Negotiating Gender Policy And Politics In The Caribbean

Drawing on rich empirical research, this book examines the evolution and success of feminist strategies to promote democratic governance, women’s rights and gender equality in the Caribbean.

Caribbean Studies Association Barbara T. Christian Literary Award Negotiating Respect is an ethnographically rich investigation of Pentecostal Christianity—the Caribbean’s fastest growing religious movement—in the Dominican Republic. Based on fieldwork in a barrio of Villa Altagracia, Brendan Jamal Thornton examines the everyday practices of Pentecostal community members and the complex ways in which they negotiate legitimacy, recognition, and spiritual authority within the context of religious pluralism and Catholic cultural supremacy. Probing gender, faith, and identity from an anthropological perspective, he considers in detail the lives of young male churchgoers and their struggles with conversion and life in the streets. Thornton shows that conversion offers both spiritual and practical social value because it provides a strategic avenue for prestige and an acceptable way to transcend personal history. Through an exploration of the church and its relationship to barrio institutions like youth gangs and Dominican vodú, he further draws out the meaningful nuances of lived religion providing new insights into the social organization of belief and the significance of Pentecostal growth and popularity globally. The result is a fresh perspective on religious pluralism and contemporary religious and cultural change. A volume in the series Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

This book is about the struggles of female and male descendants of Indian indentured migrants in Trinidad in the first half of the twentieth century, each desiring to preserve some aspects of the gender system brought from India between 1845 and 1917, which were important to their continued definition of ethnic identity and community in Trinidad. At the same time the situation of migration allows for challenges to the caste system of Hinduism and, for women and some men, new opportunities to confront the more restricting aspect of Indian patriarchy which followed them across the seas from India.

Critically examining narratives of participation in governance and development, this volume adds Caribbean voices and experiences to the global discourse on youth participation. The essays provide empirical case studies of institutions, practices and processes of youth engagement in the politics of Caribbean development, orienting the reader to the political culture of the Caribbean and the position of youth within small societies. Covering experiences at intergovernmental, national and local levels, as well as formal and informal modes of participation, it examines how young people have organised themselves or have been organised to engage with the state and with community agents in politics, public policy and activism. It illustrates the heterogeneity of youth political participation, employing multi- disciplinary, multi- level and mixed- method analyses from the fields of demography, political science, social policy, development studies and youth development. Critical themes addressed include regional governance, democratic representation, online engagement, local governance and community development. In exploring these themes, the book discusses the legitimacy and inclusiveness of governance in relation to age, gender, race, geography and socio-economic status. The findings will be useful to students, researchers and policymakers alike who are keen to improve governance and contribute to inclusive sustainable development in the Caribbean.

This book explores the politics of ethnicity and nationalism in the Caribbean from a critical discourse-analytical perspective. Focusing on political communication in Trinidad and Tobago, it offers unique socio-political insights into one of the most complex and diverse countries of the Archipelago. Through a detailed reconstruction of Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s 2010 victorious run for office, this book offers ample empirical evidence of the multimodal discursive strategies that held the key to the success of the first woman PM candidate and her inter-ethnic coalition bid to overcome political tribalism in the country. In parallel, it explores the implications and challenges of the postcolonial Trinbagonian national project, caught between pluralism and creolization. Through its innovative, context-dependent and interdisciplinary CDS approach, this book breaks new ground in Caribbean Studies while at the same time broadening the horizons of the Euro-American tradition of Political Discourse Studies to address the complexities of global postcoloniality.

Bringing together three generations of scholars, thinkers and activists, this book is the first to trace a genealogy of the specific contributions Indo-Caribbean women have made to Caribbean feminist epistemology and knowledge production. Challenging the centrality of India in considerations of the forms that Indo-Caribbean feminist thought and praxis have taken, the authors turn instead to the terrain of gender negotiations among Caribbean men and women within and across racial, class, religious, and political affiliations. Addressing the specific conditions which emerged within the region and highlighting the cross-racial solidarities and the challenges to narratives of purity that have been constitutive of Indo-Caribbean feminist thought, this collection connects to the broader indentureship diaspora and what can be considered post-indentureship feminist thought. Through examinations of literature, activism, art, biography, scholarship and public sphere practices, the collection highlights the complexity and richness of Indo-Caribbean engagements with feminism and social justice.

Winner of the Caribbean Studies Association's 2016 Barbara T. Christian Award Tourists flock to the Caribbean for its beaches and spread more than just blankets and dollars. Indeed tourism has overly affected the culture there. Resisting Paradise explores the import of both tourism and diaspora in shaping Caribbean identity. It examines Caribbean writers and others who confront the region's overdependence on the tourist industry and the many ways that tourism continues the legacy of colonialism. Angelique V. Nixon interrogates the relationship between culture and sex within the production of "paradise" and investigates the ways in which Caribbean writers, artists, and activists respond to and powerfully resist this production. Forms of resistance include critiquing exploitation, challenging dominant historical narratives, exposing tourism's influence on cultural and sexual identity in the Caribbean and its diaspora, and offering alternative models of tourism and travel. Resisting Paradise places emphasis on the Caribbean people and its diasporic subjects as travelers and as cultural workers contributing to alternate and defiant understandings of tourism in the region. Through a unique multidisciplinary approach to comparative literary analysis, interviews, and participant observation, Nixon analyzes the ways Caribbean cultural producers are taking control of representation. While focused mainly on the Anglophone Caribbean, the study covers a range of territories including Antigua, the Bahamas, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, as well as Trinidad and Tobago, to deliver a potent critique.

This cutting-edge book provides a comprehensive examination of applied qualitative research in the Caribbean. It highlights the methodological diversity of qualitative research by drawing on various approaches to the study of Caribbean society, addressing the lack of published qualitative research on the region. Featuring 17 chapters, the book covers five key areas, namely Overview and Introduction; Gender, Crime, and Violence; Gender and Intimate Partner Violence; Health, Management, and Public Policy; and Migration and Tourism. Throughout the course of the book, the chapters explore how different kinds of qualitative research can be used to inform public policy and help deal with a myriad of socioeconomic problems that affect Caribbean people. The book further uses distinct approaches to showcase a diverse selection of qualitative research methods, such as autoethnography, life history, narrative enquiry, participants’ observation, grounded theory, case study, and critical discourse. The book will be beneficial for students and scholars both from the Caribbean and internationally who are engaged in the conduct of qualitative empirical enquiry. It will further hold appeal to advanced undergraduate level classes and postgraduate students along with scholars in the fields of social sciences and education.