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“Freedom Attained or Denied": Interrogating the
Legacy of the West Indies Federation
Sharon Alexander-Gooding
Federal Archives Department
University of the West Indies, Barbados
One tends to associate discussions about the federation with themes of failure and political acrimony, however the author wishes to postulate that the legacy of the federation emphasises among other notions a precept which informs both Caribbean and international relations. The records show that the West Indies short-lived Federation was meant to be a step towards freedom from colonial rule, a step towards regional unity and a path towards self-determination. We however bear witness that these aspirations were contradictory within themselves as some wanted regional unity whilst others were hoping for national sovereignty. This paper looks at the legacy of the federation and follows on the presentations of my colleagues where they discuss the route to West Indian Nationhood and hopes and expectations of the Federation relating to the pre federal and federal eras.
Freedom and Identity: The Limits of Freedom
Ms. Sherry Asgill
Instructor, Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies, Barbados
Is there such a thing as natural freedom, or is it always culturally defined? Do identities represent a curb on freedom or do they provide its contours?
These are the two questions this paper will explore. Freedom is a concept that underpins much of modern political thought and talk. The notion of rights which seems so much taken for granted is ultimately predicated on the belief that humans are born free. The objection to slavery arose, and continues to rest, on the view that it is a transgression of our naturally free state. However, if freedom is always culturally defined, then such a condemnation has to be reconsidered. If freedom is merely illusory, then it is necessary for to interrogate the paradigms under which identity and individuality can be developed so that rights, especially the right to the pursuit of happiness, can be adequately practised.
Performative Bondage: Dancing in the Dark
Agnel Barron
Instructor, Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
In this paper, I examine Phillips' treatment of the themes of identity and
freedom in the novel Dancing in the Dark. Phillips' develops this theme
through his fictional portrayal of the life of the African-American
performer, Bert Williams, whose identity and sense of self is undermined by
his profession. This stems from his lack of freedom to play the characters
he wishes, and more importantly, the fact that he is condemned to play a
role which is personally and racially demeaning and humiliating.
“ Dwell Together In Unity": Political Hopes and
Expectations for the West Indies Federation
Cherri-Ann Beckles
Federal Archives Centre/Cave Hill Campus Archives,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
O May we stand together,
Though water roll between;
And ne'er be torn asunder
By schisms, base and mean
Hymn for the Federation*
The sentiments expressed in this hymn fittingly portray the strength of feeling of West Indians with regards to the forming of a West Indian Federation. While the masses within the participating territories were 'coming to grips' with the reality of a united West Indies , the major players were busily working out the logistical details of Federal governance and administration. The 1947 Conference of the Standing Closer Association Committee held in Montego Bay , Jamaica , was a defining moment in the establishment of a self-governing West Indian Nation. Through much debate and discussion, the political fabric of that Nation came together. The Federation was no longer merely an idea, but a strategic political plan.
This paper will seek to demonstrate that although it was the British Government that first advocated the federating of the West Indies as "the shortest path to independence", West Indians and the founding fathers of the Federation internalised the idea, and moved swiftly and purposefully to make Federation a political reality. The paper will closely examine the deliberations that took place, amongst the leaders and the general populace, with regards to the naming of the new nation, the making of the Constitution, the designing of a flag and coat-of-arms and selecting of a capital. The records will reveal the hopes and expectations of West Indians for the Federal Government before its coming into being in1958.
*Federal Archives Centre, File: FWI-PM-IS-26 A Collection of Verses Entitled , “Federal Hymn” (18 Feb 1959 – 30 May 1959)
21st Century Caribbean Woman Question:
What Oppresses women?
April Bernard,
Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of the West Indies, Cave Hill , Barbados
This paper draws upon Marxist, Liberal, Radical, Psychoanalytic, and Existentialists Feminist perspectives to measure progress toward freedom for Caribbean women, particularly those who are educated. The indicators of progress reviewed include reduced economic dependence on men (as is evident by legislative advances, property ownership, dual parenting, workforce participation) and freedom of choice regarding family, reproductive health, sexuality, and authentic expression of self as women.
This paper extends the terms of external and internal freedom; the former being the ability to achieve relative independence and the later meaning the ability to transform or transcend one's psyche beyond culturally and personally ascribed limitations and move toward authentic self-expression as women. This paper argues that significant movement toward "external" freedom for educated Caribbean women has occurred at the dawn of the new millennium based upon an application of liberal, radical, and Marxists perspectives, but "internal" freedom of one's psyche/soul from the psychoanalytic and existentialists perspective remains beyond the grasp of this same set of Caribbean women.
The contemporary images of the metrosexual male in Western media and throughout the Caribbean have resulted in the Caribbean women seeking complementary images of their selves as narcissistic and urban. This image competes with and limits expression of their authentic-self as women. As a result women and men must look critically at their answer to the 21st century Caribbean Woman Question: What oppresses women? Perhaps with this critical look at the progress toward freedom for women since slavery, will prompt Caribbean men and women, particularly those who are educated and financially stable, to further consider the extent to which they should respond, "The oppressor is I."
“From Modality to Engaging with the Learning Activity.
Is a greater synergy between learning modalities and
teacher pedagogy needed to assist students with dyslexia
at secondary school in Barbados ?"
Stacey Blackman,
Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
The literature on learning styles and modalities has prompted much debate on the efficacy of using a student's unique ways of working in a prescriptive fashion in the classroom. Mortimore (2006) suggests that researchers, teachers and practitioners ought not to view learning styles as a prescribed approach for catering to the diverse ways that students learn in the classroom. Chinn (2001), Exley (2003) and Reid (2001) on the other hand have suggested that students with dyslexia seem to have 'stylistic' ways of approaching learning that teachers can use to inform their pedagogies and practices. The further argue that these ways of working ought to part of a wider school ethos called dyslexia friendly schools. This paper examines the importance of teachers becoming aware of the ways that students with dyslexia learn through visual, auditory and kinaesthetic modalities and its influence on the ways that students engage with their learning at secondary school.
Key words: dyslexia, learning modalities, secondary school students
Lysistrata with Locks: A study of a Cultural Transplantation
of a Greek Play to a Contemporary Caribbean Setting
Elizabeth Bladh
Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
During the fifth Humanities festival at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus in 2005 a group of drama students presented a Caribbean version of the first act of Aristophanes' play Lysistrata . The play was very well received, not only because of the excellent performance of the actors, but also because the students had made a cultural transplantation of the original to a contemporary Caribbean setting. The audience could therefore easily identify with an intrigue that was now more familiar to them: how to get men to spend more time home with their wife and children. This paper describes the textual changes from the original with regards to the plot and a number of cultural aspects such as clothing, traditions, geography etc. It also discusses the assets of using adaptation as a technique for teaching drama and literature.
When My Lady Has Had Enough:
Performances of Freedom in Alice Childress's
Copra : A West Indian Drama
Elizabeth Brown-Guillory
Department of English,
University of Houston , TX , USA
Alice Childress, one of America 's most highly respected black women playwrights, actively and consecutively contributed to the American stage for more than four decades. Her place on the American stage as a pioneer and visionary resonates in the substantial collection of her published and unpublished creative work. Childress challenged the exclusionary American theater that attempted to silence her and the voices of the masses whose stories she felt needed to be heard. While her1955 Obie-award winning play Trouble in Mind firmly established Childress's place on the American stage, it is Copra: A West Indian Drama , which situates her as a consummate activist/artist willing to cross borders to participate in the struggle for freedom of blacks across the globe. A plot driven by passion and revolution, Copra examines issues surrounding tradition and modernity, displacement, fear of change/difference, British influence on natives, economic challenges and burdens of plantation workers, resistance strategies, class biases, paternalism, and women's evolving roles in West Indian society. A close examination of Copra illustrates Childress's main thesis in the play: Blacks must not be afraid to fight for freedom and the changes that accompany it.
The Challenges of Citizenship, Vulnerability and Risk: Gender,
Social Change, and the Epidemics of HIV and AIDS
Robert Carr
Caribbean Institute of Media and Communications,
Jamaica
The Caribbean has the second highest HIV infection rates in the world. After two decades of interventions, the region is still challenged to make substantive progress at reducing the spread and impact of the virus. While the so-called "medical model" that the region has embraced has significantly decreased AIDS deaths, little progress on preventing infections has been made. Global guidelines suggest that understanding the structural factors that lead to vulnerability to HIV infection is the key to bringing progress in this area. This paper argues that the Caribbean needs an indigenous understanding of what makes certain populations and sub-populations vulnerable to HIV. It suggests that this is only possible with an examination of constructions of "citizenship" in the region as well as the nature of gendered social inequities inherited from its colonial past.
Integrating ICT into the Language Arts Curriculum
Ngoni Chipere
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies, Barbados
Information Communication Technology (ICT) has the potential to transform education, making it more widely accessible, engaging and effective. The social and economic benefits of such a transformation for the Eastern Caribbean hardly need to be spelt out. The pedagogical promise of ICT has been slow in coming to fruition, however, on account of a deeply entrenched resistance to innovation that inheres in educational systems. This paper exposes the bases of resistance to instructional ICT and proposes a set of counter-active strategies. Taken together, these strategies comprise a programme of action research that aims to establish ICT as a daily instructional technology in the Eastern Caribbean . Key components of the programme are undergraduate and postgraduate courses in instructional design technology. The paper describes the programme and demonstrates some of its electronic instructional products.
The Caribbean Plantation System and its Legacy
Margaret Cox
Languages and Literatures Department,
Touro College , NY , USA
After the demise of slavery, the plantation system in the Caribbean significantly served as an apparatus of colonial domination. Although the slaves were free according to the law, they were still literally and metaphorically whipped by the plantation system. Many planters were wealthy, and wealth enabled them to have economic, political, and legal influence. As a result, the oppressed often experienced ramifications when they spoke out against the unjust treatment of them at the hands of the planters. Furthermore, the former slaves and their offspring were so accustomed to their mistreatment and displacement that they continued to assume the roles that servitude had engendered.
In Antigua in particular, as illustrated in To Shoot Hard Labour , citizenship did not guarantee social and economic freedom. In this narrative of the life and times of Antiguan workman Samuel Smith (1877-1982), authors Keithlyn and Fernando Smith provide the centenarian with an opportunity to articulate the experiences of an exploited people. Samuel Smith's rationale for telling his story is that, "...the people will see how far down in the mud we came from. This generation will take care of what is happening to them. I hope the day will never come again when our people have to suffer indignity like my generation and others have to."
George Lamming's novel, In the Castle of My Skin , is another representation of the negative effects of the plantation system in the Caribbean . Unlike the authors of To Shoot Hard Labour , Lamming offers multiple perspectives on the subject as seen through the eyes of generations young and old, the peasantry and the landlord class, the educated and the uneducated. He also demonstrates how a colonial education further perpetuates the agenda of the plantation system. Hence, a colonial education does not necessarily result in the advancement of the oppressed but allows him to believe that his plight has improved, when in reality he possesses knowledge without the ability to acquire agency.
This paper will explore the continually existing legacy that the founders of the plantation system in the Caribbean have left behind. It will pose the question of whether the laborers of the system and their descendants should claim that legacy, reject it, or find a way to use it to their advantage.
Latina Lesbian Activism and Documentation
Juanita Diaz-Cotto
State University of New York , USA
This paper will analyze the ways in which Latin American lesbians in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and Latin America have sought to make their concerns heard in a number of ways, among them grassroots political organizing, ethnographic research, the compiling of oral histories, the production of art work, and community-based publishing.
A Reference to Freedom in Two Old West Indian Sayings
Bernadette Farquhar
Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
At the end of their holidays, particularly those which came to a close in August, Antiguan schoolchildren were often told "You free paper burn", a playful reminder that they would soon return to what may be considered the rigours of the classroom in comparison with the freedom of weeks of play. The Antiguan creole saying appears to have an equivalent in the expression "Liberté nèg cassé” of Martiniquan creole. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the two sayings occur today and the extent to which speakers are aware that they make reference to an important phenomenon in the history of the West Indies .
When is the Cross not a Nation: Debates in the Construction of
a National Identity in Trinidad and Tobago since 1962
Sparkle Ferreira
Postgraduate Student, Cultural Studies Programme,
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies, Barbados
As the former colonies of the Caribbean gained there independence around the 1960's, they adopted several national symbols that were in effect supposed to represent the populace of their individual territories. Trinidad and Tobago was no different and adopted several symbols in their representation of the nation. One of these symbols is that of the Trinity Cross, the highest medal of honour to be given at Independence . This symbol like many others has come under much controversy within recent years as many in society have deemed it as not representative of the entire populace.
In this presentation which is indeed part of a larger work: "The Ganges meets the Nile : questioning the construction of a national Identity from 1962 to 2007"; I would examine the debates surrounding the Trinity Cross from inception to present. I would briefly examine the many identities created within the population that have fed this discourse. In so doing, it is my desire that I may, through the discussion of this controversial symbol, show how the so called national identity created at Independence is questionable in its representation of the populace.
Religion and the Creation of Ethnic Violence in Guyana
Kean Gibson
Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
The end of the slave trade in 1807 and the end of slavery in 1838 did not mean the end of oppression in Guyana , as the period of colonialism indicates, and also by the violent political events between Africans and East Indians which began in 1955 and is continuing to the present time. With the decline of colonialism the two major ethnic group began to compete for control of the state - a competition which turned pernicious by the merger of Hinduism and politics in order to acquire political power. As events in Northern Ireland , the Balkans and the Middle East indicate, the lack of separation between church and state naturally leads to tension and disorder since the other groups are excluded. It is agreed that ethnic conflict is due to competition for scarce resources, but Avalos (2005) puts forward the theory that scarce resources created by religious beliefs is the key to understanding religious violence. Since religious beliefs are based on relationships with the unknowable and unverifiable "supernatural," it means that scarce resources created by religious beliefs cannot be verified to be scarce at all, so that conflicts that ensue over such scarcities are needless and not based on reality. In this paper I will be focusing primarily on inscripturation, and secondarily on group privileging, as they pertain to the role of Hinduism in the creation of ethnic violence in Guyana .
Freedom of the Spirit and African Cultural Retentions:
The Case of East Port of Spain , Trinidad and Tobago
Sandra Gift
Quality Assurance Unit, University of the West Indies ,
St. Augustine Campus , Trinidad and Tobago
Oba Kenyatta Omowale Kiteme
University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus,
Trinidad and Tobago
This paper argues that, in Trinidad and Tobago , following emancipation and independence, freedom has not been fully attained for the African descended communities. Patterns of living which served as sources of community togetherness and strength and which provided an indigenous economic base seem to have been eroded and replaced by the norms and customs of the more dominant western culture. Yet, underlying the veneer of western modernization there lies a wellspring of artistic imagination that frees the mind, providing it with creative outlets and opportunities for the spirit to soar. The paper examines elements of African cultural retentions in East Port of Spain , as manifested predominantly in Yoruba traditions, for their reflection of the ways in which the arts have the potential to free the imagination of the Afro-Trinidadian and to serve as a buffer against some of the enduring legacies of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans.
Negritrude and Globalisation:
Caught Loitering on Colonial Premises
Margaret D. Gill and
Joy Workman
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies, Barbados
In this paper we argue that given the role that Negritrude played as both a political and aesthetic movement it remains relevant in the present era of globalisation. Globalisation poses threats to countries like Barbados with regards to several issues. It poses the threat of expanding consumerism of products and services that remain out of the control of the majority of the region's poor. It promotes continuing exploitative relationship with the environment and the region's resources which exacerbates problems of access. Finally, it entrenches a historic context of racism and race antagonism. As a consequence, we will explore ideological features of negritrude as they relate to the permanent plantation, in order to argue that negritrude continues to offer a framework and practice within which alternatives suited to Caribbean societies may emerge.
The West Indies Federation : The Route/Root
to West Indian Nationhood
Stanley H. Griffin
Federal Archives Department,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
"There have been several movements to federate the British West Indian Islands , but owing to parochial feelings nothing definite has been achieved. Ere long this change is sure to come about because the people of these islands are all one. They live under the same conditions, are of the same race and mind, and have the same feelings and sentiments regarding the things of the world." Marcus Mosiah Garvey, 1913
The histories of the territories of the British West Indies are replete with instances of insularity, territorialism and competitive economic and political strife. The several attempts by the Colonial Office to federate nearby territories were frequently met with fierce resistance by both islanders and their Establishments.
This paper hopes to trace this shift in ideology from inter-island superciliousness to regional cooperation if only to achieve political independence. By shaping the efforts at attaining full freedom from colonial rule, the thought of a federation of the Anglophonic West Indies molded an imagined regional community, having geographical, historical and cultural similarities. Hence, this work will focus on that moment when federalism was no longer considered by West Indians as an Imperialist imposition, but rather a Regional-communal necessity. In so doing, the West Indies Federation became essentially a route to freedom from colonial rule. It further served as a defining means in the quest for cultural distinctiveness and national identities.
In being a route to West Indian independence and nationhood, The West Indies Federation also functioned as a root for future efforts at regional integration. The Federation, through its several functions, did provide the region with life-nourishing avenues for its development and freedom. Several entities, which have nurtured future leadership and opportunities for regional integration, emerged from this period. For this reason, the West Indies Federation , as a nation, did provide future West Indian nations much more than it is presently credited for, as it served as a route and a root to freedom from colonialism and inter-island snobbery. The West Indies Federation became that catalyst for to regional cooperation and unity.
Dominica as Spiritual Landscape: Representations of
Nature and Ritual in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea
and Marie-Elena John's Unburnable
Ena A. Harris
Masters of Arts in Teaching Programme ,
Bard College , NJ , USA
Dominica has heralded itself as "the nature isle of the Caribbean ." Often mistaken for the Dominican Republic , its mountainous environ resistant to the presence of mainstream tourism, it is a space of lush beauty and strong Indigenous influences. In her canonical work, Wide Sargasso Sea , Rhys' protagonist, Antoinette clings to the natural surroundings and looks to nature for affirmation and acceptance. In many ways, Antoinette's relationship to the island mirrors that of Rhys who was born and spent her childhood years in Roseau . The very identity of Antoinette is tied to the landscape and allows her moments of solace and self-acceptance despite the complexities of her identity as a poor white Creole. In many ways, Antoinette (and Rhys) were grounded by their natural surroundings.
Forty years later, a new woman writer, Marie-Elena John has chosen to weave the Dominican landscape into a narrative about the interstices of West Indian history, African myth and American culture. Her protagonist, Lillian, was also born and raised in Dominica but left under mysterious circumstances relating to myths and rumors about her mother and grandmother. Lillian spends two decades away from that space and attempts to repress/ignore the unfinished history that literally exists in the mountains of Dominica but pulled back to her homeland in search of answers. Ultimately, that return reveals a hidden heritage, rich and overwhelming and Lillian is able to learn about her maternal heritage, find physical release of repressed fears of "insanity," and free herself from a painful past.
My paper seeks to explore the potency of the Dominican landscape as a location of healing and an ancestral space by examining these two female characters' interactions with the natural surroundings. I also hope to examine the degree to which Rhys and John's novels portray Dominica as distinctive from other Caribbean islands because it has avoided certain Western influences in such a way as to affirm and sustain its links to African and Indigenous traditions.
"free to wine free to wuk my waist": Interrogating an Expression of Freedom in Barbados Popular Dance Culture
John Hunte
Postgraduate Student, Cultural Studies Programme,
Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
When Kimberley Inniss raises the anthem, "free to wine, free to wuk my waist," she makes a call to all Barbadians to celebrate their freedom from the vestiges of slavery, "we dancing in the street cause we are free!" (Inniss: 2005) In "Free," her freedom cry strikes a chord into the hearts of her fans. In this light, I want to interrogate 'wukking up', positioning it as an expression of freedom in popular dance culture in Barbados .
I seek to prove that dance is an amoral activity, that notions of immorality reflect the audience's gaze, as readings of the body, and then the body in motion as texts. I question the veil of who is seeing, and use historiographic analysis to critique writings from earlier periods to compare the gaze of then and now. I want to show that 'wukking up' is derivative of African culture, and how its current manifestation and perception is a result of factors unique to Barbados . Finally, I would like to suggest ways to appreciate this phenomenon, and recommend steps toward accepting and nurturing the concept of restoring one of our unique African retentions.
Black to Creole and Back: Investigating
Caribbean Discursive Identities
R Anthony Lewis
Department of Liberal Studies,
University of Technology , Jamaica
As the Caribbean grappled in the 20th century with understanding itself as a product of multiple (ex)changes, conceptions of 'Caribbean society' continually changed, moving from the idea of a 'Plantation Society' to a 'Plural Society' and finally, to a 'Creole Society'. This evolution was marked by the early predominance of Afrocentric thought, to be replaced by a discourse emphasising Caribbean creole mixedness. Creolists claimed that although seeking to be inclusive and liberative, Afrocentric thought suppressed or ignored the cultural forms of Caribbeans for whom Africa bore no cultural significance. Today, some authors see the insistence on mixedness in creole not as a celebration of Caribbean syncretisms but as a subtle attempt to efface Africa from constructions of Caribbean identity. This paper explores that perception of effacement and the consequent focus on constructing an African diasporic identity from within the Caribbean space.
Francophone Caribbean Writers and
the Legacy of Negritude
Kahiudi Claver Mabana
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies, Barbados
Soon after the era of the triumphant Negritude, francophone writers from the Caribbean expressed their concern about their African roots. Idyllic Mother Africa seemed too far to fulfill their desire to wipe the remnant frustrations of slavery and deracination. The present Africa did not correspond to their deep aspirations. Although they were of African descent, they had to acknowledge the impact of time and history on their consciousness.
The Negritude preconceived by Aimé Césaire suddenly became irrelevant or called into question in the 1960ies. His disciples distanced themselves from the idealization of Africa . Always in search of identity, Edouard Glissant created the concept of "Antillanité", René Depestre wrote Bonjour et adieu à la négritude . In the eighties, Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant totally buried Negritude by loudly claiming their Caribbeanness or Créolité. However Maryse Condé does not belong to Créolité whereas Gisèle Pineau accepts it. About this conflict of generations, a question has to be raised: Is Negritude really/totally dead?
The purpose of this paper is to examine the legacy of Negritude and critically reconsider the backgrounds of the Francophone Caribbean literary/ideological thoughts.
Gender and Sexuality in Maryse Conde's Recent Fiction
Carine M. Mardorossian
State University of New York , NY , USA
In this paper, I examine Maryse Conde's ‘ Histoire de la Femme Cannibale' and ‘Celanire Cou-Coupe ' to highlight their unorthodox approach to sexual and racial identity. I argue that Conde reconfigures the key concept of gender in feminist and postcolonial studies to exemplify a new paradigm for the study of literature and culture. Instead of approaching identities as discrete and pre-existing categories that define and divide groups of people in predictable and stable ways, she highlights the contingent workings of gender difference in relation to other identities such as race. In other words, she does not "freeze" identity into gender, racial, or cultural differences but opens it up to re-imagination by representing it as in constant flux rather than fixed, as multiple rather than dualistic. In this context, sexuality, gender, race, and class can no longer be discussed in isolation from each other but as relational entities that come into being through rather than prior to their interrelationships. In ‘Celanire Cou-Coupe' for instance, it is not, for instance, because of a character's pre-existing gender identity that certain traits/stereotypes come to be ascribed to him/her, but precisely because of the way gender is articulated with race or sexuality that it comes to matter (and be) at all. Celanire's lesbianism cannot be understood outside the context of her transmogrifications, just as her crossing of the boundaries between human and animal is intertwined with her crossing of gender boundaries. More specifically, Conde's latest novels powerfully reveal the creolized ethos that determines the workings of identity in general and according to which the shifting meanings of gender and sexuality function as a figuration for class and/or race crossing. Such an economy of identification (rather than identity) redefines supposedly discrete categories as sets of crisscrossing ones (gender, class, sexuality, race, nationality, etc.).
Are Caribbean Women Sexually Emancipated
from the Chains of Slavery?
Annecka Marshall
Centre for Gender and Development Studies,
University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Donna Maynard
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies, Barbados
This paper examines Caribbean 's sexual identity to discover if they have incorporated or redefined stereotypes of hypersexuality that existed during enslavement. It has been well documented that myths of sexually denigrated African women were used to legitimate the abusive subjugation of female slaves as sexual objects for the pleasure of white masters and overseers. This research addresses the fact that less is known about the impact of that derogatory representation today. Through qualitative research the degree to which the portrayal of rampant sexuality is an ideological justification for the subordination of women in the contemporary Caribbean will be explored. The research project investigates the manner that Caribbean women resist being depicted as licentious, breeders and prostitutes. The project examines participants' perceptions of controlling their sexuality by creating independent definitions of sexual autonomy, self-love and self respect.
Re-Educating the Abolitionist Mind - The Need for a New
Perspective on Wilberforce (And Lord Nelson) in Barbados
Trevor Marshall
Barbados Community College , Barbados
This paper explores an area of Barbadian history and heritage which has been hitherto unexamined - the role of Wilberforce in the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and his impact on the Barbadian society since 1807.
Its second point of focus is the need for re-education of Barbadians concerning that major reform in the history of the Caribbean plantation slave system.
For some 200 years Barbadians have been mis-informed about the true history of the event which took place on 25th March 1807 and which fore-shadowed the ultimate Abolition of Slavery in 1833.
Although Wilberforce was the leading spirit in the campaign to eradicate slavery from Britain's Caribbean Colonies, his name and his work have been deliberately under-emphasised in "Little England" (Barbados) where the Abolition Campaign was mis-represented in an island which was the entrepôt for the Atlantic Slave Trade. Wilberforce (and Clarkson) was/were seen as "dangerous hypocrites" who desired the destruction of Britain 's economy through a mis-guided attack on the leading sector - the Slave Trade. Consequently, their work for and on behalf of the enslaved African-
Barbadians, has never been fully explained in an island where Horatio Lord Nelson, who died in 1805, was hailed as Barbados ' first 'National Hero' from 1806 onwards.
In short Nelson was deified and Wilberforce demonised in Barbados and few Barbadians today are aware of the significance of the latter's work. This paper attempts to help emancipate Barbadians from mental slavery and redress that injustice by establishing the objective facts of the period before
and after 1807 and Wilberforce's campaign to liberate blacks in Britain 's Colonies.
The Evolution of the Caribbean Woman Griot: From
Kincaid's Annie to Kempadoo's Lula
Crista Mohammed
Post-Graduate Student, Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
The paper is a comparative study of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John (1983) and Oonya Kempadoo's Buxton Spice (1999). Both novels are ‘coming of age' stories where the female protagonists arrive at a greater understanding and awareness of self.
Written over twenty years ago does Kincaid's ground-breaking, coming of age story continue to capture the experience of Caribbean women? How does Kempadoo take up the mantle of Caribbean Woman griot sixteen years later?
Thus, the paper shall examine the evolution of the Caribbean Woman Writer's craft, such that there is, a highly decolonised literary aesthetic and a presentation of a continuum of identities resulting from the interactions of race, gender, class and geography, using a bold, politically unapologetic voice.
Separated by sixteen years between publications, Kempadoo's work emerges many years since colonial rule, the comparison of these two novels works as an allegory for the ‘coming of age' of the Caribbean Woman Writer.
Participatory Political and Economic Democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean : An Imperative for the 21st Century
Ajamu Nangwaya
PhD Candidate, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto , CA
This paper will argue that in order for the Anglophone societies of the Caribbean to move along a trajectory of freedom, the progressive elements within civil society need to privilege a programme of action rooted in a philosophy of participatory economic and political democracy. Liberal democracies in the advanced industrialised countries, and third world states are experiencing the so-called "democratic deficit", which is symptomatic of the lack of political efficacy in these systems of governance. My paper will advance a social corrective of a system of deliberative political decision-making entities through which the citizens become substantively involved in the formulation and implementation of the policies that affect them. The corollary to participatory political democracy would be member-governed and -owned organizational forms such as workers', financial, and solidarity (multiple membership classes) co-operatives, and social enterprises. We will indicate the type of support structures and organizations that are necessary to make this participatory system viable, and the enabling role of the state in building the self-management capacity of civil society.
Eulogizing Liberators and the Myth of Freedom
Philip Nanton
UWIHARP Programme,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
New nations need myths. Invariably it is the role of historians to step in to provide them. My paper proposes to examine the importance of the freedom myth in Barbados through a close reading of the three 'hero' plays - 'Blessed', 'Precious' and 'The Redemption of Sista Dinah' - of the historian Hilary Beckles. The paper will examine the context in which they were written, the structure, including the use of theatre for nation-building, and the language of the plays. In this way the paper aims to critique the underlying mythologies of the liberating hero and the myth of the bestowal of freedom.
Museum Education as a Mode to Equal Opportunities
Hilde Neus
Suriname Museum Foundation , Suriname
Most of the museum visitors in Suriname (and probably most of the Caribbean countries) are tourists or people who went to live in the Metropolis and return for vacation. Since many museums are not especially equipped for a young public, as Educational officers we have to find ways to translate the collection of objects to be of interest to Suriname public and distinctively to children. This we try to achieve through several plans of action. We think it is important for schoolchildren to visit the museum because this is a visual means of looking at their own history and consequently understanding better how their past relates to the present. Thus visiting museums can be of a major contribution to their school careers. As a reality, we observe that many schools from poorer regions and urban areas, but especially from the interior, do not participate in the museum programs as frequently as schools from better situated schools nearby.
In this paper I will argue the importance of museum education for children and relate to some of the solutions by which we will be able to achieve better attendance and more impact of museum education on school children.
Myth and ritual in Hosay, Ramleela and Carnival as
expressions of a vibrant Caribbean culture
Edith Pérez Sisto
Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas , Venezuela .
Historically, myth follows and is correlative to ritual; it is the spoken part of ritual, the story which the ritual enacts. Whether sacred or secular the ritual process involves a sense of creative processes, aesthetic evaluations, and community spirit. These are expressive practices connected to contesting social issues surrounding ethnic identity formation and the underlying importance of racial relations in a multiethnic society such as Trinidad and Tobago . According to Korom, "Hosay in Trinidad seems very different from the Iranian and Indian forms at first glance…the observance becomes marked by gaiety…The Trinidadian form of the rite becomes "carnivalizes"…In Trinidad the rituals are at the center personal and subjective. From the subjective core, we move to the kinship unit or family circle within which ritualistic and customary activities occur in the esoteric, private realm of the "yard" compound. From here we move out to the tertiary ring of the small community of Shi´i worshippers on the island" (Korom 2003: 7). Regarding Ramleela observance Maha Sabha National Ramleela Council has stated "people learn the story of Rama and from this are able to develop the thought-provoking ideas and lessons of life that emanate from it. These patterns of life encourage people to inculcate sincere habits in their life styles. They are always in a better position to understand and appreciate our many forms of puja and rituals and see the reason for it… There is great community involvement at this time and people generally adhere to keeping their fast before entering the site which has become holy ground. Even the evil elements in our society either keep out or leave their evil tendencies behind" (Maha Sabha National Ramleela Council, 1994:7). Carnival is celebrated on the island annual cycling every year mainly by the African descends. It has been rightfully defined by Earl Lovelace as "bacchanal aesthetic, which allows for the coexistence of the profane and the profound, the highfalutin and the jagabat, the educated and the uneducated, the divine and the human…" (Lovelace 2003: xvii). For the African descends carnival and calypso are the oracles of survival from bondage and slavery. Hosay, Ramleela and Carnival are emblematic of Trinidad polyethnic population. They manifest multiple discourses about national culture, race, and ethnic identity at the core of which are rooted myth and ritual.
KEY WORDS: Myth, ritual, Hosay, Ramleela, Carnival.
Exploring Representations of a Gendered Nationalism in
(Jamaican) Dancehall Popular Culture: The Search for a Method
Agostinho M.N. Pinnock
MPhil Candidate, CARIMAC,
University of the West Indies, Jamaica
This paper explores the challenges inherent in researching gender and sexuality in contemporary Jamaican society. It contends that Caribbean research must resist the totalizing and ethnocentric impulses of Western academic discourses which seek to undermine the validity of subjective experiences by insisting that all phenomena are the same and, therefore, can be explained and explored using similar methods.
Advocating a distinctly subjectively focused research method is crucial to emancipating Caribbean experiences from the confines of Eurocentric discourses which do not appropriately validate these 'alternative knowledge(s)'. Caribbean realities are, in other words, very complex. Myriad ideas exist in the same space/place simultaneously and are not readily accommodated to easy understanding, as would be suggested by traditional objective methodology.
Issues related to researching Caribbean (Jamaican) identity, accordingly, have to be explained through lenses not as yet configured in the academy. This ensures greater freedom of expression as well as new ways of seeing and experiencing social reality. Greater emphasis must, therefore, be placed on creating nurturing and supportive spaces which liberate Caribbean discourse(s) which challenge as well as widen traditional methodology within the academy.
Key words:
Standpoint Theory, Postmodernism, Progressive Standpoint (theory), Phenomenology, Caribbean , Jamaican, Identity, Gender, Sexuality, Dancehall, Popular/Culture, research method/ology, ideology
Author's Note:
The paper is based on my forthcoming research (methods/findings chapter) in my Masters of Philosophy (MPhil.) thesis at the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communications (CARIMAC), UWI, Mona, in which I explore the gendered and sexualized representations of Jamaican nationalism in the Jamaican Dancehall popular culture. That paper is entitled from " Dancehall to Diaspora : Exploring Nationalism in the Gendered Representations of Jamaican Dancehall Popular Culture ." It advocates, inter alia, the development of a distinctly 'Caribbean method' as part of how Caribbean (Jamaican) scholarship can explore the phenomenon of identity, specifically gender and sexuality, in the case of (Jamaican Dancehall) popular culture.
Freeing the imagination, decolonizing education: The
Relevance of RastafarI Orature for schooling and educating
Afro-Caribbean youth
Kaydeene D. Reddie
M.A. Candidate, Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
University of Toronto , CA
This paper envisions the Caribbean classroom as a zone of resistance wherein teachers, educators, students and parents can begin to carve out new, independent spaces grounded in Afro-Caribbean epistemologies and ontologies. Through a critical content analysis of contemporary Rasta orature (focusing on the music of local and international Rasta artists), I present the language of RastafarI as a vital communicative, pedagogical and instructional tool for preparing and educating Afro-Caribbean youth to resist colonizing tendencies. Among the critical issues raised are: How is the colonial education paralyzing our ability to charter a different developmental path? How can we as Afro-Caribbean's ground our conceptualization of education in our own version of reality? What role does RastafarI culture and language play in paving the way for new trajectories of freedom for Caribbean societies? In answering these questions, RastafarI discourse will be introduced as a framework for re-imagining how formal education can be conceptualized in the Caribbean context.
Key Words: Afrocentricity, Anti-racism, Schooling, Pedagogy, Africa, Caribbean , Diaspora.
Resonating Theories of Difference: Advantages of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Theorizing and Teaching Identity
Jennifer C. Rossi
Assistant Professor of American Studies
St. John Fisher College , NY , USA
Recent theories of difference have discussed new identity paradigms, reconfiguring identity as transgressing traditional binary categories. Instead of being fixed, this concept of identity is fluid: it is an evolving process that "emphasizes the interdependence of identities" (Mardorossian 145). I argue that this new concept of identity as "ambiguous" (the simultaneous existence of multiple, shifting realities that resist traditional configurations of identity) becomes resistance in response to simultaneously occurring forces of intolerance, which reduce identity to binary categories.
These theories of difference have been put forth from several disciplines, and each tends to focus on one group of people (such as immigrants, Caribbean women, or Black feminists) as emblematic of what I argue is a wider phenomena. In my paper, I will present three identity paradigms (two from Caribbean Studies and one from Black Feminist Studies) and analyze areas of overlap among these theorists, whose projects differ in discipline and content, but whose overarching arguments resonate with each other in significant ways.
I will frame my analysis using Edouard Glissant's Poetics of Relation and Carine Mardorossian's Reclaiming Difference , using Glissant's concept of "errantry" and Mardorossian's view of identity as "a complex set of crossing categories," which becomes an ongoing, relational process for Caribbean women writers (145). I will analyze areas of overlap with Patricia Hill Collins' Black Feminist Thought , to show how Black feminist/Womanist thought views identity as a shifting set of simultaneously occurring and sometimes conflicting characteristics.
What I would like listeners to understand is why it is necessary to study and teach issues of difference from an interdisciplinary perspective. Although each discipline uses its own terminology (conceptualizing identity as "hybrid" in Caribbean theory and as the simultaneous existence of multiple aspects of the self in Womanist theory), when we bridge disciplines and notice areas of overlap, a wider phenomena emerges-that of a body of theorists writing about identity in a new way-as ambiguous and as a relational process. In the final part of my paper, I will discuss implications in the classroom-both how and why these theories can be introduced in literature, theory, writing, and Diaspora Studies classes.
Language, Identity and Freedom – A Creole Perspective
Hazel Simmons-McDonald
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies, Barbados
Linguistic texts about the genesis of creoles and their status have commented on the denigration of these language varieties in comparison to the so called 'superstrate' varieties that were spoken by colonizers. Condé (1998:102), for example, notes that creoles were not perceived initially as "unique linguistic creation(s)" but as distortions and perversions of "the model of the European colonizer's language." Creoles were considered to be inferior (they still are by many) and this notion was extended to the speakers of these language varieties themselves. Writing a few decades before Condé, a view expressed (surprisingly) by Whinnom, a linguist, was that creoles constitute "in most communities a distinct handicap to the social mobility of the individual and may also constitute a handicap to the creole_speaker's personal intellectual development" (1971:110). First, the view that creoles were not considered to be "unique linguistic creations" raises several epistemological issues related to the nature and function of language generally and creoles more particularly. The issue of grammaticality has been addressed in several linguistic texts and may be less contentious than are the notions of adequacy and usefulness which also relate to inherent linguistic qualities but which are nevertheless critical to discussions about function. This paper refers to selected philosophical texts to explore the issue of adequacy of form as this relates to function and domains of use, and to argue that the notion of inferiority in relation to language can only have currency in contexts of domination and power. Second, in Whinnom's view, there is an implicit criticism of creole, per se, as the cause of social and intellectual deficit. The paper argues that it is the social and political contexts in which creoles are spoken and which, by virtue of ascribing lower valuation to creoles in bilingual contexts and through policy legislation that the freedoms of speakers are restricted and concepts of identity are shaped. The paper presents some examples from bilingual contexts to argue that it is the latter rather than the inherent nature of creoles themselves that are the handicaps to the freedom of creole speakers.
References
Condé, Maryse (1998). Créolité without Creole Language? In Caribbean Creolization, Kathleen Balutansky and Marie_Agnès Sourieau (Eds.). Barbados , Jamaica , Trinidad and Tobago : University of West Indies Press , pp.101_109.
Whinnom, Keith (1971). Linguistic hybridization and the special case of pidgins and creoles. In Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, Dell Hymes (Ed.). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, pp.91_ 116.
Independence or Nationalism?—A Fresh Look at
Andreu Iglesias' Los derrotados
Victor Simpson
Faculty of Humanities and Education,
University of the West Indies, Barbados
César Andreu Iglesias' Los derrotados climaxes with the failure of a nationalist plot to assassinate an American general visiting Puerto Rico . The novel is set against the background of an intense ongoing struggle to end the American domination of the island and in some ways seems to raise questions regarding the relevance of the bloody, sacrificial struggle for independence. Since the publication of this novel, there has developed in Puerto Rico a body of thought that interrogates the nationalist project, redefining nationalism to establish a "conceptual distinction between ‘nation' and ‘state'", and arguing for a progressive movement based on this new definition. Indeed, even during the period in which the action of the novel is set, the concept of "cultural nationalism" constituted part of the official policy of the government, subverting, in effect, the rationale that undergirded the nationalist project.
This paper analyzes this novel in the context of this new definition and suggests that the novel anticipates the rethinking of the nationalist project in Puerto Rico , which today remains, in the words of one commentator, a "postcolonial colony".
Freedom in the Mas(k): The Diasporic
Carnivalesque in Midnight Robber
Michelle A. Smith-Bermiss
James Madison University , USA
Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber pursues, among other matters, questions regarding the nature of freedom and its limitations. This paper argues that the carnivalesque is a key factor driving this narrative: first, I explore the reality of Tan Tan's parents' relationship to each other and her as an inversion of their public roles as the respectable Mr. and Mrs. Mayor. The falsity of these roles is exposed in a public spectacle of social disorder, complete with masking and costuming. The resulting disruption of the protagonist's life on utopic Toussaint sends Tan Tan into a multi-stage exile which concludes not with a return to utopia, but a renegotiated sense of freedom in place.
Carnivalesque masking and unmasking is a dynamic both witnessed and adopted by Tan Tan. In the absence of interposing "nanny" technology, she must learn the independence and earn the freedom that only one's own labor can bring-the opposite of the nanny-lesson that "break back is not for people." Her sojourn among the indigenous non-"people" of the pan-Caribbean prison planet Half-Way Tree not only reveals secrets of these others, but forces Tan Tan to examine and expand her ideas about freedom in the context of humaneness/humanity and moral obligation. Most importantly, adopting the persona of the Robber Queen allows the protagonist to negotiate the twinned psychic pain of exile and sexual abuse. She becomes most herself in the mask of the midnight robber because she is able to hybridize and reconcile the "good Tan Tan"-obedient, beloved child-and "bad Tan Tan," who believes she deserves all of the trouble she has experienced. She is able to synthesize these parts of herself not only because the eruptions of the carnivalesque have shown her the power of masking and unmasking, but indeed because these eruptions themselves both expose the instability of and simultaneously subvert her society's apparently stable social roles and the morality that ostensibly governs them. Rather than dying in a one-person steel prison, she faces down a tank with her words, costume and mask. Although some take her robber talk for truth and others for a masquerade, Tan Tan's carnival performance is an achievement of hard-earned, self-fashioned freedom.
Tropical Libertarians:
Anarchist Networks in the Circum-Caribbean, 1900-1925
Kirwin R. Shaffer
Pennsylvania State University-Berks College , PA , USA
During the first three decades of the twentieth century, anarchist movements arose throughout the Caribbean basin, primarily in the Spanish-speaking areas of Cuba , Puerto Rico , Mexico , Panama , Colombia and Venezuela . Traditional research on these movements tends to focus on how they arose in one location and challenged existing hegemonic institutions in pursuit of their anarchist agendas against governments, industrial capitalism, and organized religion. Past research has focused on the roles of anarchists in these countries' labor movements and how they sought to create better working conditions and freedom from governmental and employer abuses. Yet, anarchist internationalism, while adapting to specific national characteristics in each locale, was nevertheless a philosophy promoting the global liberation of societies from exploitation and toward individual freedom. It was a transnational movement in pursuit of freedom. Thus, by relying heavily on anarchist newspapers and their foreign correspondent columns (the writers generally being key "freedom thinkers" in a given locale), this paper explores how anarchists of different nationalities throughout the Caribbean Basin communicated and coordinated actions and agendas via elaborate networks, with the most important hub of activity radiating out of Havana, Cuba. In fact, the long-running anarchist weekly newspaper in Havana , ¡Tierra! (1903-1914, 1924-25) played a fundamental role in linking far-flung Caribbean anarchist movements and activists. These networks allowed anarchists throughout the region the ability to understand their pursuits for anarchist-defined freedom in a comparative context, keep in touch with activists who often traveled between locales, and serve a "policing" function for the movement as anarchists in one locale warned those in other locales about potential troublemakers heading their way.
Black Massa or Liberator?: Eric Williams and the Labour Movement in Trinidad and Tobago, 1960-1980
Jerome Teelucksingh
Department of History
University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
This paper will examine the relationship between the Prime Minister Eric Williams and his role as liberator as he 'freed' the working class in Trinidad from colonialism but also had an antagonistic relationship with the country's Labour movement. An underlying issue that has been overlooked b scholars is the extent that class rather than race influenced the political allegiances and voting patterns of trade unions and working class organizations between 1960-1980. This will be analyzed in the context of the emergence of the Workers and Farmers Party in 1965 and later the United Labour Front in 1975 which both sought to unite the population along class lines but were beaten by the PNM at the polls.
The government's stance on Black Power had an impact on the political support offered by trade unions as its members participated in protests and marches. Furthermore, whilst Eric Williams was Prime Minister, the ban imposed against individuals such as Stokely Carmichael and C.L.R James, both of whom were admired by the Afro-dominated trade unions, such as the Federated Workers Trade Union and the Oilfields Workers Trade Union, served to further weaken the working class support of the Williams' regime.
Immigrant Empowerment: Through economic benefit,
or despite economic marginalization in host countries: The Case of Barbados
Ranjini Thaver
Stetson University , FL , USA
This paper examines the economic models of immigration theory from the perspective of guest and host countries. Based upon secondary research on migration of Barbadian migration within the Caribbean and outside, the paper compares prior immigration theory to a third, more recently developed, model of an ethnic enclave community. Do Barbadians structure their lives outside Barbados in an enclave, or do they integrate into the dominant host culture? Do Barbadians who migrate do so for economic welfare, or as a form of perceived liberation/freedom | 
