajectories of Caribbean youth today.
Research Interests:
“I Am Not A Girlie Girl”, an emphatic rejection of one feminine prototype conceptualised by a group of 29 female emerging adults (18-25) participating in my larger PhD investigation into the relevance of perceptions of gender identity to... more
“I Am Not A Girlie Girl”, an emphatic rejection of one feminine prototype conceptualised by a group of 29 female emerging adults (18-25) participating in my larger PhD investigation into the relevance of perceptions of gender identity to experiences of interpersonal communication conflict. Using feminist post structuralist discourse analysis, these young women’s talk was examined, in depth, in an effort to understand their perceptions of femininity. They identified seven feminine identities evident in Trinidad society but it is the “girlie girl” which became a prototype for rejection. This prototype, these Trinidadian young women defined as a form of extreme femininity, preoccupied with the production and maintenance of physical appearance and beauty and inherently stupid or ignorant. Their conversation during focus groups revealed an expressed negative attitude, overt rejection and emphatic and emotive negation of the “girlie girl” with careful rationalisation of a more acceptable idiosyncratic, neutral or masculine typical gender identity for self. For these tertiary level students, the physically beautiful “girlie girl” has power but that which makes her powerful also makes her powerless. The beautiful woman is ideal and prestigious but is also considered a threat to be controlled. The “girlie girl” is denied self-actualisation and accomplishment because while she is expected to be beautiful, once she is deemed to be such she is made passive, weak and dependent. As one respondent concluded “women can’t have it all you can’t be pretty and you can’t be smart… something have to be wrong with you”.
Research Interests:
Excerpt: This tenth issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies aptly highlights student research, some of which may not have otherwise been read outside of the university, and also provides a niche for current students and recent... more
Excerpt: This tenth issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies aptly highlights student research, some of which may not have otherwise been read outside of the university, and also provides a niche for current students and recent graduates to begin publishing their work in scholarly publications. The majority of pieces in this issue represent the research of current students and graduates of the IGDS units across the three campus units that offer a graduate programme. The issue exemplifies the rich tapestry of scholarly work and diverse research interests investigated though traditional and non-traditional modalities by students of the IGDS. It also includes work by postgraduate students who have been influenced by the work and tradition of Caribbean feminist theorising. The issue includes four peer reviewed papers, three gender dialogues, a photo essay, poetry, research in action and book review. The variety of entries not only speaks to the diversity in the output of the IGDS, but also to the range of issues still relevant to Caribbean gender and development studies. While grounded in the solid foundation of Caribbean feminist tradition, the entries challenge existing epistemologies, tease out critical ideas relating to gender identity, construct innovative dimensions for investigating 21st century challenges and force us to reckon with the future of gender studies as an ever-evolving space of discursive criticism.
Research Interests:
This paper explores the complex history of Caribbean feminist activism in the late twentieth-century, based on interviews with Peggy Antrobus of Barbados, Andaiye and Alissa Trotz of Guyana and Patricia Mohammed of Trinidad. It attempts... more
This paper explores the complex history of Caribbean feminist activism in the late twentieth-century, based on interviews with Peggy Antrobus of Barbados, Andaiye and Alissa Trotz of Guyana and Patricia Mohammed of Trinidad. It attempts to create a hitherto absent archive of these figures while interpreting their ideological and political positions. It is divided into three sections. The first explores the individual trajectories that gave these women a political consciousness. The second explores the regional and global linkages of Caribbean women's/feminist activism. The third discusses the long crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, including the decline of 'Left' projects and the impact of growth-oriented economic policies, and their role in engendering a Caribbean feminism which was not subordinated to larger nationalist or revolutionary projects. The paper ends by comparing how these persons have positioned themselves and reflect on the contemporary feminist movement.
Research Interests:
Caribbean writers have had extensive, creative engagement with ideas of history and historiography. They have confronted andro/Eurocentric scholarship that has marginalised the experiences of the Caribbean subjects; relegating their... more
Caribbean writers have had extensive, creative engagement with ideas of history and historiography. They have confronted andro/Eurocentric scholarship that has marginalised the experiences of the Caribbean subjects; relegating their culture and spirituality to caricatures and footnotes. Caribbean women writers have also had to confront instances where Caribbean womanhood was both marginalised by and erased from official historical records, their contribution to national development relegated to the dark spaces of history. In this paper I examine the recuperative strategies employed by Nalo Hopkinson, a later generational woman writer of Caribbean affiliation, in her text The Salt Roads. Hopkinson employs science fictional elements, combining them with Haitian spirituality to present her readers with a radical re-vision of three women; Jeanne Duval, the enigmatic mistress of famed French poet Charles Baudelaire, St. Mary of Egypt the Dusky Saint and Mer, a slave on St. Domingue just prior to the Makandal uprising. Reading The Salt Roads through rhizomatic lenses reveals the ways in which Hopkinson’s text journeys into the dark areas of history to present her readers with alternative ways of seeing and knowing maligned and marginalised historical figures.
Research Interests:
The election of President Hugo Chávez on December 6, 1998 was of great significance for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as his victory signalled the end of Venezuela’s legacy of exclusionary politics, to be replaced with a... more
The election of President Hugo Chávez on December 6, 1998 was of great significance for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as his victory signalled the end of Venezuela’s legacy of exclusionary politics, to be replaced with a participatory and protagonistic democracy of the Bolivarian Revolution and twenty-first century socialism. The revolution, especially through the non-androcentric and inclusionary constitution of 1999, along with the creation of misiones (missions or social programmes), has thus created spaces for poor and working class Venezuelans – and in particular, women – to exercise a new sense of citizenship, rights, inclusion and newly politicised social roles. In this way, the revolution has largely benefitted poor and working class women and in return the revolution has been sustained.
The use of feminism as a popular tool of the state has also allowed for not only the creation of this new Bolivarian state but these have also greatly impacted the process of change for Venezuelan women and especially in the relationships of poorer women with the Bolivarian state, Chávez and what appears to be a polarised feminist movement. As such, certain contradictions exist thereby challenging the transformative potential of the revolution on the lives of poorer women.
The use of feminism as a popular tool of the state has also allowed for not only the creation of this new Bolivarian state but these have also greatly impacted the process of change for Venezuelan women and especially in the relationships of poorer women with the Bolivarian state, Chávez and what appears to be a polarised feminist movement. As such, certain contradictions exist thereby challenging the transformative potential of the revolution on the lives of poorer women.
Research Interests:
This paper offers a reading of young black women’s sexuality, agency and notions of black female criminality in the music video for the soca song “Party Done” by Angela Hunte and Machel Montano. Given the paucity of active female... more
This paper offers a reading of young black women’s sexuality, agency and notions of black female criminality in the music video for the soca song “Party Done” by Angela Hunte and Machel Montano. Given the paucity of active female protagonists in Trinidadian music videos and elsewhere, this video is unique in its use of young, urban, black women as the centre of the work. With reference to positions by Patricia Hill Collins, Rosamond King and others, I deconstruct the video’s underlying narrative: black working class women as capable of being “carefree”. I make a case that the video is framed as a short film and I read it using film analysis techniques.
Research Interests:
Human Trafficking is ranked as the second fastest growing international crime, behind the trade of illegal drugs. Human Trafficking impacts social, cultural, economic development. In 2014, Jamaica was recognised as a Tier Two Watch List... more
Human Trafficking is ranked as the second fastest growing international crime, behind the trade of illegal drugs. Human Trafficking impacts social, cultural, economic development. In 2014, Jamaica was recognised as a Tier Two Watch List country by the United States Agency for International Development. Nations that fall in this group are those whose governments do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s (TVPA) minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards. These countries have a significant number of victims of severe forms of trafficking but fail to provide sufficient evidence of increased efforts to combat these severe forms of trafficking in persons.1 (State Report 2012, 51) Jamaica has been classified as a source, transit and destination country 2 (State Report 2012, 197) in the global multibillion-dollar trafficking in person trafficking in persons.
In this paper an analysis of the literature will undertake the state’s response to the issue with specific focus on the trafficking of women and young girls is examined by the three pillars of prosecution, prevention and protection, which seek to guide the initiatives implemented by the government in an effort to ensure it is effective. Qualitative and quantitative methods of data collections will be used to speak to this matter. The initiatives that have been put in place by the government is measured against the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, more popularly known as the Palmero Protocol and the data will be analysed by the Theoretical Framework.
In this paper an analysis of the literature will undertake the state’s response to the issue with specific focus on the trafficking of women and young girls is examined by the three pillars of prosecution, prevention and protection, which seek to guide the initiatives implemented by the government in an effort to ensure it is effective. Qualitative and quantitative methods of data collections will be used to speak to this matter. The initiatives that have been put in place by the government is measured against the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, more popularly known as the Palmero Protocol and the data will be analysed by the Theoretical Framework.
Research Interests:
The purpose of this photographic essay is to outline the questions, research, and methodology for a study on how furniture design aesthetics reinforce power relationships with a particular attention to gender. What homes look like, what... more
The purpose of this photographic essay is to outline the questions, research, and methodology for a study on how furniture design aesthetics reinforce power relationships with a particular attention to gender. What homes look like, what they contain, how they are inhabited, and how they are represented are always functions of the totality of social practices that constitute culture at particular times and places (Logan 2002, 299).
Furniture design can be defined as the mental processes that take place before, during and after its manufacturing for this purpose. It is part of a broader field, industrial design which has inadvertently permeated practically every aspect of our lives (i.e. cellphones, iPads, smart watches, etc.) and therefore, brought attention to its significance and transcendence. This increased interest in the sociological and cultural aspects of design has been a fundamental catalyst for the development of design research and its many related fields - from research through, for or about design to constructive design research and a newfound understanding of design’s role in propagating and counteracting oppression (Prado de O. Martins 2014, 1, 5).
Furniture design can be defined as the mental processes that take place before, during and after its manufacturing for this purpose. It is part of a broader field, industrial design which has inadvertently permeated practically every aspect of our lives (i.e. cellphones, iPads, smart watches, etc.) and therefore, brought attention to its significance and transcendence. This increased interest in the sociological and cultural aspects of design has been a fundamental catalyst for the development of design research and its many related fields - from research through, for or about design to constructive design research and a newfound understanding of design’s role in propagating and counteracting oppression (Prado de O. Martins 2014, 1, 5).
Research Interests:
The paper explores the usefulness of Carnival Theatre as an empowerment and transformative process for long-term and lifer inmates in Trinidad’s Maximum Security Prison. Carnival Theatre is an umbrella term for a process that includes the... more
The paper explores the usefulness of Carnival Theatre as an empowerment and transformative process for long-term and lifer inmates in Trinidad’s Maximum Security Prison. Carnival Theatre is an umbrella term for a process that includes the techniques of ritual, carnival, and theatre as well as the insights of restorative justice, mediation and transpersonal psychology. It is culturally-based, drawing on Trinidad’s J’ouvert Carnival traditions as possible role models for agency and self-determination. Through engagement with traditional moves and speeches which both acknowledge and mock the social order and the status quo of the day, long-term and lifer inmates explore and evaluate notions of justice, identity, empowerment and transformation. The restorative justice, mediation and transpersonal psychology strands facilitate functional intra- and interpersonal relationships. Together the strands become part of a journey towards authenticity and individuation. The Carnival Theatre process exposes and underlines the need for strategies and techniques designed to explicitly address the fundamental intra-personal base of the Restorative Justice Policy. Its present application is not adequate for the particular needs of long-term and lifer inmates who, as the offenders, rarely if ever meet with the victims and/or larger community.
Research Interests:
Nicholas "Abioye Munashe" Gilbert
The Soroptimists
and
The Misogynist
The Soroptimists
and
The Misogynist
Research Interests:
Book Review of Islam and the Americas Edited by Aisha Khan University Press of Florida, 2015 Editor Aisha Khan writes in her introduction, “This is a book about Muslims as they craft Islam in the new world of the Americas”. Khan is not... more
Book Review
of
Islam and the Americas
Edited by Aisha Khan
University Press of Florida, 2015
Editor Aisha Khan writes in her introduction, “This is a book about Muslims as they craft Islam in the new world of the Americas”. Khan is not interested in Islamic origins and diasporic dispersions as a claim to authenticity but in the multiple ontological states of being Muslim. She is interested in how people in small undocumented communities who have had relatively long histories of Islamic practices live that experience and in so doing participate in the making of those societies.
of
Islam and the Americas
Edited by Aisha Khan
University Press of Florida, 2015
Editor Aisha Khan writes in her introduction, “This is a book about Muslims as they craft Islam in the new world of the Americas”. Khan is not interested in Islamic origins and diasporic dispersions as a claim to authenticity but in the multiple ontological states of being Muslim. She is interested in how people in small undocumented communities who have had relatively long histories of Islamic practices live that experience and in so doing participate in the making of those societies.
Research Interests:
Beyond the Frontiers: Feminist Activism in the ‘Global’ Academy Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium and 15th Anniversary celebration, CGDS, Mona, Jamaica, November 2008 Amina Mama Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership, Mills... more
Beyond the Frontiers: Feminist Activism in the ‘Global’ Academy
Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium and 15th Anniversary celebration,
CGDS, Mona, Jamaica, November 2008
Amina Mama
Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership, Mills College, Oakland, California
Now; Professor of Women and Gender Studies, University of California, Davis
Introduction
The Caribbean and Africa today share the challenges of being post-colonial contexts in the era of globalization. In some ways this merely reflects the long and durable historical relationship between the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora – as manifest in creative, activist and scholarly communities. Many leading postcolonial theorists from the Caribbean region visited and contributed significantly to Africa’s liberation – Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, and George Padmore are among the best known. Even Che Guevara spent time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo before his ill-fated Bolivian journey. I am not sure if Elsa Leo Rhynie had any direct contact with Africa, but her work on gender in higher education has been useful. Other Caribbean feminists have direct involvement with Africa. Dr Peggy Antrobus has visited and contributed to the region many times, and close to hand, Professor Rhoda Reddock is well known to African feminists, and has recently spent a sabbatical at the African Gender Institute working
Read more
Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium and 15th Anniversary celebration,
CGDS, Mona, Jamaica, November 2008
Amina Mama
Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership, Mills College, Oakland, California
Now; Professor of Women and Gender Studies, University of California, Davis
Introduction
The Caribbean and Africa today share the challenges of being post-colonial contexts in the era of globalization. In some ways this merely reflects the long and durable historical relationship between the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora – as manifest in creative, activist and scholarly communities. Many leading postcolonial theorists from the Caribbean region visited and contributed significantly to Africa’s liberation – Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, and George Padmore are among the best known. Even Che Guevara spent time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo before his ill-fated Bolivian journey. I am not sure if Elsa Leo Rhynie had any direct contact with Africa, but her work on gender in higher education has been useful. Other Caribbean feminists have direct involvement with Africa. Dr Peggy Antrobus has visited and contributed to the region many times, and close to hand, Professor Rhoda Reddock is well known to African feminists, and has recently spent a sabbatical at the African Gender Institute working
Read more
Research Interests:
The study of Caribbean men is by no means new. However, the emergence of men and masculinities studies in the Caribbean, or what Rhoda Reddock refers (2004) to as the study of men as “gendered beings,” can be located within a larger body... more
The study of Caribbean men is by no means new. However, the emergence of men and masculinities studies in the Caribbean, or what Rhoda Reddock refers (2004) to as the study of men as “gendered beings,” can be located within a larger body of gender and sexuality studies research produced within the last three decades. This Caribbean Review of Gender Studies special issue on Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities represents a series of critical conversations intended to track a range of concerns related to gender, sexuality, men and masculinities in the Caribbean. This issue has been in the making for a very long-time and indeed persistence pays off. The study of Caribbean men and masculinities is an interdisciplinary research field focusing on non-western masculinities studies. The current special issue reflects the diverse sub-themes that have characterised men and masculinities research in the Caribbean to date.
Research Interests:
Author’s Note Undertaking the research for this paper proved to be a challenging exercise. A theme such as ‘The Experience of Engendering Local Government in the Commonwealth Caribbean’ assumes that information on local government exists... more
Author’s Note
Undertaking the research for this paper proved to be a challenging exercise. A theme such as ‘The Experience of Engendering Local Government in the Commonwealth Caribbean’ assumes that information on local government exists and what is perhaps lacking is how women have fared in local government structure. Instead I found there is a paucity of information on local government in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Very little documented, accessible information exists. Library searches and different types of consultations and referrals reveal inadequate sources of information on women and local government. I was forced to modify the title of the paper because at this phase we do not yet know the experiences of women and local government.
Undertaking the research for this paper proved to be a challenging exercise. A theme such as ‘The Experience of Engendering Local Government in the Commonwealth Caribbean’ assumes that information on local government exists and what is perhaps lacking is how women have fared in local government structure. Instead I found there is a paucity of information on local government in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Very little documented, accessible information exists. Library searches and different types of consultations and referrals reveal inadequate sources of information on women and local government. I was forced to modify the title of the paper because at this phase we do not yet know the experiences of women and local government.
Research Interests:
Editor’s Note Violet Eudine Barriteau Working Paper no. 2 is the text of the fourth lecture in the series Caribbean Women Catalysts For Change organised by the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, Cave Hill. The series, dedicated to... more
Editor’s Note
Violet Eudine Barriteau
Working Paper no. 2 is the text of the fourth lecture in the series Caribbean Women Catalysts For Change organised by the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, Cave Hill. The series, dedicated to honouring the memory of Dame Nita Barrow, late Governor General of Barbados, is part of a research project dedicated to analyzing and documenting the contributions of outstanding Caribbean women in the fields of: regional and international development; trade; politics and political participation; trade unionism and agricultural development.
Violet Eudine Barriteau
Working Paper no. 2 is the text of the fourth lecture in the series Caribbean Women Catalysts For Change organised by the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, Cave Hill. The series, dedicated to honouring the memory of Dame Nita Barrow, late Governor General of Barbados, is part of a research project dedicated to analyzing and documenting the contributions of outstanding Caribbean women in the fields of: regional and international development; trade; politics and political participation; trade unionism and agricultural development.
Research Interests:
Editor’s Note Working Paper number 5 began as a research project by undergraduate exchange student Tara Atluri to satisfy course work requirements for the course AR22B Women’s Studies. This is an introductory course offered in semester II... more
Editor’s Note
Working Paper number 5 began as a research project by undergraduate exchange student Tara Atluri to satisfy course work requirements for the course AR22B Women’s Studies. This is an introductory course offered in semester II of the academic year 1999-2000.
Tara Atluri is presently completing her fourth and final year of undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus, University College where she is pursuing an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in the Faculty of Arts and Science.
Tara spent an academic year at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados where she completed various Law, Women’s Studies, Political Science and Literature courses. She became interested in the issue of homophobia in the Caribbean after noticing a correlation between attitudes of intolerance towards homosexuals and widely accepted sexual attitudes of intolerance towards women.
She firmly believes that a women’s movement that remains unconnected to issues of homophobia is failing to examine the root ideologies upon which patriarchy and sexism are based, and is therefore patching things up without ever challenging the source of the problem.
Tara Atluri’s work represents the output of a new generation of budding feminist scholars that the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at Cave Hill is committed to supporting.
Working Paper number 5 began as a research project by undergraduate exchange student Tara Atluri to satisfy course work requirements for the course AR22B Women’s Studies. This is an introductory course offered in semester II of the academic year 1999-2000.
Tara Atluri is presently completing her fourth and final year of undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus, University College where she is pursuing an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in the Faculty of Arts and Science.
Tara spent an academic year at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados where she completed various Law, Women’s Studies, Political Science and Literature courses. She became interested in the issue of homophobia in the Caribbean after noticing a correlation between attitudes of intolerance towards homosexuals and widely accepted sexual attitudes of intolerance towards women.
She firmly believes that a women’s movement that remains unconnected to issues of homophobia is failing to examine the root ideologies upon which patriarchy and sexism are based, and is therefore patching things up without ever challenging the source of the problem.
Tara Atluri’s work represents the output of a new generation of budding feminist scholars that the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at Cave Hill is committed to supporting.
Research Interests:
Editor's Note Working Paper No.14 is based on a lecture delivered by Dr. Alissa Trotz, Associate Professor, New College University of Toronto, USA. Dr. Trotz delivered the 13th lecture in the series, Caribbean Women: Catalysts for Change... more
Editor's Note
Working Paper No.14 is based on a lecture delivered by Dr. Alissa Trotz, Associate Professor, New College University of Toronto, USA. Dr. Trotz delivered the 13th lecture in the series, Caribbean Women: Catalysts for Change on November 16th 2007; this series is dedicated to honouring the memory of Dame Nita Barrow, Governor General of Barbados 1990-1995, and the first subject of the research project, Caribbean Women: Catalysts for Change.
As a Caribbean feminist and scholar, Dr. Trotz mines the intersecting sites of diaspora, identities and constantly shifting Caribbean political economy. In the process she offers a searing assessment of a creeping social fragmentation in the region facilitated by the politics of polarization and division. While maintaining that we need to move past defensiveness and to engage each other, she proffers a different future and concludes with the gift of sociality. It is a social blue print from the indigenous Wai Wai of Guyana on how we can remain each other’s keepers. She uses three dimensions of Dame Nita’s public life to organize her lecture on the theme “Gender, Generation and Memory: Remembering a Future Caribbean.” These themes are the Social Geography of a Pan-Caribbean Identity, Caribbean Movement and Political Conflict, and Social Justice and Gender Equality.
Working Paper No.14 is based on a lecture delivered by Dr. Alissa Trotz, Associate Professor, New College University of Toronto, USA. Dr. Trotz delivered the 13th lecture in the series, Caribbean Women: Catalysts for Change on November 16th 2007; this series is dedicated to honouring the memory of Dame Nita Barrow, Governor General of Barbados 1990-1995, and the first subject of the research project, Caribbean Women: Catalysts for Change.
As a Caribbean feminist and scholar, Dr. Trotz mines the intersecting sites of diaspora, identities and constantly shifting Caribbean political economy. In the process she offers a searing assessment of a creeping social fragmentation in the region facilitated by the politics of polarization and division. While maintaining that we need to move past defensiveness and to engage each other, she proffers a different future and concludes with the gift of sociality. It is a social blue print from the indigenous Wai Wai of Guyana on how we can remain each other’s keepers. She uses three dimensions of Dame Nita’s public life to organize her lecture on the theme “Gender, Generation and Memory: Remembering a Future Caribbean.” These themes are the Social Geography of a Pan-Caribbean Identity, Caribbean Movement and Political Conflict, and Social Justice and Gender Equality.
Research Interests:
Editor’s Note This is a special publication by the Institute of Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit to honour Kathleen Bibiana Drayton, one of the stalwarts of the Women’s movement in academia in the Caribbean. Since 1992 an... more
Editor’s Note
This is a special publication by the Institute of Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit to honour Kathleen Bibiana Drayton, one of the stalwarts of the Women’s movement in academia in the Caribbean.
Since 1992 an intensive summer course in Gender and Development has been offered by the Cave Hill Campus which brings together individuals from academia, NGOs, and other interested persons to expose them to an analysis of development from a gender perspective. As part of one of the activities during the summer course, a Caribbean woman who has contributed with her academic, political, and activist work to improving the life of Caribbean women is honoured. Honorees include Dr. Lucille Marthurin Mair, Dr. Peggy Antrobus, Dr. Joycelyn Massiah, Mrs. Mazie Barker-Welch, Mrs. Hermione McKenzie, and Mrs.
Kathleen Drayton.
On July 3, 2009 as the honouree of the 8th Caribbean Institute in Gender and Development, Kathleen in the opening ceremony delivered a speech that took the listener on a journey through not only her life but also to the socio-economic and racial realities of Caribbean people, particularly in Trinidad and Tobago, during the Crown Colony period of the British colonial rule. She captured the interest of those who were listening, and motivated the younger audience to become interested in the realities of the women of her time.
Sadly, Kathleen died two days later. To mark her sterling contribution to the women’s movement in the Caribbean, the Institute considers it fitting to make available this special publication on International Women’s Day. The issues of women’s concerns and her broader call for justice have characterised much of her academic and personal life.
This is a special publication by the Institute of Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit to honour Kathleen Bibiana Drayton, one of the stalwarts of the Women’s movement in academia in the Caribbean.
Since 1992 an intensive summer course in Gender and Development has been offered by the Cave Hill Campus which brings together individuals from academia, NGOs, and other interested persons to expose them to an analysis of development from a gender perspective. As part of one of the activities during the summer course, a Caribbean woman who has contributed with her academic, political, and activist work to improving the life of Caribbean women is honoured. Honorees include Dr. Lucille Marthurin Mair, Dr. Peggy Antrobus, Dr. Joycelyn Massiah, Mrs. Mazie Barker-Welch, Mrs. Hermione McKenzie, and Mrs.
Kathleen Drayton.
On July 3, 2009 as the honouree of the 8th Caribbean Institute in Gender and Development, Kathleen in the opening ceremony delivered a speech that took the listener on a journey through not only her life but also to the socio-economic and racial realities of Caribbean people, particularly in Trinidad and Tobago, during the Crown Colony period of the British colonial rule. She captured the interest of those who were listening, and motivated the younger audience to become interested in the realities of the women of her time.
Sadly, Kathleen died two days later. To mark her sterling contribution to the women’s movement in the Caribbean, the Institute considers it fitting to make available this special publication on International Women’s Day. The issues of women’s concerns and her broader call for justice have characterised much of her academic and personal life.
Research Interests:
Unlike the majority of our journal issues, this special issue is both commemorative and archival. It contains a selection of papers, keynote speeches and working papers presented over two decades by the Centre for Gender and Development... more
Unlike the majority of our journal issues, this special issue is both commemorative
and archival. It contains a selection of papers, keynote speeches and working
papers presented over two decades by the Centre for Gender and
Development Studies (CGDS), now, Institute for Gender and Development
Studies (IGDS), that are brought together in one volume for easy recall and
retrieval by scholars and students. In this issue, we highlight in particular, papers
from the CGDS 15th Anniversary Conference which honoured Professor Elsa Leo-
Rhynie, the first Professor appointed in the field of Women and Development
Studies at The University of the West Indies.
and archival. It contains a selection of papers, keynote speeches and working
papers presented over two decades by the Centre for Gender and
Development Studies (CGDS), now, Institute for Gender and Development
Studies (IGDS), that are brought together in one volume for easy recall and
retrieval by scholars and students. In this issue, we highlight in particular, papers
from the CGDS 15th Anniversary Conference which honoured Professor Elsa Leo-
Rhynie, the first Professor appointed in the field of Women and Development
Studies at The University of the West Indies.
Research Interests:
Introduction It is an incredible honour to have been invited to share this twentieth birthday of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies. I would like to thank the faculty, staff and students for their amazing warmth and... more
Introduction
It is an incredible honour to have been invited to share this twentieth birthday of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies. I would like to thank the faculty, staff and students for their amazing warmth and hospitality. Let me take this opportunity to also recognize Professor Barbara Bailey, whose commitment to gender equality is manifested not just in her contribution as Regional Coordinator of the IGDS, but in the work she has accomplished nationally, regionally and internationally. In particular, Professor Bailey’s commitment to education and the foundational texts in Caribbean Gender Studies that she has co-authored/coedited are an amazing legacy for generations of scholars to come.
We know that the IGDS was a dimension of women’s and feminist activism in the Caribbean, from WAND to CAFRA, from Sistren to NUDE. We had taken our struggle to the academy, making these institutional spaces the site of our demands for recognition. Today the IGDS boasts a regional programme with a superb publication record, training undergraduate and graduate students, initiating collaborations with academic partners and communities. It extends itself to wider communities, whether it is the open access feminist journal at St Augustine, the work at Mona with Haitian colleagues after the earthquake to develop a certificate programme in Gender Studies, or the Summer Institute in Gender Studies at Cave Hill which brings together university students, farmers, civil servants, community activists and police officers from across the region.
It is an incredible honour to have been invited to share this twentieth birthday of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies. I would like to thank the faculty, staff and students for their amazing warmth and hospitality. Let me take this opportunity to also recognize Professor Barbara Bailey, whose commitment to gender equality is manifested not just in her contribution as Regional Coordinator of the IGDS, but in the work she has accomplished nationally, regionally and internationally. In particular, Professor Bailey’s commitment to education and the foundational texts in Caribbean Gender Studies that she has co-authored/coedited are an amazing legacy for generations of scholars to come.
We know that the IGDS was a dimension of women’s and feminist activism in the Caribbean, from WAND to CAFRA, from Sistren to NUDE. We had taken our struggle to the academy, making these institutional spaces the site of our demands for recognition. Today the IGDS boasts a regional programme with a superb publication record, training undergraduate and graduate students, initiating collaborations with academic partners and communities. It extends itself to wider communities, whether it is the open access feminist journal at St Augustine, the work at Mona with Haitian colleagues after the earthquake to develop a certificate programme in Gender Studies, or the Summer Institute in Gender Studies at Cave Hill which brings together university students, farmers, civil servants, community activists and police officers from across the region.
Research Interests:
Introduction In this lecture Prof. Barriteau applies Anna Jonasdottir’s construction of ‘love power’ towards developing a theory of sexuality and power in the contemporary Commonwealth Caribbean using Barbados as a case study. She engages... more
Introduction
In this lecture Prof. Barriteau applies Anna Jonasdottir’s construction of ‘love power’ towards developing a theory of sexuality and power in the contemporary Commonwealth Caribbean using Barbados as a case study. She engages in a triple play on the meanings of the word ‘coming’ and anchors
these meanings to black feminist theorising of the concept of ‘home’.
She explores some of the complications that romantic loving pose for Caribbean women. Of particular interest is the revelation of the continuities between ongoing attempts to subordinate women and the sense of powerlessness that often arises in women’s heterosexual, socio-sexual unions. She attempts to track how these complications become extrapolated into wider systemic inequalities, (especially in conditions of work and employment), even as these are simultaneously reflected back onto the individual relationships and their representations of gendered hierarchies of power and inequalities.
Pivotal to the analysis is the centrality of work in Caribbean women’s lives, as they navigate the intersections of the public and the private, production and reproduction. The challenge is to work backwards and forwards from the dynamics of that basic union (played out in private, intimate spaces such as the home), to contemporary developments in Caribbean political economy.
In this lecture Prof. Barriteau applies Anna Jonasdottir’s construction of ‘love power’ towards developing a theory of sexuality and power in the contemporary Commonwealth Caribbean using Barbados as a case study. She engages in a triple play on the meanings of the word ‘coming’ and anchors
these meanings to black feminist theorising of the concept of ‘home’.
She explores some of the complications that romantic loving pose for Caribbean women. Of particular interest is the revelation of the continuities between ongoing attempts to subordinate women and the sense of powerlessness that often arises in women’s heterosexual, socio-sexual unions. She attempts to track how these complications become extrapolated into wider systemic inequalities, (especially in conditions of work and employment), even as these are simultaneously reflected back onto the individual relationships and their representations of gendered hierarchies of power and inequalities.
Pivotal to the analysis is the centrality of work in Caribbean women’s lives, as they navigate the intersections of the public and the private, production and reproduction. The challenge is to work backwards and forwards from the dynamics of that basic union (played out in private, intimate spaces such as the home), to contemporary developments in Caribbean political economy.
Research Interests:
Background On November 25th 2008, the Centre for Gender and Development Studies launched the Women and Development Studies Group (WDSG) component of the Making of the Caribbean Feminisms Special Collection. This component was collected... more
Background
On November 25th 2008, the Centre for Gender and Development Studies launched the Women and Development Studies Group (WDSG) component of the Making of the Caribbean Feminisms Special Collection. This component was
collected and compiled by the then CGDS (now IGDS) to hand over to the Main Library (now The Alma Jordan Library, Special Collections) of The University of the West Indies. The first installment of the Bibliographic Dictionary was part of
this collection and included interviews of women who have contributed to the making of Caribbean Feminisms over the years. The interviews and their transcriptions were also part of the project submitted to the Main Library. The work on this collection is ongoing.
On November 25th 2008, the Centre for Gender and Development Studies launched the Women and Development Studies Group (WDSG) component of the Making of the Caribbean Feminisms Special Collection. This component was
collected and compiled by the then CGDS (now IGDS) to hand over to the Main Library (now The Alma Jordan Library, Special Collections) of The University of the West Indies. The first installment of the Bibliographic Dictionary was part of
this collection and included interviews of women who have contributed to the making of Caribbean Feminisms over the years. The interviews and their transcriptions were also part of the project submitted to the Main Library. The work on this collection is ongoing.
Research Interests:
Excerpt: It is both an honour and a delight for me to be here with you to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS) and to have been invited to participate in the St. Augustine celebration in... more
Excerpt:
It is both an honour and a delight for me to be here with you to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS) and to have been invited to participate in the St. Augustine celebration in this special way. I thank especially Professor Reddock and Dr. Mohammed, Rhoda and Pat, for inviting me, and thank you all for coming to share with us. I bring greetings from the Mona and Regional Coordinating Units in Jamaica and special good wishes from Professor Barbara Bailey, Regional Coordinator of the CGDS.
It is both an honour and a delight for me to be here with you to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS) and to have been invited to participate in the St. Augustine celebration in this special way. I thank especially Professor Reddock and Dr. Mohammed, Rhoda and Pat, for inviting me, and thank you all for coming to share with us. I bring greetings from the Mona and Regional Coordinating Units in Jamaica and special good wishes from Professor Barbara Bailey, Regional Coordinator of the CGDS.
Research Interests:
Excerpt: Once upon a time, when the world was young, and women knew their places and men were assured of theirs. When women were the gatherers and the homemakers and men the hunters, protectors and providers, they all lived happily ever... more
Excerpt:
Once upon a time, when the world was young, and women knew their places and men were assured of theirs. When women were the gatherers and the homemakers and men the hunters, protectors and providers, they all lived happily ever after… But was this the real story of the evolution of human culture, or is there another one waiting to be told? The history of most societies, if we look in the right places, is fertile with examples of women and men who did not conform and who challenged the limits of the time and space in which they lived. At one time women who disobeyed the unwritten rules were burnt as witches or consigned to the nunnery to spend the rest of their days. Yet history also redeems these same women who once defied the norms. Joan of Arc is an eloquent example.
Once upon a time, when the world was young, and women knew their places and men were assured of theirs. When women were the gatherers and the homemakers and men the hunters, protectors and providers, they all lived happily ever after… But was this the real story of the evolution of human culture, or is there another one waiting to be told? The history of most societies, if we look in the right places, is fertile with examples of women and men who did not conform and who challenged the limits of the time and space in which they lived. At one time women who disobeyed the unwritten rules were burnt as witches or consigned to the nunnery to spend the rest of their days. Yet history also redeems these same women who once defied the norms. Joan of Arc is an eloquent example.
Research Interests:
Becoming Elsa 18:53 minutes Director/Scriptwriter: Patricia Mohammed Production Assistant and Co-Direction: Hilary Nicholson Editors: Michael Mooleedhar and Christopher Din Chong Camera 1: Mark Gentles Camera Assistant: Lehard Colthirst... more
Becoming Elsa
18:53 minutes
Director/Scriptwriter: Patricia Mohammed
Production Assistant and Co-Direction: Hilary Nicholson
Editors: Michael Mooleedhar and Christopher Din Chong
Camera 1: Mark Gentles
Camera Assistant: Lehard Colthirst
Sound Engineer: David Osbourne
Camera 2: Patricia Mohammed
Commissioned and published by
Regional Coordinating Unit
Centre for Gender and Development Studies
The University of the West Indies
Mona, Jamaica
Special Thanks
Elsa Leo Rhynie
Marlene Hamilton
Barbara Bailey
Andrew Leo Rhynie
Shakira Maxwell
The Public Relations Office, The UWI, Kingston Jamaica
Copyright 2009
18:53 minutes
Director/Scriptwriter: Patricia Mohammed
Production Assistant and Co-Direction: Hilary Nicholson
Editors: Michael Mooleedhar and Christopher Din Chong
Camera 1: Mark Gentles
Camera Assistant: Lehard Colthirst
Sound Engineer: David Osbourne
Camera 2: Patricia Mohammed
Commissioned and published by
Regional Coordinating Unit
Centre for Gender and Development Studies
The University of the West Indies
Mona, Jamaica
Special Thanks
Elsa Leo Rhynie
Marlene Hamilton
Barbara Bailey
Andrew Leo Rhynie
Shakira Maxwell
The Public Relations Office, The UWI, Kingston Jamaica
Copyright 2009
Research Interests:
Introduction This paper seeks to explore the male student/female academic experience through the personal journey of a student who, at the time, unknowingly came to recognise the importance of gender and leadership in education. It is a... more
Introduction
This paper seeks to explore the male student/female academic experience through the personal journey of a student who, at the time, unknowingly came to recognise the importance of gender and leadership in education. It is a narrative. A narrative, because it is a tool that best captures the way in which I wish to reflect on the work of Elsa Leo-Rhynie.
This paper seeks to explore the male student/female academic experience through the personal journey of a student who, at the time, unknowingly came to recognise the importance of gender and leadership in education. It is a narrative. A narrative, because it is a tool that best captures the way in which I wish to reflect on the work of Elsa Leo-Rhynie.
Research Interests:
Introduction I am a ‘pro-feminist masculinist’. I always received laughs whenever I introduced myself as such in some of my graduate classes in Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies at Mona. The chuckles were... more
Introduction
I am a ‘pro-feminist masculinist’. I always received laughs whenever I introduced myself as such in some of my graduate classes in Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies at Mona. The chuckles were however not uninformed and as the only male in the class for most of the courses, I was accepted in this new socio-academic category which I had carved out for myself. As a social work practitioner at the community level, the response was never quite the same whenever I declared I was supportive of feminism. In all fairness, in my professional life, I have less declared myself a pro-feminist than a feminist, and this battle still rages within me for a number of reasons. Firstly, when I say I am a feminist, people misunderstand and of course a discussion has to ensue on who is a feminist - that being a person who supports efforts to ensure that women have the same rights, freedoms, opportunities, and privileges as men. The misunderstanding among many with whom I have had this discussion is, more often than not, a mistaken association of feminists and feminism with feminine or effeminate behaviours and attitudes, or with the bra-burning, anti-male sentiments and imagery that characterized the radical second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Whatever the association, in each case I have felt that I have had to justify myself so as not to seem to wholly betray my masculine gender identity or the ‘manhood club’ to which I putatively belonged.
I am a ‘pro-feminist masculinist’. I always received laughs whenever I introduced myself as such in some of my graduate classes in Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies at Mona. The chuckles were however not uninformed and as the only male in the class for most of the courses, I was accepted in this new socio-academic category which I had carved out for myself. As a social work practitioner at the community level, the response was never quite the same whenever I declared I was supportive of feminism. In all fairness, in my professional life, I have less declared myself a pro-feminist than a feminist, and this battle still rages within me for a number of reasons. Firstly, when I say I am a feminist, people misunderstand and of course a discussion has to ensue on who is a feminist - that being a person who supports efforts to ensure that women have the same rights, freedoms, opportunities, and privileges as men. The misunderstanding among many with whom I have had this discussion is, more often than not, a mistaken association of feminists and feminism with feminine or effeminate behaviours and attitudes, or with the bra-burning, anti-male sentiments and imagery that characterized the radical second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Whatever the association, in each case I have felt that I have had to justify myself so as not to seem to wholly betray my masculine gender identity or the ‘manhood club’ to which I putatively belonged.
Research Interests:
Introduction A right is an entitlement. It is only recently that ‘rights” and “children” were discussed together. Children were to be seen and not heard. They were not treated as persons with rights and were considered the property of... more
Introduction
A right is an entitlement. It is only recently that ‘rights” and “children” were discussed together. Children were to be seen and not heard. They were not treated as persons with rights and were considered the property of their parents. However, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 20, 1989 – one of the most widely accepted human rights agreements. The Convention has been ratified by 192 countries. Jamaica ratified the convention in May 1991. The CRC defines a child as a person below the age of 18 years. The CRC consists of 54 Articles. Articles 1-41 are translated into rights for (1) Provision (survival and development), (2) Protection and (3) Participation.
A right is an entitlement. It is only recently that ‘rights” and “children” were discussed together. Children were to be seen and not heard. They were not treated as persons with rights and were considered the property of their parents. However, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 20, 1989 – one of the most widely accepted human rights agreements. The Convention has been ratified by 192 countries. Jamaica ratified the convention in May 1991. The CRC defines a child as a person below the age of 18 years. The CRC consists of 54 Articles. Articles 1-41 are translated into rights for (1) Provision (survival and development), (2) Protection and (3) Participation.
Research Interests:
“Moving from the Periphery” Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s Contribution to Gender Studies and Beyond Keynote Address, Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium, Mona, Jamaica, November 2008 Introduction It is an honour to have been asked to deliver this address in... more
“Moving from the Periphery”
Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s Contribution to
Gender Studies and Beyond
Keynote Address, Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium, Mona, Jamaica,
November 2008
Introduction
It is an honour to have been asked to deliver this address in celebration of my “sister-friend” and colleague of more years than either of us would wish to acknowledge – Professor Emerita Elsa Ann Leo-Rhynie. I also wish to congratulate the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, especially the organizers of this Symposium, for choosing to celebrate your 15th Anniversary in
such a meaningful manner. A special word of thanks to Shakira Maxwell for her assistance with the logistics of my presentation, the outcome of which you shall see presently.
Read more.
Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s Contribution to
Gender Studies and Beyond
Keynote Address, Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium, Mona, Jamaica,
November 2008
Introduction
It is an honour to have been asked to deliver this address in celebration of my “sister-friend” and colleague of more years than either of us would wish to acknowledge – Professor Emerita Elsa Ann Leo-Rhynie. I also wish to congratulate the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, especially the organizers of this Symposium, for choosing to celebrate your 15th Anniversary in
such a meaningful manner. A special word of thanks to Shakira Maxwell for her assistance with the logistics of my presentation, the outcome of which you shall see presently.
Read more.
Research Interests:
“Moving from the Periphery” Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s Contribution to Gender Studies and Beyond Keynote Address, Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium, Mona, Jamaica, November 2008 Introduction It is an honour to have been asked to deliver this address in... more
“Moving from the Periphery”
Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s Contribution to
Gender Studies and Beyond
Keynote Address, Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium, Mona, Jamaica,
November 2008
Introduction
It is an honour to have been asked to deliver this address in celebration of my “sister-friend” and colleague of more years than either of us would wish to acknowledge – Professor Emerita Elsa Ann Leo-Rhynie. I also wish to congratulate the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, especially the organizers of this Symposium, for choosing to celebrate your 15th Anniversary in
such a meaningful manner. A special word of thanks to Shakira Maxwell for her assistance with the logistics of my presentation, the outcome of which you shall see presently.
Read more.
Elsa Leo-Rhynie’s Contribution to
Gender Studies and Beyond
Keynote Address, Elsa Leo-Rhynie Symposium, Mona, Jamaica,
November 2008
Introduction
It is an honour to have been asked to deliver this address in celebration of my “sister-friend” and colleague of more years than either of us would wish to acknowledge – Professor Emerita Elsa Ann Leo-Rhynie. I also wish to congratulate the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, especially the organizers of this Symposium, for choosing to celebrate your 15th Anniversary in
such a meaningful manner. A special word of thanks to Shakira Maxwell for her assistance with the logistics of my presentation, the outcome of which you shall see presently.
Read more.
Research Interests:
The Elsa Leo-Rhynie (ELR) Symposium entitled Gender perspectives in education: Caribbean impact, global reach was held on November 10 and 11, 2008. It celebrated the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Centre for Gender and... more
The Elsa Leo-Rhynie (ELR) Symposium entitled Gender perspectives in education: Caribbean impact, global reach was held on November 10 and 11, 2008. It celebrated the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Centre for Gender
and Development Studies (CGDS) and the institutionalization of Gender Studies
across the three campuses of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) as an
autonomous, interdisciplinary programme of teaching, research, outreach and
advocacy within and beyond the academy.
and Development Studies (CGDS) and the institutionalization of Gender Studies
across the three campuses of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) as an
autonomous, interdisciplinary programme of teaching, research, outreach and
advocacy within and beyond the academy.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In 1996, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, and its Caribbean crucible saw the formal recognition of Caribbean scholarship in masculinity studies in the first ever symposium, aptly entitled, “The Construction of... more
In 1996, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, and its Caribbean crucible saw the formal recognition of Caribbean scholarship in masculinity studies in the first ever symposium, aptly entitled, “The Construction of Caribbean Masculinity: Towards a Research Agenda.” Rhoda Reddock,
Professor of Gender, Social Change and Development, birthed and spearheaded this seminal event. Almost twenty years later today, Tyrone Ali, Institute for Gender and Development Studies Ph.D. Candidate in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, interviews Professor Reddock and examines the philosophy, goal and retrospection of this scholar-activist in the realm of Masculinity Studies as it impacts on Caribbean states and development.
Professor of Gender, Social Change and Development, birthed and spearheaded this seminal event. Almost twenty years later today, Tyrone Ali, Institute for Gender and Development Studies Ph.D. Candidate in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, interviews Professor Reddock and examines the philosophy, goal and retrospection of this scholar-activist in the realm of Masculinity Studies as it impacts on Caribbean states and development.
Research Interests:
On January 10, 2014, a story surfaced in the Kaieteur News in Guyana of Colwyn Harding, a 23-year old African-Guyanese man hospitalized at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). Harding suffered severe internal injuries allegedly caused in... more
On January 10, 2014, a story surfaced in the Kaieteur News in Guyana of Colwyn Harding, a 23-year old African-Guyanese man hospitalized at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). Harding suffered severe internal injuries allegedly caused in November 2013 when police apprehended him at the house of a friend after some goods were reported stolen (someone else was later identified and arrested). 2 According to Harding, in addition to being beaten, he was sodomized by a constable with a condom covered wooden police baton in the presence of members of the Community Policing Group. Four persons (Harding, a 12-year old boy and two women, Teneisha Edwards and Tiffany Evans) were then taken to the Timehri police station where it was alleged further abuses took place in plain sight of other officers: the 12-year old was handcuffed to a bed; Harding was violently beaten again and left in a cell despite the fact that he was clearly in severe physical distress and orders were given for him to be taken for medical attention; and Tiffany Edwards, two months pregnant at the time, accused the same officer who had sexually violated Colwyn Harding of kicking her in her stomach, causing a miscarriage later.
Research Interests:
One might wonder how this short reflection on outreach to East/Southeast Asian Gay Men who use Bathhouses in Toronto fits within the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies. Firstly, the Caribbean is a diverse space, with diasporic East Asian... more
One might wonder how this short reflection on outreach to East/Southeast Asian Gay Men who use Bathhouses in Toronto fits within the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies. Firstly, the Caribbean is a diverse space, with diasporic East Asian (Chinese) and Southeast Asian (Javanese) communities. Secondly, the
Caribbean itself is not tied to geography, and may be found wherever its diasporas are located (e.g., Toronto). When we migrate our diasporas are made, un-made and re-made, coming together in ways that move across boundaries. For example, while Richard, Daniel, Peter, Ryan, and Brian are East/Southeast Asian men, Nalini is not (her family is from the Caribbean). However, as ‘Asians’ or ‘people of colour’ (collectivities borne of migration histories), we work across the multicultural silos and gendered borderlines that seek to separate and contain us. Despite recent critiques of solidarity, we still need each other. In
that spirit, this essay explores the practice of community–making in a ‘fugitive space’ (the bathhouse) through the peer outreach activities of Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS – a community organization) located in Toronto. We thank the editors of this special issue for the opportunity to think across locations, multiple identities, and community-building practices in the
diaspora(s).
Caribbean itself is not tied to geography, and may be found wherever its diasporas are located (e.g., Toronto). When we migrate our diasporas are made, un-made and re-made, coming together in ways that move across boundaries. For example, while Richard, Daniel, Peter, Ryan, and Brian are East/Southeast Asian men, Nalini is not (her family is from the Caribbean). However, as ‘Asians’ or ‘people of colour’ (collectivities borne of migration histories), we work across the multicultural silos and gendered borderlines that seek to separate and contain us. Despite recent critiques of solidarity, we still need each other. In
that spirit, this essay explores the practice of community–making in a ‘fugitive space’ (the bathhouse) through the peer outreach activities of Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS – a community organization) located in Toronto. We thank the editors of this special issue for the opportunity to think across locations, multiple identities, and community-building practices in the
diaspora(s).
Research Interests:
The participation of Caribbean males in family life has been hotly debated: Researchers who hold the nuclear family to be normative describe male participation as being weak to non-existent, while other scholars who assert that there are... more
The participation of Caribbean males in family life has been hotly debated: Researchers who hold the nuclear family to be normative describe male participation as being weak to non-existent, while other scholars who assert that there are varied and valid family formations, not just the nuclear family, have found Caribbean men to be participating in a wider range of familial roles than just “father”. This photo essay relies on the assertions of a convenience sample of 19 men, with their families, at a shopping mall in East Trinidad. Every father, without fail, said that a “real man” must take up his responsibility. Though the
brevity of the interviews and the setting did not allow them to elaborate on their conception of responsibility, they all intimated the fulfillment of multiple roles of provider, protector, nurturer, and helpmate to their partner or spouse. The essay thus challenges the mainstream conception that Caribbean males are irresponsible family members and calls for readers to consider how their family participation may be changing with changing times.
brevity of the interviews and the setting did not allow them to elaborate on their conception of responsibility, they all intimated the fulfillment of multiple roles of provider, protector, nurturer, and helpmate to their partner or spouse. The essay thus challenges the mainstream conception that Caribbean males are irresponsible family members and calls for readers to consider how their family participation may be changing with changing times.
Research Interests:
Caribbean males in general have abandoned communal dance practices inherited from their ancestors. The re-emergence of dance and movement through exogenous music genres associated with masculinized male stereotypes has replaced... more
Caribbean males in general have abandoned communal dance practices inherited from their ancestors. The re-emergence of dance and movement through exogenous music genres associated with masculinized male stereotypes has replaced autochthonous Caribbean dance forms. There is a contrast between the role of Caribbean males who perform street dance styles and that of those who perform stylized dance genres such as Ballet, Modern Dance and Post Modern. This essay discusses the use of femininity as a tool for male dancers to enhance their expressivity despite prejudicial implications in terms of their sexual orientation, their masculinity and their social status. It aims at developing awareness among males who deny themselves of their ancestral dance traditions in order to comply with a westernized post-colonial model of masculinity or a marginalized and distorted idea of male identity. It illustrates the
use of femininity as part of a range of expressivity achieved by Caribbean male dancers in order to invite males to embrace femininity and masculinity, in order to recover a new sense of self expression. This work contributes to see femininity in dance as a form of masculinity that enhances the understanding males could have of their own bodies and of themselves.
use of femininity as part of a range of expressivity achieved by Caribbean male dancers in order to invite males to embrace femininity and masculinity, in order to recover a new sense of self expression. This work contributes to see femininity in dance as a form of masculinity that enhances the understanding males could have of their own bodies and of themselves.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Masculinity and UN Women
Research Interests:
Informed by Galtung (1969), Anderson (2012) and Wacquant (2001), this paper argues that a lifetime of spiralling and everyday state structural violence and overtly racist criminal profiling principally targeted at young Black men living... more
Informed by Galtung (1969), Anderson (2012) and Wacquant (2001), this paper argues that a lifetime of spiralling and everyday state structural violence and overtly racist criminal profiling principally targeted at young Black men living in the Toronto Community Housing Corporation prepares them for prison.
Moreover, it contends that interpersonal violence, transmitted from generation to generation and producing a vicious cycle, is a manifestation of institutionalized and systemic inequity. In the context of a hypermasculine culture, young Black men are both victims and participants in a dialectic of interpersonal-structural violence. Routinely precipitated by powerful state actors and agencies of criminal justice, public policy and assorted ‘moral
entrepreneurs’, young Black men have their masculinity weaponized and prisonized by the state’s low-intensity declaration of war against them, and, among others, the poor, LGBTQ, immigrants, and First Nations and other people of colour.
Moreover, it contends that interpersonal violence, transmitted from generation to generation and producing a vicious cycle, is a manifestation of institutionalized and systemic inequity. In the context of a hypermasculine culture, young Black men are both victims and participants in a dialectic of interpersonal-structural violence. Routinely precipitated by powerful state actors and agencies of criminal justice, public policy and assorted ‘moral
entrepreneurs’, young Black men have their masculinity weaponized and prisonized by the state’s low-intensity declaration of war against them, and, among others, the poor, LGBTQ, immigrants, and First Nations and other people of colour.
Research Interests:
In this discussion, I demonstrate that Canadian news media texts, centered in Toronto, serve to ideologically construct Jamaica as a “homophobic other” along neocolonial lines, with important implications for constructions of race and... more
In this discussion, I demonstrate that Canadian news media texts, centered in Toronto, serve to ideologically construct Jamaica as a “homophobic other” along neocolonial lines, with important implications for constructions of race and masculinity. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci, I argue that the production of “homophobic Jamaica” is an illiberal manifestation of "homohegemony" in
Canada, a novel incarnation of the more basic benevolent liberal/illiberal tension that characterizes the ideological and material context of queer inclusion. Specifically, it is demonstrated that the construction of “homophobic
Jamaica” is consistent with a neocolonial caricature, one that implicitly bolsters the national imagination of white Canadian masculinity as modern and progressive in contradistinction to black Jamaican masculinity, imagined as backward and excessive.
Canada, a novel incarnation of the more basic benevolent liberal/illiberal tension that characterizes the ideological and material context of queer inclusion. Specifically, it is demonstrated that the construction of “homophobic
Jamaica” is consistent with a neocolonial caricature, one that implicitly bolsters the national imagination of white Canadian masculinity as modern and progressive in contradistinction to black Jamaican masculinity, imagined as backward and excessive.
Research Interests:
While there has been an exciting growth in scholarship on dancehall culture, primarily in the fields of cultural and literary studies as they relate to Jamaica, more attention needs to be given to its configuration in other geographical... more
While there has been an exciting growth in scholarship on dancehall culture, primarily in the fields of cultural and literary studies as they relate to Jamaica, more attention needs to be given to its configuration in other geographical locations and other popular culture arenas. This article explores dancehall
culture from a geographic site, in Toronto, which, despite its large Caribbean population, is often a mere footnote in larger diasporic studies. Moving beyond the proclivity of viewing dancehall culture and music from a purely patriarchal misogynistic viewpoint, the article focuses on the redemptive and empowering possibilities that this popular Black expressive form holds. It underscores how
dancehall culture and music challenge hegemonic scripts predicated on stereotypes of Black women’s sexuality. Despite the contradictions inherent in the music and the performance of female artists such as Lady Saw and Tanya Stephens, dancehall culture evokes women as active agents who are able to articulate their sexual desires.
culture from a geographic site, in Toronto, which, despite its large Caribbean population, is often a mere footnote in larger diasporic studies. Moving beyond the proclivity of viewing dancehall culture and music from a purely patriarchal misogynistic viewpoint, the article focuses on the redemptive and empowering possibilities that this popular Black expressive form holds. It underscores how
dancehall culture and music challenge hegemonic scripts predicated on stereotypes of Black women’s sexuality. Despite the contradictions inherent in the music and the performance of female artists such as Lady Saw and Tanya Stephens, dancehall culture evokes women as active agents who are able to articulate their sexual desires.
Research Interests:
Carnival engenders a period of festivity and cultural capital that has survived, arisen out of, and is in response to, years of enslavement, colonization and indentureship. A miscegenation of European cultural expressions and African... more
Carnival engenders a period of festivity and cultural capital that has survived, arisen out of, and is in response to, years of enslavement, colonization and indentureship. A miscegenation of European cultural expressions and African spiritualities and cultures, Caribbean Carnival has now become a culmination of celebration, song, art, fractured histories, spirituality and in that same breath, debauchery. These various elements that comprise Carnival are critical as they demand of us a rethinking, redefining and repossession of our multiplicitous selves. Participating in Carnival also allows revellers to be confronted with their own perceptions and manifestations of power, gender, sex and sexuality. Carnival permits the remixing and recreating of ourselves since it affords people the opportunity to mask and reveal, of their own volition, the multiple sexual and gender identities and expressions they may embody. This paper will explore Carnival as (i) a site to engage with gender transgression, which I also refer to here as gender bending, (ii) a site to challenge respectability politics and, very briefly as (iii) a site to (re)ground oneself in African traditions and spiritualities.
Research Interests: Sex and Gender, Sexuality, Gender, Culture, Power, and 4 moreCarnival, MAS, Gender Bending, and African Traditions
In my research on school violence at a secondary school in Trinidad, I found that students and school personnel spoke often of ‘rank’. ‘Pullin rank’ is an emic term that refers to a hyper-exertion of authority and power, and as the name... more
In my research on school violence at a secondary school in Trinidad, I found that students and school personnel spoke often of ‘rank’. ‘Pullin rank’ is an emic term that refers to a hyper-exertion of authority and power, and as the name suggests, it refers to a social hierarchy. In this article, I employ this term as an explanatory framework for the various configurations of hegemonic masculinity that I documented during this qualitative research project. I discuss how masculinities intersect with school violence, not only among students and school personnel, but also on a structural level. By focusing on both direct/material and structural violence, my analysis reveals a spectrum of what I call ‘masculinist posturing’ that is in itself violent and perhaps contributory to violence. Masculinist posturing, as I employ it here, is qualified as both dispositional/behavioral and structural. I posit that the instances of direct/material violence I witnessed are influenced by and nestled within a wider web of structural violence; a structural violence that has a neocolonial character to it. Thus the term: neocolonial hegemonic masculinity. The data provided in this article have been sourced from observations, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and classroom discussions conducted over a 7-month period in 2010, with a 3-week follow-up in 2013.
Research Interests:
Within a context in which violence seems to be one of the consequences of the violation of heterosexual masculine norms, this paper explores how young Black men between the ages of 18 and 24 residing in urban (Kingston) and rural (St.... more
Within a context in which violence seems to be one of the consequences of the violation of heterosexual masculine norms, this paper explores how young Black men between the ages of 18 and 24 residing in urban (Kingston) and rural (St. Mary) Jamaica come to experience, understand, and perform masculinity. Drawing on focus group interviews conducted in Jamaica in the summer of 2013, the study unearths the complexities involved in negotiating masculinities within a Jamaican context across differences of class, education and geographic locations. In relating their experiences, urban and rural youth participants agreed on the critical role of fathers as role models and breadwinners. They were also united in their critique of homosexuality and its transgression of “appropriate” gender behaviour. Perhaps most revealing of the study’s findings, however, was the degree of fear of violence that rural youth experienced, contesting the commonly held belief that violence is less endemic in rural communities. This fear was reflected in rural youth’s greater ambivalence about, and unwillingness to, engage the image of the “bad man,” as well as a greater sense of pessimism about their life chances. Urban youth were more likely to see themselves as role models, mentors and change agents and believed that a greater investment in education was critical to their success.
Research Interests:
Even in predominantly black countries, young, black working-class males are seen as criminals. They are taught that they are violent and have few possibilities in life. The system is created to frustrate and retard their development. At... more
Even in predominantly black countries, young, black working-class males are seen as criminals. They are taught that they are violent and have few possibilities in life. The system is created to frustrate and retard their development. At the same time, they are fed a diet of images from popular culture that show black masculinity as bling-focused and violent, as well as cash-rich. They see that males are defined through women, sex, wealth and toughness but not through education, knowledge and good behaviour. The Caribbean, and particularly The Bahamas, has become a site where young, black males are socially excluded and so begin to react against this. Social exclusion is also based on their ethnicity. The system tells young men that they must behave a certain way and have the money to do so, but it also bars them from access to that space and the money to be able to enter that space legally. Meanwhile, a great many of the male role models they see around them perform the same kind of masculinity they are told is not for them because they are not of that social group. Politicians and rich tycoons behave badly in public and boast about beating women. What other examples do these young men see?
Research Interests:
The calypso is one of the greatest cultural contributions of the Caribbean. Originating in Trinidad and Tobago, it has grown over the last century to be part of the cultural experience of most of the Anglophone countries, and even some of... more
The calypso is one of the greatest cultural contributions of the Caribbean. Originating in Trinidad and Tobago, it has grown over the last century to be part of the cultural experience of most of the Anglophone countries, and even some of the Spanish-speaking parts of the Caribbean littoral. This article explores the many ways in which the calypso reveals much about the construction of masculinity through its lyrics. It examines how this aspect of Caribbean popular culture conceives of what constitutes manliness, the burdens this imposes on men, the way men define their sexuality and address issues of desire, and the way the male gaze informs how men view and relate to women. The paper also uses as its point of departure, the calypsos of the 1960s, with particular reference to the songs of The Mighty Sparrow and The Lord Kitchener, two of the greatest exponents of the art form. This essay therefore represents one way of looking at the reciprocal relationship between the artist and the people in the construction of masculinity.