Centre for Gender and Development Studies

The Centre for Gender and Development Studies CGDS is a dynamic unit within the University of the West Indies (UWI) engaged in a programme of teaching, research and outreach on women and gender issues in Caribbean society. CGDS Cave Hill uses gender analysis to investigate material and ideological relations of gender affecting Caribbean women and men. It is particularly concerned that there are institutionalized gender inequalities for women. It seeks to expose and transform these to create a more just society.

History

The UWI established CGDS in September 1993. The regional coordinating unit is at the Mona Campus in Jamaica with units on each of the other campuses of the University: Cave Hill and St. Augustine. CGDS is an outgrowth of the path-breaking work of the Women and Development Studies Group and a project of Cooperation in Teaching and Research in Women and Development Studies (WDS) between the University of the West Indies and the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague.

Mission and Focus

CGDS is committed to a programme of teaching, research and outreach that:

• Questions historically accepted theories and explanations about society and human behaviour.

• Seeks an understanding of the world which takes women, their lives and achievements into account.

• Identifies the origins of power differences between women and men, and the division of human characteristics along gender lines.

CGDS Cave Hill focuses on:

• Building Caribbean feminist scholarship.

• Securing the foundation established within the academy on women studies and gender analysis as a valid discipline for teaching and research.

• Contributing to scholarship on Caribbean masculinity.

• Building awareness among women and men of the pervasiveness and outcomes of unequal relations of gender.

• Providing a forum for debate, discussion and dissemination of information on all aspects of gender in Caribbean society.

• Producing research to influence policy that seeks to create a just society for Caribbean children, women and men.

The Centre's specific objectives are to:

• Introduce and maintain an integrated, interdisciplinary programme of gender and development studies including incorporation of gender issues in the content of disciplines within the University.

• Generate research data on women and/or gender-related issues in the Caribbean.

• Develop and facilitate a programme of outreach to the Caribbean community including linkages with, and empowerment of, national and regional institutions concerned with gender and development.

Publications

To purchase copies of the following, either 

• e-mail: gender@uwichill.edu.bb  or write:

  The Centre for Gender and Development Studies
  University of the West Indies
  Cave Hill Campus, P.O. Box 64
  Bridgetown, Barbados

Books

• Eudine Barriteau. Ed. Confronting Power, Theorizing Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean.  The UWI Press, Kingston 2003.  ISBN 976-640-136-5
  
• Eudine Barriteau and Alan Cobley. Stronger, Surer, Bolder: Ruth Nita Barrow Social Change and International Development. The UWI Press, Kingston 2001. ISBN 976-640-101-
  
• Eudine Barriteau. The Political Economy of Gender in the Twentieth Century Caribbean. Palgrave International, London and New York 2001. ISBN: 0-333-7328-0

Working Paper Series

Cost: BDS$20.00 (locally) / US$12.00 (regionally) / US$15.00 (internationally).  Please make all cheques payable to: the University of the West Indies.

• Working Paper No.10 Producers, Reproducers and Rebels: Grenadian Slave Women 1783-1838.  ISBN: 976-621-115-9  By Nicole Phillip

In this paper Dr. Phillip examines three important questions in relation to Grenadian slave women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  She questions whether slave women provided the dominant agricultural labour on the sugar cane plantation.  She assesses the success of the planter's attempts to increase the slave population by natural means.  Finally she investigates the different forms of resistance that enslaved women took against slavery.  Dr. Phillip demonstrates that enslaved women in Grenada were not only valuable sources of labour but as reproducers of future labour power.  As the threats to end the slave trade became apparent, West Indian planters sought to conserve the existing slave population by devising measures to increase the population through various strategies.  Dr. Phillip argues that these measures failed because of the resistance of the enslaved women.  Dr. Phillip gives the enslaved women agency by showing how they retaliated against the system of slavery in a number of ingenious ways.

• Working Paper No. 9:  Changing Skill Demands in Manufacturing and the Impact on Caribbean Female Workers.  ISBN: 976-621-096-9  By Daphne Jayasinghe

Daphne Jayasinghe reviews some of the policy recommendations that advocate a shift in manufacturing away from low cost, labour intensive production towards the output of good and services where high productivity, high value and improved technology provide the competitive edge, she assesses the degree to which this shift has taken place in Barbados, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.  Jayasinghe reviews the changes in output from high skilled manufacturing and female dominated manufacturing in the three countries and makes a theoretical analysis of the ways in which gender issues have shaped women's experience of employment in the manufacturing sector and explore the implications for women of the changes in the nature of industry in the Caribbean.  She argues that the employment created through a growth in manufacturing has not contributed to sustainable human development and there should be the recognision that labour markets reflect gender subordination found in the wider society, and this acts as an obstacle to the development of women's skills.  Ms Jayasinghe contends that there should be a recognision that women face obstacles to employment in skilled work that men do not face and such gender biases must be uncovered and their inherent inequalities challenged.

•  Working paper No. 8: In Memory of my Ancestors:  Contributions of Afro-Jamaican Female Migrants in Port Limon, Costa Rica 1872-1890.  ISBN: 976-621-097-7  By Carmen Hutchinson Miller

Carmen Hutchinson Miller makes visible the participation of Afro-Jamaican women in the period of the construction of the railroad in Costa Rica in the late nineteenth century.  Hutchinson Miller's argument is that Caribbean and Costa Rican historians have paid insufficient attention to the social, cultural and economic contribution of those Afro-Jamaican women and demonstrates that they were not passive actors during the economic development of Port Limon and that their active participation was meaningful as that of men.  Although their productive, reproductive and organizational roles within the private sphere were not adequately recognized, they were as crucial as the men's input in contributing to the development of the society.  Ms Hutchinson Miller's paper makes a meaningful contribution to understanding women's economic and social investment in the nineteenth century Hispanic Caribbean.  While it provides insights in the lives and activities of these women it underscores the very migratory character of Caribbean societies.

• Working paper No. 7: Impunity, Masculinity and Heterosexism in the Discourse on Male Endangerment: An African Feminist Perspective.  ISBN: 976-621-092-6  By Patricia McFadden

Patricia McFadden examines some of the legacies that have made it possible for Africans on and off the continent to survive as a people.  In a very compelling, comprehensive and intellectually engaging analysis, she problematized the pursuit and achievement of freedom relative and incomplete as it still is.  She examines the question as to the attainment of freedom for African women is perceived as a threat by the men with whom they share unconditionally the oldest experiences of racist violation.  This interrogation of the pursuits of freedom leads to the crux of McFadden's presentation.  She uses it as an opening to lay bare the continuing hegemonic and patriarchal themes embedded in new nationalist discourses.  In the process she offers a radical re-conceptualisation and application of the concepts of gender and impunity.  The former she sees as a social product that socially and politically emerges out of the struggles of women for freedom and inclusion.

• Working Paper No. 6: Whither Work? A Comparative Analysis of Women and Work in the Commonwealth Caribbean and Canada in the New Era of Globalisation.  ISBN: 976-621-091-8 By Ann Denis

Ann Denis examines what economists and policy makers mean by work and questions the way that this definition is reconfigured in this new phase of globalisation in both the Commonwealth Caribbean and Canada. She critiques the widely held but overly restrictive definition which equates with revenue generating activity and argues for a more all encompassing and reality-based definition.  She proposes a feminist definition that exceeds the boundaries of what is commonly understood as work.  This new definition incorporates women's un-remunerated reproductive and caring labour in the home and community. The paper also examines women's work in globalisation in two countries and emphasizes the historical and societal restrictions and impositions that shape women's contemporary experiences of economic activity. The paper makes a critical contribution to our understanding of women's economic activities nationally and internationally.

• Working Paper No.5: When the Closet is a Region: Homophobia, Heterosexism and nationalism in the Commonwealth Caribbean.  ISBN: 976-621-090-X By Tara Atluri

Tara Atluri 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.

• Working Paper No.4: Examining the Issues of Men, Male Marginalisation and Masculinity in the Caribbean: Policy Implications.  ISBN: 976-021-059-4  By Eudine Barriteau

Are Caribbean men Marginalized?  Eudine Barriteau challenges the male marginalization thesis posed by Errol Miller making a thorough analysis of the thesis to demonstrate that it is flawed, she offers a framework for assessing marginalizasion and analyses the popular belief that co-education reproduces male marginalization by examining the work of a number of UWI scholars.  She concludes that Caribbean men are not marginalized and recommends national policy that is shaped by a commitment to gender justice and gender equity that will not discriminate or tolerate conditions of discrimination for either sex.

• Working Paper No.3: Nuancing Globalisation or Mainstreaming the Downstream or Reforming Reform.  ISBN: 976-621-058-6  By Devaki Jain

Devaki Jain argues that the concept of globalisation need to be nuanced, and sees the women's movement and NGO's as ideally situated to do this.  Using a feminist lens she reviews major developments in the global politicSal economy and identifies new transformative behaviours to tame the adverse impact of globalisation on countries in the South.

• Working Paper No.2:  UWI: A Progressive Institution for Women?  ISBN: 976- 621-037-3  By Marlene Hamilton

• Working Paper No.1:  Engendering Local Government in the Commonwealth Caribbean.  ISBN: 976-8083-07-5  By Eudine Barriteau

Forthcoming books

Forthcoming working papers

• Working Paper No.11 "The Darker Side of Black Mas(K)Ulinities: The Representation of the Black Male in Film"  By Kelvin Quintayne

• Working Paper No.12 " Unsettling Masculinity in the Caribbean: Facing a Future Without Guarantees "  By Linden Lewis

• Working Paper No. 13 "Subordination or Ordination of Women? A Seminarian Perspective" By Mario M.R. Conliffe

• Working Paper No.14 "The Rights and Freedom of the Rastafarian Women in the Caribbean" By Ireka Jelani

• Working Paper No.15 'Acknowledging the Journey: Walking to true Citizenship"  By Verna St. Rose

Seminar Papers Available

• Gender? What is it? What is it not? A Genealogy of the Concept of Gender and its Relevance for Policy Makers.  By Eudine Barriteau.  US$5.00 or BDS$10.00
  

The lecture series was inaugurated in 1995 by Dame Eugenia Charles of Dominica and in 1996 was dedicated to honouring the memory of Dame Nita Barrow, Governor General of Barbados, 1990 - 1995. The lecture series is now in its eighth year. Seven of the eight lectures planned were delivered, (see lecture no. 3). Several of the lectures have been published in the Working Paper Series. Lectures and presenters are:

Lecture no. 1 The Experiences of the First Female Prime Minister in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Dame Eugenia Charles, Prime Minister of Dominica, 1980 - 1995. November 3, 1995.

Lecture no. 2 A Vision of Health and Development for the Twenty First Century. Dr. Karen Sealy. Caribbean Regional Coordinator, Pan American Health Organisation. November 15, 1996

Lecture no. 3 Women and Political Leadership in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Honourable Portia Simpson. Minister of Labour, Social Security and Sport, Government of Jamaica. Scheduled for November 14, 1997. Please note this lecture was cancelled one week before the date. The Minister called to say general elections had just been declared and no ministers could travel. It was too late to reschedule. It had already been advertised

Lecture no. 4 UWI - A Progressive University for Women? Dr Marlene Hamilton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Administration and Special Initiatives, University of the West Indies. December 4, 1998.

Lecture no. 5 Globalisation, Women's Poverty and Sustainable Development. Devaki Jain, Founder the International Network, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, DAWN, Bangalore, India. November 12, 1999

Lecture no. 6 The Debate on Gender and Development: An African Feminist Perspective. Dr Patricia McFadden, Senior Program Officer, Gender Division of the South African Institute for Policy Studies, Zimbabwe, November 17, 2000

Lecture no. 7 Travelling Mercies. Lorna Goodison, Poet, Author and Artist, University of Toronto and Jamaica. November 16, 2001

Lecture no. 8 Women and Islam in Africa in the Twenty first Century. Dr. Fatou Sow, Senior Lecturer, Cheik Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal, November 15, 2002

Lecture no. 9 "Men and Masculinities in the Contemporary Caribbean." Dr Linden Lewis, Professor of Sociology, Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, USA, November 14^th, 2003.