Download Caribbean Abstracts

Caribbean
Abstracts
July-September 2008
Koninklijk Instituut
voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian
and Caribbean Studies
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Caribbean Abstracts contains abstracts of books, periodical articles and chapters in books on the Caribbean in the fields
of the social sciences and the humanities.
Caribbean Abstracts is compiled by Michel Conci, Collections Department, KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of
Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Caribbean Abstracts can also be searched online via KITLV’s online catalogue, accessible through our homepage
www.kitlv.nl.
Published quarterly and available for free download from the KITLV website.
ISSN 0925-8507
© 2008 KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA, Leiden,
The Netherlands.
2
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Accilien, Cécile
(2007)
Haitian Creole in a transnational context
In: Just below south : intercultural performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. south: (2007), P. 76-94. Charlottesville
[etc.] : University of Virginia Press
Haiti / USA / Creole languages / French Creole languages / sociolinguistics / cultural identity / language use
Focusses on the perceived status of and on misconceptions on Haitian Creole, specifically in New Orleans and in Haiti
itself. Author points at complex linguistic identities and performances relating to Haitian Creole, often showing the
endurance of colonial values and hierarchies, such as in Haiti the higher status accorded to standard French over
"Frenchified" Creole and Creole. She further discusses views and understandings of the term "Creole" in Louisiana,
where this term is more an issue of ethnic and racial identity, rather than of linguistic identity as in the Caribbean,
including a repository of complex racial politics, also showing colonial legacies. She specifically draws on her
experiences in teaching Haitian Creole at Tulane University in New Orleans, and on the images of Haitian Creole, and
on Haiti, she encountered among students. These included stereotypes or misconceptions about Vodou, but also a
questioning of the legitimacy of Creole as a "real" language, separate from French. Author points out, however, how
such views also exist in Haiti, where Creole tends to have an ambivalent place and French is accorded a higher social
status, and she notes some shame for the Creole language, even turning to French, or a Frenchified Creole, even when
the actual proficiency of French is mostly limited, and is in fact a second language.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 4029
Andereggen, Anton
(2008)
France's possessions in the Western Hemisphere : neo-colonialism or decolonization?
In: Journal of Caribbean studies: vol. 22 (2008), Issue. 3, pp. 165-176.
Martinique / Guadeloupe / French Guiana / St Pierre and Miquelon / France / overseas territories / political history /
political development
Focusses on France's remaining possessions in the Western Hemisphere, and the historical trajectory toward their
present statuses as Overseas Departements or Territories. Author discusses how these remaining possessions, being
Saint-Pierre et Miquelon near Canada, and Martinique, Guadeloupe (with dependencies), and French Guiana developed
in relation to French political international policies. He discusses how in the 1930s social movements in the American
colonies demanded improvement, but with few calls for independence and how anticolonial attitudes expressed by the
US and the United Kingdom in the 1941 Atlantic Charter, calling for people's self-determination, did not involve
France, choosing another international policy, in line with a constant approach, continuing over time, of France's
asserting its global presence and assimilation. He points out how complete constitutional assimilation as DOMs
(Départements d'Outre-Mer) since 1946, was prior to this preferred by most groups in these former colonies as a way
toward equal rights, development, and democratization. Independence movements have had limited support in these
DOMs up to the present, and not at all in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, which obtained a different status as Territoire
d'Outre-Mer (TOM), with somewhat more autonomy. Author further point out in what ways these DOMs and TOM are
(political and cultural) showplaces for France, as well as strategic locations in light of different interests of France,
including their maritime zone, such as for research, trade, and international influence.
SIGNATURE: TA 3631
Anderson, Patricia
(2007)
The challenge of housing and community conflict in East and West Kingston
In: Social and economic studies, ISSN 0037-7651: vol. 56/2007, Issue. 3, pp. 33-70.
Jamaica / Kingston / slums / urban areas / urban communities / housing / social development
Examines 2 cases of public housing interventions in in low-income neighbourhoods, one in East and one in West
Kingston. Author points out how these urban communities had a history and present of intercommunity conflict, mainly
as a result of political divisions and partisan affiliations, dividing neighbourhoods in either PNP or JLP supporting
warring "garrison communities", and maintained through clientelism, in particular also housing allocation for party
3
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
affiliates. She further looks at the attempts of successive governments to respond to housing needs in the communities,
being the planned community of McIntyre Villas, developed in the mid-1970s in East Central Kingston, and a recent
and ongoing second housing development in Denham Town in West Kingston. She studies the characteristics and
attitudes of residents in these communities, placed in the context of demographic, political, and social changes in
Kingston in the last 40 year. She describes the views of community members on housing design and location, life in the
communities, and their current social and economic composition. Author shows how McIntyreVillas developed from a
squatter settlement, and became a relatively successful re-housing case, as its residents are socially and economically in
a better position, with better living conditions and less violence than in bordering areas, and have a strong community
sense. She next describes the re-housing at Denham Town, where such efforts go back to the early 20th c. as problems
like over-crowding and decay were already present then, and describes how the residents have socio-economically a
low position, while the community also has social strengths and the residents a strong sense of community, yet have
concerns about the location of new housing, close to usually violent borderlines with other communities. Author further
recommends how proper decisions about housing design and location can contribute to improvement and community
sustainability, along with addressing wider social problems.
SIGNATURE: TA 3962
Böttcher, Nikolaus
(2007)
"A Ship laden with dollars" : Britische Handelsinteressen in Kuba (1762-1825). Frankfurt am Main : Vervuert Verlag
Cuba / United Kingdom / USA / economic history / trade / social history / political history / slave trade / international
relations
Reconstructs the history of British trade interests and intrusions in Cuba, expanding especially in the later 18th c.
Author points out how a turning point in this regard was the occupation of Havana by the British in 1762, that opened
up trade of the Havana port, and helped establish an English business community, with persisting effects after the
return of Havana to Spain in 1763. He describes how alongside the Bourbonic reforms in the Spanish Empire,
liberalizing trade, English merchants had important effects on Cuba's economic development since the late 18th c.,
especially through port areas, specifically also in the increasing slave trade to Cuba. He shows how British merchants
had connections with the Creole oligarchy, helping to develop and expand the Creoles' economic and trade base, and
the general Cuban economic direction toward a slave-based plantation economy. This was through formal, official
means, such as Asientos, as well as via smuggling. Author also shows how after 1762 trade connections between Cuba
and North America increased in volume and influence. He further points out that in the course of the 18th c. British
Atlantic trade approaches shifted from territorial expansion to trade expansion, including into Spanish colonies. He
discusses the period preceding the 1762 occupation of Havana, when there were already, mostly illicit, trade relations
between Cuba and the British in e.g. Jamaica. After this, he sketches the lasting effects of the 1762 occupation,
economically, as well as demographically, militarily, and politically. The influence on trading in Cuba was further
maintained due to the comparatively more developed overseas and Atlantic trade networks and structures of the British.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6262
Bailey, Barbara
(2007)
Gender and education
In: Caribbean journal of education, ISSN 0376-7701: vol. 29 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 1-160.
British Caribbean / gender relations / education / school environment / youth
Issue consists of 5 articles addressing the impact of gender and related variables on educational processes and outputs
in the British Caribbean. These relate to the "gender mainstreaming" strategy designed by Caricom in 2003, proposing
an integrated approach to gender inequalities, and in which education is a priority entry point. Barbara Bailey examines
the "gender regime", i.c. gender orientation of students, as part of a wider social system. She shows that a school's
regime is governed by an ideological but also a political-economic dimension including class and race structures
interacting with prevailing gender ideology. Next, Suzanne Marguerite Charles focusses on students' perceptions of fair
and equal treatment within the school environment in Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Further,
Yasmeen Yusuf-Khalil and Barbara Bailey examine implicit and explicit forms of gender-based violence in educational
institutions at all levels of education in the Cayman Islands, Dominica, and Guyana, focussing on administrators' views
4
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
and responses. Gail Ferguson, then, investigates gender differences in the role models of fifth form traditional high
school students in Jamaica, and relations with academic attitudes and achievement. Finally, Christopher C. Clarke
examines the gender beliefs of teachers and parents as well as the gender identity of 8-to-10 year-old boys in 2 primary
schools in Jamaica, against the background of boys' underachievement.
SIGNATURE: TA 3530
Baker, Gordon
(2007)
No island is an island : the impact of globalization on the Commonwealth Carribean. London : Chatham House
British Caribbean / Caribbean / economic development / globalization / economic policy / economic sector / collective
volume
Volume consists of 6 contributions that assess the impact of economic globalization in the British Caribbean, including
a recent run-down of traditional export preferences and development aid, and the change toward an externally driven
and competitive global market-place. In relation to this, the authors pay attention to the vulnerabilities of the small
states of the British Caribbean in relation to market liberalization and the new demand of global competition. Authors
further address key elements and sectors in these vulnerable economies, giving an overview of main implications of
economic globalization in the Caribbean, and more specifically the prospects for agriculture in the new environment,
especially for non-traditional products, and the sustainability of tourism in the future in light of recent changes,
including social and environmental aspects. Further, authors assess international financial services as a response to
globalization in the region and its prospects, recent changes in telecommunications in the British Caribbean, and the
relation between Foreign Direct Investment and regional development.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 6433
Barringer, Tim and Gillian Forrester and Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz (cop. 2007)
Art and emancipation in Jamaica : Isaac Mendes Belisario and his worlds. New Haven [etc.] : Yale Center for British
Art in association with Yale University Press
Multidisciplinary volume consists of 11 essays, and numerous illustrations, that chronicle the iconography of
slavery,sugar, social history, and the landscape of Jamaica from 1655 to 1865. It relates to an exhibition centered
onlithographs by Isaac Mendes Belisario, created in 1837 and 1838: 'Sketches of character, in illustration of the habits,
occupation, and costume of the Negro population in the island of Jamaica'. These, including illustrations of the
Jonkonnu festival, are reproduced, and provide the starting point for an historical analysis of the history of Jamaican art
and culture, contextualized within the history of slavery, its abolition, and social changes, with a specific focus on the
transitional period of the 1830s. Essays interpret major themes of the exhibition, including Britain, Jamaica, and
Empire in the era of emancipation (Catherine Hall), and the social and cultural history of and creolization in Jamaica of
the enslaved up to emancipation (Verene A. Shepherd); landscape imagery and the "plantation picturesque" (Tim
Barringer), and urban/Kingston imagery as backdrop of Belisario's sketches (Gillian Forrester); cultural-historical
studies comparing the figures in Belisario's sketches and African cultural and visual traditions, specifically on Congo
influences on Afro-Jamaican music and art (Robert Farris Thompson); and on (Jonkonnu) masks and costumes
(Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz). Further, essays pay attention to spirituality in African-Jamaican festivities and Jonkonnu
historically and presently (Kenneth Bilby); Anglophone musical cultures in Jamaica, mixing ethnic traditions, around
the 1830s (Stephen Banfield); the history of Jewry (as Belisario was Jewish) in Jamaica in the period 1670-1831 (Holly
Snyder), and Jewish identity in the later 1830s; and transcultural and diasporic Anglo-Caribbean legacies in
contemporary art (Stuart Hall). Essays are connected with catalogues of visual illustrations of the themes discussed.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 B 1939
Bascara, Victor
(2007)
'Panama money' : reading the transition to U.S. imperialism
In: Imagining our Americas : toward a transnational frame: (2007), P. 365-386. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University
Press
Barbados / Panama Canal Zone / USA / social history / migrations / international relations / literature / literary criticism
5
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Focusses on the relation between the overdeveloped and the underdeveloped globally, particularly through the building
of the Panama Canal. Author shows how for the labourers, or their relatives, the US-led building of the Panama Canal
became a passage across the development line. He first describes how the Canal symbolized a triumphant new
modernity for the US, then rising as an imperialist power, using new technology for a leap forward toward global
connections. Then, he analyses Barbadian-American Paule Marshall's short story 'To Da-duh : in memoriam' (1967), on
a Brooklyn-residing Barbadian-American returns to Barbados, and in which "Panama money" is mentioned as enabling
material progress and a character's migration to the US, resulting in a middle-class status. Marshall thus refers to this
often overlooked source to remember the dangerous labour of Caribbean migrant labourers at the Ishtmus enabling
these advances. These advances can be seen as a crossing from the underdeveloped to the (over)developed in the US.
The author relates this further to the changing hegemonies in Barbados by the early 20th c. from the weakening British
colonial power, representing territorial colonialism, to new US imperialism based on economic and other power,
exerted within and over the hemisphere, as a "new world order".
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3589
Batiste, Stephanie L.
(2007)
Dunham possessed : ethnographic bodies, movement, and transnational constructions of blackness
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 2, pp. 8-22.
Caribbean / USA / dance / theatre / anthropology / folk culture / cultural history
Reflects upon the work of Katherine Dunham, an African American choreographer, who combined this with
ethnographic work. Specifically, the author focusses on how Dunham engaged in anthropological work in Jamaica,
Haiti, Martinique, and Trinidad, to study and record Afro-Caribbean dances, including through research films. Dunham
then translated these data into a dance methodology and staged performances in the US in the 1930s. This at the same
time was aimed at reconstituting black US/African American identity and culture, based on the restoring of lost
traditions (supposedly) still present in the more culturally African Caribbean, representing thus a transnational
blackness or diaspora perspective. Author points at anthropology's origins as a structure of representation and power
aimed at imperialist goals, based on a Western "othering" of natives or blacks, and Dunham, and other African
American anthropologists' participation in it, though she indicates how Dunham opted for a more (inter)subjective
methodology, including participation of the studied dancers, helping to humanize them. Next, she pays attention to
Dunham's methodology, and the translation into technique films, a new dance methodology, and eventually staged
performances in the US. She shows how the Caribbean dances and dance traditions were reinserted partly in Western
ballet formats for stage, but due to the transnational black connection avoided in part "othering" or "exoticism". This
includes a ballet, named for the Martinican fighting dance, 'L'Ag Ya', that also includes Vodou performance.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Bermúdez, Jorge R.
(2008)
De fotógrafo a comandante
In: Casa de las Américas, ISSN 0008-7157: (2008), Issue. 250, pp. 91-100.
Cuba / Argentinian / Latin America / photography / social history / revolution
Describes how photography was important for Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Author points out how Guevara showed interest
in making photos prior to his becoming socially more conscious of injustices in Latin America, such as during his
journey throughout Latin America in his youth, while he later also took photos in Mexico, and in Cuba, as well as later
in other parts of the world. He argues that this visual attention through photography in a way influenced his social
revolutionary views, as it included photos of (Amerindian and other) towns, as well as people in their conditions, and
progressively showed his interest in social changes based on the visual. He further shows how Guevara also after taking
up arms during the Cuban Revolution regularly paid attention to photography, including through contacts with
photographers, as a means of communication and propaganda. He discusses examples of photos, such as taken by
Perfecto Romero during or around battles, as well as taken by Guevara himself, e.g. as Minister of Industry in Cuba
after 1959, continuing thematically in line with his writings and other activities, with specific attention to the rural
population in Cuba and portraits, as well as to machines in factories. Author further notes a similar visual focus, and
6
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
actual interest in photography, in José Martí's descriptions, though the latter could not take pictures, and finally he
focusses on the context and significance of the globally well-known portrait of Guevara with beret, taken by Alberto
Díaz, 'Korda'.
SIGNATURE: TA 3539
Bernard, April
(2008)
Emancipating spirit : decolonizing the Caribbbean religious experience
In: Wadabagei : journal of the Caribbean and its diaspora, ISSN 1091-5753: vol. 11 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 49-64.
British Caribbean / Barbados / Africa / Afro-Caribbean religions / Christianity / religion / religious history / slavery /
cultural identity
Evaluates movements toward rediscovering an authentic religious collective consciousness in the Caribbean based on
liberating the African soul of the ancestors, and decolonizing theology. Author calls this "emancipating spirit". She
describes the legacy of slavery on religious expression in the Caribbean, which included a stripping of Africans of their
identity and self, and of spiritual connections, and imposed an Anglo-Christian Christianity for their subjugation. She
explains how this further resulted in self-alienation of Afro-Caribbean people. She calls for new constructs of
spirituality, based on the past of slavery and on an African worldview, including the mystic and the spiritual, humans,
and the natural world in a holistic approach. She points out how sources show that monotheism originates from Africa,
easing links with Christianity. This, she further argues, provides ways to redefine the congruence between the inner self
and outer environment, thus reconnecting to "the black reality". In particular, she focusses on the responses to this
alienation by 3 spiritual movements growing in popularity in Barbados: Rastafarianism, Spiritual Baptists, and Orishabased traditions, and in localized Anglicanism. Through interviews with religious/spiritual scholars and leaders from
these movements, she exemplifies how decolonizing the Caribbean religious experience can occur. Author points out
how there are different approaches toward "losing the chains", reflecting the Caribbean's multidimensional reality,
while they share a self-liberating move toward an African-centered spirituality.
SIGNATURE: TA 7622
Bernier, Celeste-Marie
(2008)
"Speculation and the imagination" : history, storytelling and the body in Godfried Donkor's 'Financial times' (2007)
In: Slavery & abolition : a journal of comparative studies, ISSN 0144-039X: vol. 29 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 203-217.
Caribbean / USA / Africa / slavery / slave trade / visual arts / commemorations
Analyses Ghanaian artist Godfried Donkor's installation 'Financial times', exhibited within Hackney Museum in
London, part of a display commemorating 'Abolition 07'. Author describes how Donkor combines images and
representations as a collage, including enslaved black people, political leaders, mythic figures, and freedom fighters.
Donkor presents this further on sheets of the 'Financial times' newspaper interspersed with excerpts from African
American 'Dream books'. Author points out how Donkor through the installation creates multifaceted narratives and
alternative histories that expose rather than suppress the shifting relationship between public art, artifacts, and Atlantic
slavery. He thus foregrounds visually and textually a "storytelling process" or a "repeated engagement", to thus point at
the role of the imagination in reinterpreting Atlantic slavery, including recovering "camouflaged" histories of slavery.
Author describes how the 2007 installation consists of 2 sets of 6 and one of 8 small paintings. These paintings are
divided according to colour and subject matter, thus also alluding to and critiquing US and Caribbean racial/colour
categories ("quadroon" etc.). At the same time, he indicates how the experimental combination of heroic and antiheroic
icons with financial data and artifacts interrogates the supposed "neutrality" of Western statistics, and how figures can
erase underlying realities of the slave trade.
SIGNATURE: TA 3960
Blanco, John D.
(2007)
Bastards of the unfinished revolution : Bolivar's Ismael and Rizal's Martí at the end of the nineteenth century
In: Imagining our Americas : toward a transnational frame: (2007), P. 63-87. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University
Press
7
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Cuba / Latin America / Philippines / independence fighters / independence / political history / social history
Analyses how José Martí and José Rizal shared a search and questioning of the intellectual patrimony of the late liberal
anticolonial revolution, being Simón Bolívar's republicanism. Author explains how this was part of these 2
independence leaders' response to the modern imperialism of the US. He relates this further to the reasons for the "lost
affinity" between the Philippines and Spanish Caribbean, an affinity actually existing during the colonial period and
early independence struggles against Spain in both places. He focusses on both Rizal's and Martí's writings and
engagements with the specific aesthetic of Bolívar's republicanism, showing how Rizal after associating with it
eventually abandoned it in the later 19th c. as he found it necessary to close this historical epoch, considering the idea
of romantic revolution to be at odds with the systematic task of building a democratic united nation out of a
heterogeneous and divided population. Author argues that Martí, on the other hand, began with the opposite premise,
and aimed to transform these past ideas into an ongoing redemptive narrative, with Cuba representing a new future
independence beyond racial and other divisions, based in part on Bolívar's legacy, set against US imperialism.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3589
Blom, Andreas and Cynthia Hobbs
(2008)
School and work in the Eastern Caribbean : does the education system adequately prepare youth for the global
economy?. Washington, DC : The World Bank
British Caribbean / OECS / education / educational system / labour market / youth
Report analyses the employability and competitiveness of the work force in OECS countries. Authors focus on the
relevance of the education and training system in the OECS. They find that the education system is not adequately
preparing young people for the new skilled jobs. School leavers often have no diploma or marketable skills. The
authors recommend that the OECS education system should provide cutting-edge knowledge, teaching, and research to
assist the economy to specialize in globally competitive niches. They argue that the gap between labour market needs
and schooling needs to be bridged. They list several ways in which formal education can be made more relevant to the
needs of the OECS economy.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 B 1002
Bloom, Harold
(cop. 2008)
Jamaica Kincaid. New York : Bloom's Literary Criticism
Antigua / literature / literary criticism / writers / collective volume
Collection of 12 essays analysing Jamaica Kincaid's writings. Included are articles by Moira Ferguson and Merle
Hodge (both on 'Annie John'), Antonia MacDonald-Smythe ('At the bottom of the river'), Laura Niesen de Abruna (on
the maternal-colonial matrix), K.B. Conal Byrne (on Kincaid's new language), Irline François ('Lucy'), Ramón E. SotoCrespo (on hybridity and mourning in Kincaid's work), Maria Helena Lima (on Kincaid's narratives of development),
Elizabeth J. West ('Autobiography of my mother'), J. Brooks Bouson ('Mr. Potter'), Colena Gardner-Corbett (on the
binary discipline), and Kezia Page ('My brother'). Volume also includes an introductory essay by Harold Bloom,
bibliographic references, and a chronology of Kincaid's life.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 7053
Boisvert, Jayne
(2007)
In the image of Erzulie Fréda : literary examples of the goddess of beauty, love, and support
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 99-109.
Haiti / Voodoo / literature / women / literary criticism / religion
Examines 3 works of 20th-c. Haitian fiction in which key women emulate or resemble the deity Erzulie Fréda of the
Vodou pantheon. Author describes Erzulie Fréda as a virgin goddess who resuscitates, regenerates, and revitalizes. She
8
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
further analyses how Fréda comes to literary life in her role as goddess and creator, the epitome of beauty, love, and
unselfish support, and as bringers forth of life and good things. Specifically, she shows how this is represented in the
female characters Céline in Pétion Savain's 'La case de Damballah' (1939), Annaïse in Jacques Roumain's 'Gouverneurs
de la rosée' (1976), and Marie-Ange in Marie Chauvet's 'Fonds des nègres' (1961). She points out how these 3
characters have their youth and beauty in common, referring also to flirtatious aspects of Erzulie Fréda, with MarieAnge being of mixed race, and Annaïse and Céline black peasant women, whose beauty contests Western beauty ideals.
Author further shows how the authors of the works symbolically describe the female characters as emanating from the
natural world, representing and stimulating life and fecundity, and as linked to the earth and water. Comparisons of
their beauty with ripe fruits further attest to this, as do personification of nature responding to the females' emotions. In
addition, she describes how these characters function as supportive of the male heroes, initially timidly, but becoming
more assertive as the source of inspiration and hope for the heroes enabling them to become saviours of their people or
specifically village communities, e.g. in driving away drought or moral sterility.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Boniface, Dexter S.
(2007)
The OAS's mixed record
In: Promoting democracy in the Americas: (2007), P. 40-62. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press
Caribbean / Latin America / OAS / democracy / political history / political development / international relations
Examines the response to democratic crises in Latin America and the Caribbean from 1991 to the present. Author first
describes how the OAS is committed to representative democracy and its promotion, and its main mechanisms to
promote democracy in the hemisphere developed since 1990. These include a special department for democracy
promotion, and the Resolution 1080, issued in 1991, representing an automatic mechanism to respond to democratic
crises in the Americas. This was initially mainly aimed at coups, but in 2001 the conception of democratic crisis to
respond to was broadened to include any unconstitutional alternations of constitutional regimes, also by elected
officials. Author examines the action or lack thereof of the OAS in response to several democratic crises occurring
since 1991. He distinguishes different types or degrees of these crises, included coups by force (e.g. Haiti 1991), nearcoups (e.g. Haiti 2004), as well as electoral or constitutional irregularities (e.g. the Dominican Republic 1994, Haiti
2000-2003, and Trinidad and Tobago 2000-2001). Author looks at the cases throughout the hemisphere, and concludes
that the OAS response to coups was mostly consistent in acting on Resolution 1080, but that this was not the case with
"second-order" crises, where the OAS mostly abstained from direct action, though with postures and mediations had
some effects. He points out that another weakness of the OAS is that it, due to limited funds, does little to address the
quality of democracy itself. Furthermore, he concludes that the impacts of OAS interventions were positive but
generally short-lived.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6326
Broek, Aart G.
(2007)
Ideology and writing in Papiamentu : a bird's eye view
In: Journal of Caribbean literatures, ISSN 1086-010X: vol. 5 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 1-20.
Curaçao / Netherlands Antilles / Papiamentu language / literature / theatre / literary history / cultural history
Overview of poetry, prose, and theatrical writings in Papiamentu, placed within the literary history of Curaçao. Author
describes how the first original texts that can be qualified as literature in the Dutch Antilles were in Spanish. Further, he
discusses writings in Papiamentu since the abolition of slavery in 1863, when it was still not considered a full-fledged
or literary language, yet was used for didactic, Catholic purposes, and in the late 19th- and early 20th-c. poetry in
Papiamentu appeared in newspapers and elsewhere. In the pre-World-War-II-20th c. serialized novels in Papiamentu as
well as "thesis novels", didactic, Catholic writings addressing changes in society with the arrival of the oil refinery
appeared. This didacticism lost its appeal with secularization after the 1930s, while World War II fed feelings of selfreliance. He points out how since the mid-20th c. the attention moved from an idealized Western culture toward a
reassessment of the own culture, including the oral tradition in Papiamentu. This stimulated literary writing in the
vernacular, often based on the storytelling tradition, including "rhythmic poetry", using Papiamentu's tonal aspects. He
shows how this was part of what can be called Antillean literary emancipation, and stresses the importance of Pierre
9
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Lauffer and Elis Juliana. Further, he describes how in the decades since the 1950s the concept of creolization
dominated writing in Papiamentu as well as Dutch, promoted by Cola Debrot and others, but this was contested since
the course of the 1960s with a cultural protest movement calling on the Afro-Curaçaoan heritage and local, popular
authenticity, yet losing much of its appeal by the 1990s.
SIGNATURE: TA 11951
Bryan, Anthony T.
(2007)
Sustainable Caribbean tourism : challenges and growth to 2020
In: No island is an island : the impact of globalization on the Commonwealth Carribean: (2007), P. 44-78. London :
Chatham House
British Caribbean / Caribbean / tourism / tourism development / sustainable development
Focusses on tourism as the most significant industry in the present-day British Caribbean, and argues that tourism's
viability up to 2020 must be examined with respect to revenue retention, as well as sustainable growth, including
environmental considerations. Author further describes the significance of tourism in the Caribbean as one of the most
tourism-intensive regions of the world. Next, he discusses challenges of Caribbean tourism including the natural
disaster risk; currency fluctuations; the investment of windfall gains; competition of new destinations; and information
business technologies and marketing. He calls for a holistic approach to tourism planning and development, with
synergy between the economic and social systems, as well as the eco-system. He elaborates on how more attention for
environmental effects is necessary, including also regional coordination. He then calls for consideration of social and
cultural impacts of tourism in the region, and for addressing the problems of sex tourism, and of HIV/AIDS. Finally,
the author gives recommendations aimed at a regional approach, beneficial links between tourism and the local
economy, and strengthening stakeholders through private sector-government cooperation.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 6433
Buitelaar, Rudolf
(2007)
Suriname : the impact of the May 2006 floods on sustainable livelihoods. Port of Spain : ECLAC [etc.]
Suriname / Sipaliwini / Maroons / Amerindians / natural disasters / floods / subsistence farming / agriculture /
economic development
Studies the socioeconomic impact of the May 2006 floods in Suriname, which affected especially people in the interior.
Authors point out how the floods most severely affected around 30,000 people living in isolated villages, as the floods
caused losses to self-subsistence agriculture of Maroons and Amerindians, most strongly in the District of Sipaliwini.
Because of this, the authors indicate, the impact will not be perceptible in the national account, though it had strong
effects on the population of the affected areas. Through the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach they further analyse the
impact of the floods on the affected households, after first placing policies, institutions, and processes, especially in the
interior, in historical perspective. Then, they discuss livelihoods assets and the "vulnerability" context, including
regarding human and social capital, poverty, education, health, women and children, and housing, and livelihood
strategies in response to this. They show how this vulnerability largely derives from the isolation of the Maroon and
Amerindian communities, and that subsistence agriculture was most severely damaged by the floods, especially cassava
production. Further, also education, transport, tourism, health, housing, and other aspects were affected. Authors
conclude after calculations and comparisons that total damage and losses is roughly equivalent to the gross domestic
product of the District of Sipaliwini, showing its magnitude. In relation to this magnitude, they suggest some priority
actions to stimulate economic recovery of the Amerindian and Maroon communities: in the short term aimed at food
security and access to monetary means, and in the long term ensuring the rights and political participation of
Amerindians and Maroons.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 B 781
Bundy, Donald A.P.
(cop. 2008)
Strengthening the education sector response to HIV & AIDS in the Caribbean. - Strengthening the education sector
response to HIV & AIDS in the Caribbean. Washington, D.C. : World Bank
10
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Guyana / Jamaica / St Lucia / HIV / AIDS / UNESCO / World Bank / education
Report on the promotion of education sector leadership in addressing HIV and AIDS and the creation of a supportive
policy and financial environment at national and regional levels. It presents the findings and outcomes of the 3 joint
UNESCO/World Bank missions to Guyana, Jamaica, and St Lucia in May 2007. The report uses these 3 countries as
examples of how regional efforts translate into action at the national level. It places these findings and
recommendations within the broader context of the Caribbean plan for action and presents in its appendixes sample
resources to guide the development of a comprehensive response to HIV and AIDS by the education sector.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 B 1005
Cabezas, Amalia L.
(2008)
Tropical blues : tourism and social exclusion in the Dominican Republic
In: Latin American perspectives : a journal of capitalism and socialism, ISSN 0094-582X: vol. 35 (2008), Issue. 3, pp.
21-36.
Dominican Republic / tourism / tourism development / sex tourism / social inequality / economic development / AIDS
Focusses on tourism development in the Dominican Republic. Author places this in the wider context of the global
political economy of tourism, and of tourism's development in the Caribbean. She discusses how the western capitalist
dominance shows in the forms tourism took in the Dominican Republic, where tourism increased especially since the
1970s, and was stimulated as an economic strategy, as in other Caribbean countries. She describes how the
transnational industry of tour operators came to dominate tourism in the Dominican Republic, mainly based on the allinclusive model. She shows how this largely resulted in exclusion and marginalization of the local, Dominican labour
force. The employment of Dominicans in tourism mostly consists of relatively low-paying, unstable jobs, in positions
of servitude, with very few Dominicans, and even less women, in higher or management functions. Access to resorts is
generally restricted, and such marginalization of the local population increases informal work activities related to
tourism, including also sex work aimed at tourists. Author further pays attention to the activities of these sex workers,
including men and women, doing this to make ends meet, while making them vulnerable to several risks. She further
points out how this relates to the recent increase of HIV/AIDS in the Dominican Republic, with a connection with
tourism/sex work, and safe-sex promotion.
SIGNATURE: TA 3661
Candelario, Ginetta E.B.
(2007)
Black behind the ears : Dominican racial identity from museums to beauty shops. Durham : Duke University Press
Dominican Republic / USA / national identity / race relations / ethnicity / cultural history / cultural development
Examination of Dominican racial identity formation in the Dominican Republic and in the US. Author thus pays
attention to the denial of black ancestry which developed as a dominant official discourse in the Dominican Republic,
and to how these and other identity discourses play out in sites of identity display: foreign travel narratives on the
Dominican Republic; the displayed content at a national museum; the beauty shop (i.c. in New York); and regarding
ideas on the female body. She thus includes official identity discourses and historiography, alongside everyday
expressions of identity, based on research in Santo Domingo, and among Dominicans in New York City and
Washington D.C. She points out how specific national identity discourses are historically shaped since the 16th c., due
to some anomalous events and conditions, such as a shorter, less-dominant plantation slavery, white emigration, and
how indigeneity and Hispanicity became vehicles for asserting Dominican sovereignty against Spanish colonialism,
Haitian unification efforts, and US imperialism. Author further discusses how travel narratives since colonial times, by
Americans, Europeans and others, described Dominicans in opposition to "blacker" Haitians, and how this was
appropriated by Dominican elites for serving their ideological agendas of presenting the Dominican people as white, or
not black, to which the (later also official) appellate "Indio" for dark Dominicans related. Next, she focusses on how
this relative denial of African history and overemphasis on "Indo-Hispanicity" also shows in the Museo Del Hombre
Dominicano. She further describes how different social and cultural migratory contexts, of Washington D.C. and New
York City influence Dominican identity formation, as Dominicans in Washington D.C. tend to identify much more as
11
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
black or Afro-American than those in New York City, or in the Dominican Republic, due to different socializations and
discourses. Finally, she examines how Dominican Indo-Hispanic identity is constructed, represented, and contested
through women's bodies.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3348
Carmichael, Trevor
(2007)
International business : opportunities for the Commonwealth Caribbean
In: No island is an island : the impact of globalization on the Commonwealth Carribean: (2007), P. 79-97. London :
Chatham House
British Caribbean / OECS / financing / economic development / economic policy
Discusses the present situation and future prospect of financial services/international businesses in the British
Caribbean. Author sketches the characteristics and evolution of particular offshore jurisdictions through different
approaches to their development: an old planned approach, as part of a clearly articulated policy made integral to its
social and economic development, as is the case in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands; a new planned approach, with
the Seychelles as prototype, including also focussed legislation, as in the cases of the OECS jurisdiction, with St Lucia
having the most comprehensive policy thrust; and the evolving approach, with Barbados as prototype, without a crafted,
economic policy approach behind it. Next, the author identifies the products constituting the offshore financial services
sector in relation to their respective jurisdictions, as well as to future possibilities for the British Caribbean. The
products, or type of companies, he discusses include the international business company, as the most common offshore
financial vehicle; offshore banking regimes; and captive insurance companies. He points out how these last 2 require a
two-tier level of regulation at both the application and surveillance stages, and, relatedly, pays attention to potential
(criminal) misuse of these constructions. In addition, the author proposes to consider a special OECS offshore mutual
fund industry, directed by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, as potentially beneficial. Finally, he addresses other
possible future opportunities, including stock exchanges, e-commerce, international arbitration, and cell companies.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 6433
Carrol, Kevin S.
(2008)
Puerto Rican language use on MySpace.com
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 96-111.
Puerto Rico / Internet / language use / cultural identity
Analyses language use among Puerto Rican users, ages 18 to 22, of the social networking website MySpace.com,
through their personal profiles created on the site. Author first discusses access to Internet among Puerto Rican, being
relatively high for the Caribbean, though with socioeconomic differences, and then on the specific use of MySpace.com.
He places this in the context of the relative positions of English and Spanish in Puerto Rico, and how consequently
language use, as on MySpace, signifies in-group identity. He points out how in particular Puerto Rican Spanish serves
as a crucial determiner of an own Puerto Rican identity amidst English impositions and increasing influence through
the mass media. Author describes common sections of MySpace profiles, and looks at the language use for these
sections. He concludes that more stagnant or permanent aspects of the profiles, such as head texts, or (personal)
descriptions tend to be often in English, probably to appeal to the global MySpace public, whereas more changeable
aspects, as well as comments by friends and other users tend to be mostly in Puerto Rican Spanish, or "netspeak"
variants of it. This, the author argues, as well as the common borrowing of English words into Spanish texts are ways to
signify an own Puerto Rican identity, while at the same time also another, English-speaking identity is played.
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
Chavasse, Philippe
Frédéric Marcelin,
(2007)
nationaliste et résistant bourgeois
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 61-82.
12
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Haiti / literature / intellectuals / social development / nationalism
Analyses the ideas of Frédéric Marcelin (1848-1917), who was a novelist, essayist, journalist, and politician. Author
especially discusses Marcelin's ideas on the Haitian nation and its development, as this reflected in his work, such as
the novel 'Thémistocle-Epaminondas Labasterre' (1901), considered one of the earliest Haitian novels. He describes
how Marcelin was a Mulatto, with a privileged, bourgeois background, yet nonetheless offered a counterdiscourse
against race-class inequalities toward a national uplift. While he promoted universal education for this aim, he did not
aim at an equalizing popular revolution, but rather espoused personal enrichment and competition as critical impulses
for Haiti's development. Some critiqued him because of this for remaining too class-bound. In addition, the author
shows how Marcelin adhered to French culture and was steeped in it, yet at the same time pointed at the important
founding importance of the Haitians' African roots, as a mythical representation of a necessary rebellious spirit. Author
shows how Marcelin expressed these national(ist) ideas in his work that are realist and also naturalist, and in a sense
pessimistic and "demoralizing", part, he argues, of his distinct counterdiscourse.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Christopher, A.J.
(2008)
Race classification and the census in the Caribbean Commonwealth since the 1840s
In: Wadabagei : journal of the Caribbean and its diaspora, ISSN 1091-5753: vol. 11 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 25-48.
British Caribbean / ethnicity / race relations / censuses / statistics / social history
Examines the evolution of the classification system adopted for the census question on race in the British Caribbean,
from the first censuses in the 1840s to the present. Author reconstructs how the first, broader general population census
of British Caribbean colonies took place in 1844, aimed at tracing the progress of the former slaves after emancipation,
yet often still lacked a question on race, while some colonies began to use a basic racial classification. To this
classification since the 1850s the East Indians were added as separate group in censuses, as were Chinese and in some
cases Portuguese, while censuses in e.g. Trinidad focussed on nativity to distinguish recent arrivals. There was little
uniformity in such classifications throughout the colonies. Author describes how this changed in the 1940s, starting
with an expanded enquiry into race in the Jamaica census of 1943, becoming a sort of model for the other Caribbean
colonies in 1946, with more standardized categorization. In 1960 a general census of the British Caribbean took place
as a federal venture, further harmonizing and simplifying racial categories. These continued to be mainly based on selfidentification and thus came to reflect changing social desirability and norms, including increasing identifications as
"blacks" with rising nationalism. Author indicates how the classification scheme since then remained similar, with only
Belize effecting changes after independence to reflect its differing ethnic makeup. Enquiry into race was retained by
postindependence governments for social science or affirmative action reasons.
SIGNATURE: TA 7622
Clegg, Peter
(2006)
The UK Caribbean Overseas Territories, New Labour, and the strengthening of metropolitan control
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 1, pp. 131-161.
United Kingdom / British Caribbean / overseas territories / constitutional law / political history / political development
Analyses changes in the relationship between Britain and its Overseas Territories in the Caribbean (Anguilla, British
Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and Turks and Caicos Islands). Author traces the UK's constitutional links
with the Caribbean Overseas Territories (COTs) back to 1962, after the collapse of the West Indies Federation and
independence of some larger Caribbean colonies, with the 1962 West Indies Act for the COTs. With this Act Britain
maintained, also through governors, formally the legal upper hand in the COTs, who maintained many fields of internal
policy autonomy. Overall, the author characterizes the UK-COTs relationship as mostly ad hoc and informal, or
"benign neglect", up to the 1980s, after which a partial reengagement by the British authorities changed this somewhat.
A more intensive stepping up of oversight of the COTs by Britain occurred, however, since 1997 under the New
Labour government of Tony Blair. Author explains how this was partly in rersponse to the Montserrat volcanic disaster
of 1995 and its aftermath, which exposed weaknesses in the extant constitutional links. Author further describes the
13
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
constitutional reviews since then, including through the 1999 White Paper entitled 'Partnership for Progress and
Prosperity'. This included an increased emphasis on mutual obligations and responsibilities, and called for a more
proactive and coherent oversight. Changes included decreased ministry fragmentation, British citizenship for COT
inhabitants, while oversight regarding international obligations for 2 prioritized issues increased: human rights
legislation and offshore financial services, leading to occasional tensions. Author discusses the results of the reviews,
concluding that they contributed to a stronger integration of the COTs into the international system, and a stronger
convergence of policy and approach across the COTs.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Clune, John J.
(cop. 2008)
Cuban convents in the age of enlightened reform, 1761-1807. Gainesville, FL [etc.] : University Press of Florida
Cuba / Havana / nuns / religious education / Catholic Church / social history
Study of the influence of the Council of Trent and European Enlightenment on the 4 female religious communities in
colonial Havana, focussing on Santa Clara as the epicentre of convent reform in the city. Author argues that the impact
of 18th-c. convent reforms altered the internal dynamics and the external functions and image of nunneries. He
suggests that these reforms followed the patterns of the other Bourbon reforms. He studies the results of reform in the
Clarist community and analyses the attempts to make over the other 3 contemplative female religious communities in
Havana into institutions of female education. He then addresses the arrival of the Ursulines, the Clares, and the
Dominicans in Havana and the manner in which these teaching orders of immigrant nuns transformed female religious
life in the city.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6335
Corse, Theron
(cop. 2007)
Protestants, revolution, and the Cuba-U.S. bond. Gainesville, FL [etc.] : University Press of Florida
Cuba / USA / Protestantism / religious history / religion / political history / international relations / political
development
Examines the experiences of and changes among Cuban Protestants as they confronted the new government since 1959.
As the Protestant denominations in Cuba were generally deeply tied to the US, the author further traces the changes in
their links to the US and in their identities, in relation to the breakdown of US-Cuban relations after 1959. He first
sketches the situation just prior to the Revolution of the Protestant churches, and their relationship to Cuban society and
the US. Next, he describes how the initial response of most Protestants to the Revolution was positive, although this
diminished in time as the government became more leftist. From 1963 Church-state relations deteriorated further, and
many young pastors and seminarians were conscripted into semi-militarized work brigades, making many leave the
Church or even the island. Further, the author pays attention to Protestant theological responses to the Revolution,
showing how most Protestants maintained their pre-Revolutionary rejection of atheistic Marxism. Relations with the
state eased slowly since the mid-1970s to the present, influencing churches, identities, and links to the US, while postSoviet Union changes in Cuba brought about a renewal of bonds between Cuba and the US. Since the 1990s
Protestantism in Cuba also changed due to the explosive growth of Pentecostalism. Author concludes that overall, and
despite adaptations, pre-Revolutionary identities of Protestant denominations, as well as bonds between Cuban and US
Protestants, have remained durable between 1959 and the present.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3700
Crespo, Horacio
(2006)
Trade regimes and the international sugar market, 1850-1980 : protectionism, subsidies, amd regulation
In: From silver to cocaine : Latin American commodity chains and the building of the world economy, 1500-2000:
(2006), P. 147-173. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University Press
Cuba / USA / Europe / sugar industry / international trade / economic history / trade agreements / international relations
14
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Discusses the historical development of the international sugar market from 1850 to 1980, as since the mid-19th c. the
beet sugar industry became a major competitor for cane sugar. Author describes how this rivalry led to the first
international commodity trade accords and conventions in the 1850s, and he further sketches these constantly changing
international changing negotiations since then. He places this in relation to fundamental transformations that have
occurred throughout the 19th c., sugar becoming a mass consumption foodstuff, first in Europe and the US, and,
relatedly, the tendency toward overproduction and thus an imbalance. He relates this last aspect due to several
economic and sugar industry conditions, lacking elasticity, differing production costs, instability of prices, as well as
national policies. He then describes the protectionist and subsidy system connected to the origins of sugar diplomacy,
and how this in turn was connected to economic fluctuation. As Cuba and Java could modernize their production, they
became in the early 20th c. major cane sugar producers, but by 1900 beet sugar production outperformed cane sugar,
resulting in a continuing decline of traditional sugarcane producers, particularly in the Caribbean. Author further pays
attention to the international sugar market in times of crisis, resulting in a sugar price boom by the 1920s, in the first
important agreement, signifying a progress in realizing a world sugar cartel, in 1931, though not involving all countries
and thus a limited scope, and extended later. He further discusses the US sugar treaties and acts, with special attention
to quotas regarding sugar imports to the US from Cuba in the earlier 20th c., which diminished over time, and to postWorld War II developments, showing how recent policies increased commercial protection by developed countries and
a significant decline in the exports of peripheral countries.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6163
Cruz Soto, Marie
(2008)
Inhabiting Isla Nena : imperial dramas, gendered geographical imaginings and Vieques, Puerto Rico
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 164-191.
Puerto Rico / social history / political history / image
Examines how the island Vieques has throughout history been imagined geographically as Isla Nena (literally: female
child island), through struggles of communities to inhabit and of empires to claim Vieques. Author traces such
struggles from the 16th c. to the 21st c. historicizing this gendered and infantilized representation, and how the islandcommunity has been caught in the midst of several imperial dramas, influencing in turn the Vieques-Puerto Rico
relationship. She reconstructs the history of inhabtitation and imagining of Vieques placing the ensuing historical
epochs under the metaphors of conception, pregnancy, labour, birth, baptism, innocence lost, loved, and moribound.
She thus relates early-16th-c. imaginings by Caribs on Vieques and Carib-Spanish encounters in nearby Puerto Rico,
eventually leaving the island deserted, followed by centuries of Spanish neglect, and settlement by nationals of other
powers, changing with more extensive colonization efforts by Spain in the early 19th c. and Vieques's economic
maturing, preceding the official foundation of the Spanish colony of Vieques in 1844. Since then it was initially a
dependency of Puerto Rico, had a free-port status with tax privileges, and later (1864) integrated into it, and lost its
free-port status. Economic prosperity partly continued up to the early 20th c. and US rule, after which decline set in.
Since the 1940s another epoch set in, with appropriation of a large part of Vieques by the US Navy for trial purposes,
eventually causing environmental degradation, and against which a wide, grassroots protest developed. Author shows
how throughout all this metaphors of "female child" (compared to Puerto Rico) as well as virginity were invoked.
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
Curet, L. Antonio
(2006)
Las crónicas en la arqueología de Puerto Rico y del Caribe
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 1, pp. 163-199.
Puerto Rico / Caribbean / Amerindians / social history / archaeology / historiography / historical sources
Focusses on the combined use of archaeological research and chronicles (as ethnohistoric data). Author argues that this
combination, while necessary and logical, at present has weaknesses, reflecting in many studies on Amerindian
societies in Puerto Rico and the wider region. He describes how this combination tends to take place mostly in a
complementary manner, with chronicles being cited to provide in lacking information and fill lacunas in archaeology,
but that this is insufficient. He laments further that chronicles as historic texts all too easily tend to be higher valued a
priori than archaeological data. He calls instead for a more rigorous combination of ethnohistoric and archaeological
15
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
data, including a more systematic evaluation of both sources as separate lines of evidence. Specifically, the author
discusses the epistemological and methodological issues involved in research organization on pre-Columbian
Amerindian societies, i.e. unity of analysis, unity of observation, recollection of data, and prejudice (ignoring facts)
versus subjectivity (including facts). He points out how generalization of (supra)cultural traits, or trivialization of
internal variability, along with inappropriate comparisons, and the ignoring of some prejudiced (or subjective)
chronicles all hindered the acquisition of detailed and correct knowledge of the variable characteristics of Amerindian
societies in the Caribbean.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Curry-Machado, Jonathan
(2007)
Privileged scapegoats : the manipulation of migrant engineering workers in mid-nineteenth century Cuba
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 35 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 207-245.
Cuba / migrations / sugar industry / political history / social history / slavery
Discusses how migrant engineering workers went to Cuba in the mid-19th c., and installed, operated, and maintained
the steam technology that was introduced in the sugar industry, contributing to its growth. These engineers obtained
privileged status and relatively high wages in Cuba. The author further especially examines how these migrant
engineers, who were for the most part North Americans and Britons, became convenient symbols, and at times also
scapegoats, for the Spanish colonial authorities, responding to problems. These problems all related to an increasingly
insecure political hold of Spain over Cuba, and in particular included the skills shortage among local Cubans in
engineering for which the authorities blamed the foreign engineers supposedly hindering this; the foreign engineers
seen as complicitous in the increasing economic dependency upon foreign powers in Cuba; the discursive association
of them with abolitionism and feared slave rebellion, thereby presenting it as a foreign influence; and they were blamed
for other foreign influences and (US) annexationism. Author shows how the symbolic roles the Spanish authorities
attributed to these foreign engineers helped them in diverting attention away from Spanish colonial policies and
economic mismanagement as creating unrest among Cubans, presenting it instead as a foreign influence. He further
gives specific examples of this, including the (unjust) trial of foreign engineers for the supposed slave conspiracy ('La
Escalera') in the 1840s, and later accusations and blaming discourses.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
De Ferrari, Guillermina
(2007)
Vulnerable states : bodies of memory in contemporary Caribbean fiction. Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press
Caribbean / literature / literary criticism / social history / body
Points out how the body's literal and figurative vulnerability is a productive site of memory and contestation in
contemporary Caribbean fiction. Author relates this further to the colonial history of the Caribbean, as legitimacy for
the colonial enterprise was derived from the body of the colonized, to which inferiority was ascribed. Consequently,
she argues that the symbolic appropriation of the body by medical, legal, and political discourses is the true origin of
the Caribbean, and that foregrounding the body's vulnerability is a strategy of more recent writers toward
decolonization. As such, she further contends, it is more effective than marvelous perceptions of nature by earlier,
modernist Caribbean writers. She further takes up different versions of vulnerability in and against power relations,
analysing works by different Caribbean writers. First, she reads Patrick Chamoiseau's 'Solibo Magnifique' (1988) as
parodying the European detective novel to allegorize the death of oral culture in Martinique and, broader, docile bodies
created through colonial assimilation. Next, she discusses Severo Sarduy's 'Pájaros de la playa' (1993), allegorizing
AIDS, and the political implications of bodies through illness. Further, she treats several girlhood or coming-of-age
stories, by Michelle Cliff, Magali García Ramis, Maryse Condé, Gisèle Pineau, and Jamaica Kincaid, as these deal with
racial and gender anxieties in the colonial environment. The author then pays attention to Kincaid's 'The autobiography
of my mother' (1996) as pursuing the myth of the hypersexualized black female body, stemming from the master-slave
dialectic. Finally, she focusses on Pedro Juan Gutiérrez's 'Trilogía sucia de La Habana' (1998) as it exploits the abject
body as a space of resistance against both Communist ethics and capitalist aesthetics.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3926
16
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Dijck, Pitou van
(2007)
Sustainable forest management and the Guiana Shield Initiative
In: Partnerships in sustainable forest resource management : learning from Latin America: (2007), P. 189-206. Leiden
[etc.] : Brill
Guyana / Suriname / French Guiana / Latin America / physical environment / ecology / sustainable development
Examines the Guiana Shield Initiative, introduced by a partnership of organizations and the Netherlands Committee for
the World Conservation Union, and aiming to support sustainable forest management in the Guiana Shield region.
Author describes how the Guiana Shield eco-region, including the 3 Guianas as well as parts of Venezuela, Colombia
and Brazil, is one of the largest areas of tropical forest in the world left relatively intact, and discusses how it has direct
use values, e.g. timber and other products, as habitat for Amerindian and Maroon groups, and for education and
recreation, as well as indirect use values, in the form of environmental services, e.g. to the nutrient cycle, water control,
biodiversity, and carbon sequestration, being even of global ecological significance. He further describes how the
Shield has come under increasing threat from ecologically and socially destructive activities, like farming, cattle
ranching, agriculture, mining, and ill-planned infrastructure and colonization projects. Author further outlines how the
Guiana Shield Initiative promotes ecologically sustainable management in the eco-region, against these threats,
discussing its goals, partners and target groups, and economic dimensions. He points out how it is largely based on
creating financial constructions and mechanisms for rewarding the region and its population for the environmental
services provided, requiring assessment of payments and markets for ecological goods and services. Applying the
welfare economic and political economy perspective, he further shows how this includes measurement difficulties, and
calls for alternative, rational ways to exploit the forest through zoning, as well as limiting incentives for logging and
mining, and reducing the physical and economic accessibility of the land.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6405
Dilla Alfonso, Haroldo
(2007)
República Dominicana : la nueva cartografía transfronteriza
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 35 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 181-205.
Dominican Republic / Haiti / boundaries / international trade / economic development
Describes how the Dominican/Haitian borderland is a region in transition from a closed border to one with growing
economic exchanges, especially developing as such since the 1980s. Author explains how such opening occurred in
response to the market and commercial interests, and in a fragmented, as well as uneven manner. He points out how
this spatially caused a regional restructuring, including "transborder corridors", constituting urban networks across
borders. He characterizes the different types of economic activities (formal and informal) that take place, the
"hierarchy" of cities formed as part of such networks, and the corridors crossing borders at different points from the
north to the south, and wider trade networks they represent. These latter extend for instance eventually between the
main cities Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince, and between Santiago and Cap Haitien. Author shows how some border
cities grew and partly profited as a result, notably Dajabón, while overall Haitian border towns and areas are in a more
vulnerable and weaker economic position when compared to the Dominican counterparts in the networks. In addition,
he points out how such border towns often developed, in these wider trade connections, as "factory cities", being
commercial enclaves benefiting external actors. Thus, he points out, these corridors contribute relatively little to
sustainable development or services and products for their rural hinterlands, especially in Haiti.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Diouf, Sylviane A.
(2008)
African Muslims in the Caribbean
In: Wadabagei : journal of the Caribbean and its diaspora, ISSN 1091-5753: vol. 11 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 83-95.
Caribbean / USA / Brazil / Islam / slavery / cultural history / religion / religious history / folk culture
17
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Focusses on the historical cultural influence of Muslims among the enslaved population in the Americas, and in the
Caribbean in particular. Author points out that while the presence of Muslims among slaves was reported in different
parts of the Americas since the 16th c., they overall were not too numerous among the slaves. Yet, she emphasizes that
their influence was disproportionate, also among non-Muslim Africans in the Americas, as Islam was transethnic. She
particularly exemplifies this by describing 2 traditions that Muslims brought and maintained, that were adopted by nonMuslims, and are still alive today in the Caribbean: giving "saraka" or charity, and particular amulets. She describes
how the concept and Arabic-based word of saraka was brought to the Caribbean, and was reworked by non-Muslim
Africans to mean offerings to ancestors, different from in Islam, e.g. presently in the Big Drum or Nation Dance in
Carriacou, and she gives also other examples of references, and reworkings of the saraka concept. Next, the author pays
attention to the making and wearing of specific amulets with Arabic texts, e.g. excerpts from Qur'an verses, meant as
spiritual protection. This was also adopted by non-Muslim slaves, as it, like the saraka, embodied their search for
control of power while enslaved. Author further gives other examples of African Muslims' legacies in the Americas in
the present, including references, or terms, in religions like Vodou, and some customs.
SIGNATURE: TA 7622
Dookeran, Winston
(2007)
Foreign direct investment : policy issues and recommendations for Caribbean development
In: No island is an island : the impact of globalization on the Commonwealth Carribean: (2007), P. 122-135. London :
Chatham House
Caribbean / British Caribbean / foreign investments / economic development / economic policy
Focusses on the importance of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for Caribbean economies. Author describes how FDI
inflows into Caribbean countries have increased strongly since the 1990s, aided by supportive policies, especially in
Trinidad and Tobago and other Caricom countries. He points out that FDI offers the opportunity for small states to
compete economically globally, but that to produce more benefits for the Caribbean economies FDI requires a more
informed and proactive planning. He indicates that policies thus should maximize the developmental impact of FDI on
the local economy, and encourage higher value-added type of foreign investment. Such a more development-conscious
policy environment is already in place in Barbados. To achieve this, the author further recommends making incentives
for foreign investors dependent on their contribution to national development goals and thus more selective, and that
FDI should promote positive structural reforms. He also points at the importance for this of infrastructural and
institutional developments to nurture future FDI-induced growth, removing barriers regarding foreign capital and
currency flows and limiting bureaucracy, as well as regional integration.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 6433
Downes, Andrew
(2007)
Human resources : special issue
In: Journal of Eastern Caribbean studies, ISSN 0254-7406: vol. 32 (2007), Issue. 4, pp. 1-98.
British Caribbean / Jamaica / human resources / economic development
Issue consists of an introduction, 2 articles, a commentary, and a public lecture devoted to Human Resource
Development and Management (HRDM) and its necessity and state in the British Caribbean. Editor first defines human
resources (HR), and distinguishes between the organizational and national level. He points at the increased need within
the region of a proactive national and organizational HRDM strategy to remain competitive internationally, in light of a
changing environment, and the challenges in the region like unemployment, educational-work mismatch, relatively low
productivity, and brain drain. Anne Crick looks at managing service workers in Jamaican service organizations,
addressing how managers conceived the increased need emotional and aesthetic labour, and the views of employees.
She notes that the need for the use of emotional and aesthetic labour was recognized, but that managers did not support
this with strategic HR management. Noel M. Cowell examines HR investment in Jamaican business organizations,
noting that expenditure on this was overall limited and unstructured, as managers preferred to compete on variables like
price and product quality. In her commentary, Jennifer Wynter-Palmer calls for a greater role for the HR practitioner.
Edward Greene, in his lecture, calls for an integrated HR development strategy in the region, including health/nutrition
and education/training, a more responsive and relevant educational system, greater health equity, gender equity, and the
18
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
reordering of labour market relations in light of regional and international changes, with the CARICOM as possible
catalyst.
SIGNATURE: TA 6835
Duin, Lieke van
(2007)
Anansi as classical hero
In: Journal of Caribbean literatures, ISSN 1086-010X: vol. 5 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 33-42.
Suriname / Curaçao / Caribbean / Anansi / oral tradition / literature / cultural history
Places Ananasi stories in Afro-Surinamese and Afro-Curaçaoan, and other oral, traditions within what can be called the
"world canon" of classical literature. Author finds that such a world canon should include, besides written, also oral
literature, as oral traditions often form the groundwork for written, classical literature, but also if unwritten, she argues,
such oral tales can be considered classical, deriving this classicality from other sources. She further probes this issue by
discussing the definition of "classic". She further expands on this by pointing out how true classics have what Jung
called, "archetypal values", elements of the collective subconscious saying something essential about the human
condition. She further applies this last aspect to the Anansi tales. She describes their origins in Ashanti culture, where
Ananse tales had mythical-religious connotations, later adapted during slavery in the Americas, with the main trickster
figure Anansi maintained, as well as motifs and structures. She points at the complexity of the Anansi figure as he
displays in the stories selfish motives and aims, yet in another sense contradicts social structures. Author compares this
further to trickster figures in other oral traditions throughout the world, to thus show how the specific Anansi figure on
the one hand has culturally determined characteristics related to, originally, Ashanti society, but on the other hand
shares primal motifs with other trickster figures, making Anansi represent archetypal, primordially human qualities,
rendering it thus an enduring, classical hero.
SIGNATURE: TA 11951
Dumont, Jacques
(2007)
Sport, culture et assimilation dans les Antilles françaises, des colonies aux départements d'outre-mer
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 35 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 87-106.
Guadeloupe / Martinique / France / sport / political history / social history / social development
Reconstructs how sports have been perceived and understood in Guadeloupe and Martinique, specifically in relation to
the search for identity and in the assimilation process, and thus the metropolis. Author first relates how in the first half
of the 20th c. sport remained an activity of the elite, taking on a leadership in sport activities. These pioneering sport
promoters aligned sport to broader human advancement, not just physical, but also intellectual and moral, toward what
they perceived as civilization, ultimately based on a community need for recognition by the metropolitan France. Such
an educational and civilizing approach toward sport, included a focus on working for the group and social affinity of
leaders. Sport participation remained limited and out of reach to the majority of the population. Author describes how
important changes took place when the colonies achieved the department status, occasioning a centralization in France
of sport, and structural changes toward competitive leagues and separation between sports, and a diminished didactical
focus. By the 1960s sport participation increased in Guadeloupe and Martinique, and since the 1970s also by women.
Author further shows how meanwhile renewed, multiple views on French assimilation, and a stronger sense of French
Antillean, as well as regional Caribbean, identity also reflected in the domain of sports.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Dungy, Kathryn R.
(2005)
Live and let live : native and immigrant free people of color in early nineteenth century Puerto Rico
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 33 (2005), Issue. 1, pp. 79-111.
Puerto Rico / migrations / social history / race relations / slavery / economic history
19
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Examines the presence and activities of free people of colour, both natives and immigrants, placed in the wider
evolution of the population of Puerto Rico, especially in the 19th c. Author compares the position of free people of
colour in Puerto Rico since the 18th c. with other Caribbean colonies, pointing out how there were relatively less
restrictions or exclusions in Puerto Rico for them, though these were not absent. She describes how since 1815 colonial
policies increased immigration into Puerto Rico, including also many free coloured from Curaçao, Haiti, St Thomas,
Santo Domingo and other places. Looking specifically at the specific (coastal) towns of Patillas, Aguadilla, Arecibo,
and Cabo Rojo and their population development, she focusses in particular on free coloureds, discussing their
occupations, and other activities. These included shoemakers, carpenters, other artisans, and peasants. In addition, free
people of colour, including immigrants, in time got to own slaves for agricultural production. Author concludes that
while free people in Puerto Rico were comparatively free to enter crafts and businesses, and faced less divisions and
restrictions than in other Caribbean colonies, still only very few of them could be found in higher business ranks.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Eckkrammer, Eva Martha
(2007)
Papiamentu, cultural resistance, and socio-cultural challenges : the ABC islands in a nutshell
In: Journal of Caribbean literatures, ISSN 1086-010X: vol. 5 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 73-93.
Curaçao / Aruba / Bonaire / Papiamentu language / language use / social history / literature / cultural development
Evaluates the contemporary linguistic situation and literary life regarding Papiamentu and the Creole culture of
Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire. Author places this first against a historical background, discussing the period from 1499
until the 19th c., as Papiamentu was fully established by 1700; the "oil-turn" in the early 20th c. and changes since then;
and the May 1969 riots and their effects, including an ensuing process of "Antilleanization". Next, she focusses on
linguistic and literary issues, addressing Papiamentu's historical evolution, up to recent legal initiatives; the current
linguistic situation on the islands, as Papiamentu coexists with other languages, and code-switching in everyday
language is common; recent issues and challenges regarding education and Papiamentu language planning, noting
deficiencies regarding corpus, status, and prestige, as well as obstacles to standardization (with at present 2
orthographies), and in education, where Papiamentu's introduction as medium of instruction during the first years of
schools is still stymied, prolonging educational participation problems; and Papiamentu literature and literary
translation developing after 1969 toward Antilleanization and later a local Creoleness or Caribbeanness, enabling a
transcultural identity. Further, the author pays attention to the Antillean diaspora, especially in the Netherlands, and
discusses the use of Papiamentu among these migrants. Finally, she highlights future options and possibilities of a
Creole culture as needed local base amidst globalization.
SIGNATURE: TA 11951
Evans Braziel, Jana
(2007)
Antillean detours through the American South : Édouard Glissant's and Jamaica Kincaid's textual returns to William
Faulkner
In: Just below south : intercultural performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. south: (2007), P. 239-264. Charlottesville
[etc.] : University of Virginia Press
USA / Caribbean / literature / social history / cultural development / literary criticism
Analyses how William Faulkner's work 'Absalom, Absalom!' (1936) is revisited by Caribbean writers Édouard Glissant
and Jamaica Kincaid. Specifically, the author through these rereadings of Faulkner's work reframes Faulkner's work,
set in Mississippi, on plantation life and the genealogy of a white family, including race mixing and a Haitian
connection. She thus examines how such rereadings, as "Antillean detours", in a sense perform resistance in redressing
and rewriting the historical violence and racial hierarchies of plantation economies, and are a way to trace transAmerican parameters, as a Caribbean remapping of the American hemisphere and the field of American studies. In
particular, she focusses on how Glissant in 'Faulkner, Mississippi' (1996) revisits Faulkner, including the themes of
genealogy, (il)legitimacy, and the (failing) search for origins/genealogy in Faulkner's novel, extending this further
toward an analysis of the plantation as ultimately shaping a composite (Caribbean) culture, rather than an atavistic
20
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
(origins-based) one as Faulkner, the latter being also problematic historically in the Caribbean. In addition, the author
analyses how Kincaid's 'The autobiography of my mother' (1996), set in Dominica, shares with Faulkner's work that it
is an historical epic in a colonial American context of slavery, and includes also a genealogy of Scots/Irish men
entering into cross-racial marriages, and in both novels also leaving illegitimate children. Furthermore, she shows how
both works include "origin myths", but in Kincaid's case this is revisted to discuss historical genocide in the Caribbean,
e.g. of Dominican Caribs, part of the family genealogy.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 4029
Fairhead, James and Melissa Leach
(2007)
Partnership for sustainable timber production in Trinidad : dealing with social and ecological dynamics
In: Partnerships in sustainable forest resource management : learning from Latin America: (2007), P. 107-124. Leiden
[etc.] : Brill
Trinidad and Tobago / forestry / forest management / environmental protection / ecology
Focusses on natural forest management in Trinidad, as systems there are seen as examples of sustainable forest
management, and for reconciling timber production with other forest values. Authors describe forest management
systems in Trinidad, especially the Periodic Block System (PBS), a "blueprint" for selective logging in demarcated
forest blocks in cycles of 25-30 years in the South and East of the island. They explain how this further involves
partnerships between government foresters and small-scale artisanal operators, known as "woodworkers". They further
trace the development of this PBS both with regard to its management of forest ecology, and its social relationships.
They reconstruct first how such a "polycyclic" system was developed first in Trinidad in 1929, but became applied only
since the 1960s to the Southeastern Victoria Mayaro Reserve. They describe the forest management practices of the
PBS in this reserve. Then, they evaluate the social relationships between foresters, woodworkers, and sawmillers,
noting in general a social support among these groups, but also that woodworkers and others at field-level, critique the
actual practice of PBS increasingly in recent years. This critique relates to several aspects: tree selection for felling, of
better timber going to sawmillers; delays and time lags in Forestry Division bureaucracy; and to radical changes in
procedure following forest fires. In addition, the authors show how ad hoc management changes to cope with
unpredictability further provoked tensions between woodworkers and the Forestry Division, as the flexible adaptation
at field-level and of the wood workers required for workability, are left unacknowledged by the larger forestry
bureaucracy.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6405
Ferguson, Therese
(2007)
EESD in Jamaica : critical reflections
In: Social and economic studies, ISSN 0037-7651: vol. 56/2007, Issue. 3, pp. 129-157.
Jamaica / environment / education / environmental education / pedagogy
Focusses on Environmental Education for Sustainable Development (EESD), which was formalized especially in
Jamaica since 1998 through a National Environmental Education Action Plan for Sustainable Development, to be
implemented between 1998 and 2010. Author critically interrogates 3 underlying basic assumptions implicit in EESD:
that the meaning of sustainable development is self-evident and uncontested; that education should be used to advance
sustainable development; and that the broader education system facilitates the values and skills espoused by EESD
advocates. She recommends more research on the differing conceptions of sustainable development, that EESD
incorporates a more critical perspective and a multiplicity of perspectives, and more attention to the wider education
system in which EESD is framed, including to whether pedagogical practices and notions can aid environmental
education. In addition, the author discusses opportunities for an effective environmental education, such as in relation
to recent educational reforms in Jamaica, including a move toward a more child-centred approach, as well as a learnercentred environment, and the infusion of environmental themes and concerns since the primary level on which may be
reflected through participatory and action-oriented didactical methods.
SIGNATURE: TA 3962
21
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Fouse, Gary C.
(2007)
Slavery and the development of Papiamentu
In: Journal of Caribbean literatures, ISSN 1086-010X: vol. 5 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 61-72.
Curaçao / Aruba / Bonaire / Africa / Papiamentu language / slavery / slave trade / social history / languages
Describes the development of the Papiamentu language during slavery in Curaçao, Bonaire, and Aruba. Author frames
this further within main theories on Papiamentu's origins, traced by some linguists to an Afro-Portuguese pidgin spoken
already on the African coasts, and by others to the contacts between Spanish conquistadores and Amerindians. He
further discusses the development of trans-Atlantic slavery, with a pioneering role of the Portuguese in Africa. He
further describes how after the Dutch capture of the islands in the 1630s Spanish continued to be spoken. Since the
1650s Curaçao became an important slave trading depot, and many Sephardic Jews migrated to Curaçao, generally
speaking Iberian languages. Author further pays attention to early references of travellers to languages spoken on
Curaçao and Aruba, and to the oldest surviving documents in Papiamentu: a letter by a Sephardic Jew from 1775 in
Curaçao, and a declaration by Amerindians from 1803 in Aruba. Aruban Papiamento became in time more influenced
by Spanish, and Curaçaoan Papiamentu more by Dutch. Author further shows how while Dutch did not spread to the
masses, Papiamentu's development was influenced by the Catholic Church, proselytizing among the (ex) slaves using
and writing down vernacular Papiamentu for this aim. As Dutch remained the formal educational and official language,
a language conflict continued throughout the 20th c.
SIGNATURE: TA 11951
Frazier, Denise
(2008)
Cuban hip-hop : the promoted and commercial revolution
In: Wadabagei : journal of the Caribbean and its diaspora, ISSN 1091-5753: vol. 11 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 65-94.
Cuba / music / cultural policy / cultural development
Examines how and why recently Cuban hip-hop has been culturally integrated and supported by the government.
Author argues that the government's cooptation of hip-hop aimed at reconnecting its image to the lost "revolutionary"
values of antiracism and socialism, and allows it to profit economically from it. In addition, she discusses the artistic
and financial conditions and consequences faced by hip-hop groups who have the government's support. She shows
how Cuban hip-hop's birthplace is the predominantly Afro-Cuban neighbourhood Alamar at the outskirts of Havana,
with a vivid hip-hop scene and where an annual hip-hop festival was held since 1995. This had initially a local Alamar
input in its organization, in cooperation with the Asociación Hermanos Saíz (AHS), the cultural youth promoter group
of the Communist Youth. In time, however, the local Alamar organizers were sidelined in favour of AHS, and thus
government dominance. Author points out how this overall had mainstreaming effects, ideologically as well as
commercially, and caused a move to Havana. To receive national and international promotion and production support
artists choose to comply in their lyrics with revolutionary ideology, while others are excluded. Additionally, there was
after 2000 increased media and academic attention with government support. She next indicates how the hip-hop artists
and groups were affected by this support. This aided them in part, yet production and other constraints remained within
Cuba, and groups sought connection to international recording companies, building on the increased international
recognition of Cuban hip-hop.
SIGNATURE: TA 7622
Fulton, Dawn
(cop. 2008)
Signs of dissent : Maryse Condé and postcolonial criticism. Charlottesville [etc.] : University of Virginia Press
Guadeloupe / post-colonial literature / literary criticism / writers / post-colonialism
Studies the ways in which Maryse Condé's fictional work embodies a sustained dialogue with the critical discussion
surrounding her work. Author is particularly interested in the dialogue Condé stages with the major theoretical
preoccupations of postcolonial studies: questions of racial and cultural difference, gender, representation, and exoticism
that, according to the author, shape the critical interpretations of Condé's work. She argues that by interpellating these
metafictional discussions in her novels, Condé presents a sustained reflection on the productive and critical limits of
22
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
postcolonial theory. Author examines the ways in which Condé's texts challenges the various lenses through which they
are read as "Caribbean", "Third World", "feminist", as narratives of cultural identity, or as reversals of colonial power
through a particular strategy of incorporating and embodying those interpretative investments in order to test their logic.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 7636
Gafar, John
(2005)
The impact of economic reforms on health indicators in Guyana
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 33 (2005), Issue. 1, pp. 149-176.
Guyana / health / economic development / health indicators
Examines the performance of health indicators in Guyana during the period of economic reforms starting in 1988.
Author describes how Guyana experienced economic growth since then, and he further analyses the relations between
GDP per capita growth, education, and health indicators. He first describes Guyana's health care system, and changes
since the 1980s. Next, he pays attention to the allocation of resources, pointing at the increased public health spending
since 1992, though still below the regional average. Further, he points out how immunization rates have increased
significantly in the 1990s, and how malnutrition declined between 1993 and 2000, although with little nutritional
improvement for children since 1997. He then focusses on other health outcome trends and indicators, including life
expectancy, protein intake, and infant mortality, showing how life expectancy increased, and infant mortality also fell
since 1990. Author concludes that there was a real improvement in the health indicators in Guyana during the period of
reforms since 1988, and that these are more due to GDP per capita growth, than to increased public health spending. In
addition, he found a link between education and health outcomes, as malnutrition and immunization rates are higher for
children of higher educated women.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
García Fernández, Nélida
(2006)
Interacciones mercantiles entre los imperios del Atlántico : el comercio directo del añil colonial Español hacia Bristol,
vía Jamaica
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 2, pp. 47-98.
United Kingdom / Jamaica / Spanish America / economic history / indigo / Jews / international trade
Describes the rise and development of the direct trade of dye, especially indigo, from Spanish colonies to Britain by the
British, who were very interested in indigo in relation to their textile industry. Author further points out how in this
trade Jamaica was the most important hub through which the indigo went to Britain, notably to the port of Bristol. She
reconstructs how the need for indigo, from foreign sources, increased as several British colonies in the Caribbean
specialized more in sugar by the early 18th c. In the course of the 18th c. the Dutch dominance in the indigo trade
diminished, and the British international indigo trade became more important. This included increasingly direct trade
(as opposed to via Spain), bypassing mercantilist restrictions, especially the indigo entering the Bristol port. Author
further pays attention to the traders of indigo on the said Spanish colonial plantations-Jamaica-Bristol trail, pointing out
how these included relatively many Jews, for whom indigo became a specialized trade due to restrictions for Jews
elsewhere. Many of these Jews did not have British citizenship, and often worked through British brokers in the Bristol
area. This trade was further aided by the Spanish these Jews often spoke, due to their Iberian (Sephardic) past, and by
their connections to Spanish America, enabling an intermediate position.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Garrett, Hélène and Leendert P. Mos
(2007)
In a recovery of identity through Papiamentu : the talents of Elis Juliana
In: Journal of Caribbean literatures, ISSN 1086-010X: vol. 5 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 21-32.
Curaçao / Netherlands Antilles / writers / intellectuals / literature / cultural history / Papiamentu language
23
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Focusses on the writings of Elis Juliana (1927-). Authors explain how Juliana's poetry and other writing were grounded
in his collection of folk traditions among older Curaçaoans, through which he helped reconstruct the past, and indicate
how his art thus became a vehicle of emancipation. They describe how Juliana from early in his life wrote and recited
in Papiamentu, increasingly based on local culture studies, and echoing traditional orature. They discuss haikus where
this is present, and in his other poetry, wherein he expresses his ideas on female equality, social problems, and the
slavery past, influenced also by Nicolás Guillén. Thus, Juliana evinced primary evidence for the oral tradition in
Curaçaoan history, and is the authorative interpreter of the tambú music and dance, originated among slaves. Authors
further pay attention to how Juliana's Papiamentu writings require a specific rereading or interpretative translation,
based on an imaginative reliving.
SIGNATURE: TA 11951
Gerstin, Julian
(2007)
The allure of origins : neo-African dances in the French Caribbean and the Southern United States
In: Just below south : intercultural performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. south: (2007), P. 123-145. Charlottesville
[etc.] : University of Virginia Press
Martinique / Caribbean / USA / dance / cultural history / folk culture / cultural development
Focusses on historical descriptions of "kalenda" among African slaves, according to contemporary authors appearing
almost simultaneously in different parts of the Caribbean and wider Americas since especially the 18th c.. In particular,
the author examines how early colonial writings continue to be influential, including in local understandings of current
local African-derived folk culture, and wider racial identity. He especially focusses on Martinique. He first describes
how early European writers described kalenda generally stereotypically, thus reducing black identities according to
stereotypes of hypersexuality and intensity, discussing writings by Jean Baptiste Labat and Moreau de St-Méry, and
later descriptions of kalenda in the US South, also after slavery, continued the earlier colonial images. At the same time,
these descriptions by white writers conflated the term kalenda, and used it for different performances, often erroneously,
in the Americas. In addition, the author shows how the same imagery continues to influence current representations of
dance in Martinique. This includes tourist troupes, accepting old stereotypes of "African" dances geared toward
expected tourist tastes, and including minstrel-like derogatory characters. Other representations sought to counter these
images and further aimed at a revival and reclaiming of authentic Martinican Afro-Caribbean cultural heritage, as part
of a cultural resistance movement especially since the 1980s, in line with other cultural movements like créolité, and
that sought to recapture Martinican tradition, or invent it, but based on profound study and authentic folk culture.
Nonetheless, he points out how the old colonial images and texts continued to partly influence these renewed dance
expressions.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 4029
Gibbons, Rawle
(2007)
Trinidad sailor mas
In: Just below south : intercultural performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. south: (2007), P. 146-166. Charlottesville
[etc.] : University of Virginia Press
Trinidad and Tobago / carnivals / cultural history / cultural development / cultural identity
Focusses on the masquerade (or: mas) on the Sailor, part of the Trinidad Carnival, and its wider social and cultural
significance. Author contextualizes this within the history of the Trinidad Carnival, having its roots in the Canboulay,
and while started among French whites in the slavery period, it in the postemancipation period became a site for Black
resistance through performance. He shows how thus public displays of skills or style are ways to inscribe identity, in
the Carnival as in wider Black Atlantic culture. He further denotes symbols, African continuities, and developing
popular expressions of rebellion as performed through traditional masquerades becoming thus social texts. Author
highlights the Sailor mas as a still performed example of a traditional mas, existing alongside modern, more customized
masquerades, with the traditional mas being based more on skills. Further focusing on the Sailor mas, he describes
what meanings are conveyed in it, including clothes, music, texts, as it consists of 3 main elements: realism, ridicule,
and the surreal, as US naval presence and dominance in Trinidad following declining British rule are ridiculed and
24
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
dismantled in the performance, which contains multiple narratives. These include historical, social, thematic, and
ancestral ones.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 4029
Gisselquist, David
(2008)
Points to consider : responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa,Asia, and the Caribbean. London : Adonis & Abbey
Africa / Caribbean / Asia / HIV / AIDS / health care / public health
Challenges misinformation about risks in countries with generalized HIV epidemics. Author presents a history of the
HIV epidemic, with special attention to blood exposures and to what public health managers have (not) done to protect
people from HIV transmission through blood exposures. He examines weaknesses in the dialogue between AIDS
experts and people in countries with generalized epidemics. He also reviews estimates of the proportion of HIV
transmission through health care in generalized epidemics.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 7054
Goldberg, David M.
(2007)
Haiti 2004 : CARICOM's democracy promotion efforts
In: Promoting democracy in the Americas: (2007), P. 177-203. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press
Haiti / CARICOM / Caribbean / OAS / UN / political history / international relations / political development / regional
integration
Examines the international response to the Haitian political crises since 2000, especially in 2004. Author particularly
points out how Caricom's response differed from those of the OAS and the UN, and that this in turn reflects
organizational differences. He further discusses Caricom's evolution from a trade agreement to an emerging
subregional multilateral actor in the promotion of democracy, working alongside the OAS to promote democratic
norms and constitutional governance among member states. This eventually resulted in Caricom's leading role in
working to resolve the 2004 Haitian political crisis. Author next describes Haitian politics since the 2000 presidential
elections, and events leading up to the political crisis of 2004, when Aristide left the country, and after this. He further
compares the responses of the UN, the OAS, and Caricom to the elections of 2000 and to the 2004 crisis in Haiti, and
explains the differences. These included a continued engagement of Caricom with Haiti in 2000, while there was a
withdrawal from Haiti by other countries and multilateral organizations, in searching a negotiated settlement after
contentious senate votes weakened the election's legitimacy. Eventually Aristide was recognized as president but the
flawed election context set the stage for the 2004 political crisis in Haiti. Author shows how by then responses of the
UN, the OAS, and the US and France, differed from Caricom's Plan of Action, which allowed Aristide to remain in
office, while compared to the OAS, Caricom was more strongly engaged in solving the crisis, representing a test of its
commitment to representative democracy among its members.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6326
Goldstein, Alyosha
(2007)
The attributes of sovereignty : the Cold War, colonialism, and community education in Puerto Rico
In: Imagining our Americas : toward a transnational frame: (2007), P. 313-337. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University
Press
Puerto Rico / political history / community development / community participation
Focusses on the political and social dynamics of the popular support for the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD)
administration under Luis Muñoz Marín from the 1930s to the 1950s. Author argues that the political utility of "local
community" was an integral component of PPD hegemony, as a ground for politics, within a strategic expression of
hemispheric relations. She relates how this fitted in the wider policy, with US rule and economic policies in Puerto
Rico increasingly being "mediated" by the PPD. She shows how this was done through policies and structures aimed at
community development, providing thus a tacit counterdiscourse to political nationalism, as well as a model for US-led
25
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
progress. This was further part of PPD's efforts at replacing political nationalism by cultural nationalism. Author
describes how the División de Educación de la Comunidad (DIVEDCO), piloted in 1947, became a main vehicle for
community education and development, and a catalyst for group discussion and collective self-help. Through the
DIVEDCO local participation and mutual aid, already longer present, expanded, and was recognized politically and
administratively, valorizing them as (community) expressions of the state. Author points out that this contributed to
support to PPD hegemony, and describes how other characteristics of DIVEDCO initiatives also related to this, as its
activities focussed on moral values and psychological and spiritual transformation against isolation, but with little
concern for broader social changes. She indicates that DIVEDCO had political utility for the PPD as it conveyed a
sense for the rural poor of themselves as extensions of the state. Its significance, however, diminished along with PPD
hegemony in the 1960s, when the PPD-brokered class compromise faded, and crisis-related social conflicts increased in
Puerto Rico.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3589
González, Michelle A.
(2007)
The 'virgen' and the scholar : Afro-Cuban contributions to Latino/a and Latin American theologies
In: Feminist intercultural theology : Latina explorations for a just world: (2007), P. 125-144. Maryknoll, N.Y : Orbis
Books
Cuba / Latin America / USA / theology / religion / Afro-Caribbean religions / Catholicism / folk culture / cultural
history
Deplores that there is a silence regarding Afro-Cuban culture and religiosity, or Cubans and Cuban-Americans in
general, in Latino and Latin American theologies. In an effort to break this silence and offer an Afro-Cuban
contribution to Latino and Latin American theologies, the author studies 2 key figures in Cuban and Cuban American
history: the Virgin of la Caridad del Cobre, a religious symbol among Afro-Cubans that in time became a national
patroness of Cuba, and the work of anthropologist Lydia Cabrera on Afro-Cuban religions, including groundbreaking
studies on Afro-Cuban religiosity, influencing Afro-Cubanismo, at its height in the period between 1926 and 1938. She
relates how the story behind La Caridad del Cobre, as a dark-colored Virgin statue appeared in the 17th c. before nonwhite (black and Amerindian) Cubans, is significant in light of Latin American theologies as representative of the
oppressed, popular perspective, against white colonial dominance. She further shows how Cabrera's methodological
dimensions are significant in light of contemporary concerns of Latino and Latin American theologies, notably her
transcription of Afro-Cuban narratives, the emphasis on Catholic elements of Afro-Cuban religions, and her defence of
African culture. Author concludes that these insights can contribute to giving Afro-Cuba a relevant place within Latin
American/Latino theologies, as well as to cross the border between US Latino and Latin American theologies.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 2978
González, Ondina E.
(2007)
Consuming interests : the response to abandoned children in colonial Havana
In: Raising an empire : children in early modern Iberia and colonial Latin America: (2007), P. 137-162. Albuquerque :
University of New Mexico Press
Havana / Cuba / abandoned children / orphanages / child care / public finance / social history / orphans
Reconstructs the history of the house for abandoned children 'Casa Joseph', founded in Havana in 1711. Author
explains how this foundling home played a crucial role in the care of abandoned children, which was a severe problem
in the period and before, showing in frequent infanticide. She discusses what can be discerned on the children, and
further reveals the links between the evolution of Casa Joseph and developing concepts and practices of charity in
Havana. She relates this further to the church-state struggles over the funding of the House, that throughout the 18th c.
continued to face financial difficulties. She points out how the Casa Joseph was the initiative of Bishop Géronimo de
Valdez, and that children were cared for only until the age of 5. She then pays attention to the funding issue,
problematic as Havana's wealthy elite showed a lack of interest in funding the house for abandoned children, and also
the local city government. Mediation was sought through the King of Spain by the Church, and income came through
the waterway tax, or Valdez's own money. Money problems continued under Casa Joseph's administrator Tomás de
Heredia from 1729 to 1759, with a near fiscal collapse in 1752, halted by Royal funding measures. Author concludes
26
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
that the abandoned children themselves were often secondary in relation to the collective, economic interests of
Havana's elite and other groups, and points at a change in the late 18th c.
as local bishops became more successful in raising funds from wealthy individuals for Casa Joseph, more willing to
be patrons because of "salvation" ideas, but mainly due to increased income and economic growth.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 4087
González Rivera, Elena
(2008)
The social and educational inequalities of black students studying English in rural Puerto Rico
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 72-95.
Puerto Rico / education / race relations / social inequality / language education
Study of the social and educational inequalities of black students (ages 11 to 16) studying English as second language
in the rural town of Orocovis in Central Puerto Rico. Author, teacher in Orocovis, explains how the neighbourhood
Florencio within Orocovis is characterized by a mainly black population, in poorer and more isolated circumstances, in
turn related to the racial difference with the rest of Orocovis. She reconstructs the history of Florencio and the black
population. Further, she applies sociopsychological theories on learning English as second language, specifically the
concept of "social distance" either to the second-language speakers (English), mainly absent in Orocovis, or to the main
first-language speaking group. She points out how social distance of the black population toward this last group is
present, related to persisting, often covert racism and discrimination against black people. Furthermore, she shows how
this reflects in social inequalities, as the standard of living is comparatively lower of the black families in Florencio,
with also few work opportunities. Social isolation contributed to intermarriages (with family members/cousins) and
resultant diseases. Author further discusses (related) educational inequalities, stemming from negative labeling of black
children by school personnel and students, and perceptions of rejection and unfair treatment by teachers, all curtailing
the students' educational and social possibilities.
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
Gough, Kathleen M.
(2007)
Plantation America's 'alienated cousins' : Trinidad carnival and Southern Civil War reenactments
In: Just below south : intercultural performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. south: (2007), P. 167-188. Charlottesville
[etc.] : University of Virginia Press
Trinidad and Tobago / USA / carnivals / cultural history / national identity
Focusses on the wider significance of the performances supported by 2 national organizations: the Civil War
Centennial Commission in the US and the Carnival Development Committee in Trinidad and Tobago, both founded in
1957. Author discusses the structural and ideological similarities between these 2 organizations, and expressions they
support. These include the Civil War reenactments in the US South, and a renewed and reformed Trinidad Carnival in
Trinidad. Author points out that while set in different contexts, these cultural choices, made in the same period, share
an aim for espousing national belonging, and at the same time revive mythologies of plantation romance (in the old US
South) and of a Caribbean untouched paradise. This, she further indicates, comes down to an erasing of the past and a
denial of colonial and slavery's legacies. She describes how this in the case of Civil War reenactments in the US South
eventually ended up in changes toward celebrations and invocations of a "lost cause" and thus favouring a white
Southern identity. She further focusses on how in the case of the Trinidad Carnival, as part of decolonization and
nationalism, a new national unity and celebration function of the Carnival was stimulated by the nationalist middle
class and politicians, diminishing the black working-class subversion initially guiding the postemancipation Carnival,
including by reforming it in line with the partly tourist-aimed myth of an ahistorical paradise. This was contested later,
with the rise of the Black Power movement since the 1970s.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 4029
Green, Andy
(2008)
Remembering slavery in Birmingham : sculpture, paintings and installations
27
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
In: Slavery & abolition : a journal of comparative studies, ISSN 0144-039X: vol. 29 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 189-201.
United Kingdom / British Caribbean / slavery / abolition of slavery / slave trade / commemorations / art / social history
Considers the impact of local and national debates about slavery and abolition in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
Author discusses the significance of memorialized representations of Birmingham Quaker abolitionist Joseph Sturge, as
the monument in his remembrance was restored and rededicated in 2007 on the occasion of the bicentenary
commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade. He analyses the monument, placing it within the wider
remembrance of the history of slavery. He points out how this recovers and heralds a legacy of social campaigning
against slavery in the Caribbean colonies in Birmingham, also personified by the monument for Joseph Sturge. Author
reflects upon problematic aspects of this by analysing the imagery of the monument, with a standing, "teaching" Sturge
and underneath a child-like figure representing a freed slave. Author criticizes the paternalistic nature of this presented
image for representing abolition and antislavery from the white perspective, disregarding historical black rebellion
against slavery, and on the other hand clouding less-heroic slavery connections of Birmingham's industry as an
important provider of products used in or related to colonial slavery and the slave trade, directly and indirectly,
including chains, guns, and sugar. He juxtaposes Jamaican-born Vanley Burke's exhibition 'Sugar coated tears', from
2007, as a way to address this more complex history of Birmingham's links to slavery, and its different
commemorations and ongoing legacy, as Burke exhibits items produced by Birmingham's industry for slavery, i.e.
slave shackles, coated in sugar.
SIGNATURE: TA 3960
Grow, Michael
(cop. 2008)
U. S. presidents and Latin American interventions : pursuing regime change in the Cold War. Lawrence, KS :
University Press of Kansas
Cuba / Dominican Republic / Greneda / Guyana / Latin America / USA / foreign intervention / international relations /
political history
Analysis of the root causes of US interventionism in the Western Hemisphere during the cold war. Author focusses on
the decision-making process and the factors that prompted the US to intervene in the Caribbean and Latin America. He
argues that threats to US national security or economic self- interests were not decisive factors in this process, but
rather each intervention was an attempt to project an image of US strength to audiences at home and abroad to preserve
US and presidential credibility. Author also states that local elites in the Caribbean and Latin America actively
promoted US intervention in their own self-interest. Discussed are the interventions in Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1961),
British Guiana (1963), Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1970), Nicaragua (1981), Grenada (1983), and Panama
(1989).
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 7633
Guanche, Julio César
(2007)
En el borde de todo : el hoy y el manaña de la revolución en Cuba. [México] : Ocean Sur
Cuba / political development / political history / social development / interviews / speeches
Collection of speeches, interviews, and an account of a symposium focussing on Cuba's post-Fidel Castro political
future. In particular, the editor departs from a speech in November 2005 by Fidel Castro, in which he discusses the
reversibility of socialism and the Cuban Revolution in the future, which he related to present crisis-related errors and
social changes. Contributors further analyse on what factors this irreversibility of the Revolutionary process is
dependent. This question is first discussed in speeches reproduced in the first part, including of Fidel Castro, on social
development and inequalities, of politician Felipe Pérez Roque, and of Raúl Castro, calling for the need of military
invulnerability. This is followed by an analysis of the problems in present-day Cuban society that gave rise to these
"warnings" for the Revolution's reversal, through a symposium including Aurelio Alfonso, Fernando Rojas, Jesús
Arboleya, Juan Valdés Paz, Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada, and Luis Suárez Salazar. They address theoretical issues,
warnings on certain dogmatisms, as well as the realities to which these are applied or related. In the next section the
historical context and aspects recommended to be continued are treated through interviews with Roberto Fernández
28
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Retamar, Ana Cairo, Graziella Pogolotti, and Alfredo Guevara. The following section then discusses on what needs to
be changed, through interviews with Esther Pérez, Mayra Espina, a testimony of Reverend Raúl Suárez, and a dialogue
with Mileno Recio. They argue that socialism and the idea of the Revolution needs to be recreated and renewed, and
call for socializing the agenda of change. The epilogue consists of an interview with Fernando Martínez Heredia on
Revolutionary thought.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 5241
Guderjan, Thomas H.
(cop. 2007)
The nature of an ancient Maya city : resources, interaction, and power at Blue Creek, Belize. Tuscaloosa : University of
Alabama Press
Belize / Amerindians / social history / archaeology / Maya
Examines the spatial and structural organization of the ancient Maya city of Blue Creek in Northwestern Belize,
derived from ongoing archaeological and multidisciplinary research since 1992. Author describes developments from
the period 100 AD to 850 AD, pointing out how the site known as Blue Creek was a Maya community that became an
economic and political centre including some 15,000 to 20,000 people at its height. He further explains how the site
represents a fairly well-protected example of a Maya city with components like monumental ceremonial structures,
elite and nonelite residences, ditched, agricultural fields, and residential clusters just outside the core. Additionally, he
shows how it was a relatively wealthy Maya city, based on fruitful agriculture and extended regional trade patterns for
produce. Other characteristics include its relatively low population density for a Maya city at the time, and that it
formed probably an independent kingdom. He pays attention to public architecture and related residence in Blue
Creek's core area to document how these reflect power and political dynamics; spatial dynamics of Maya cities;
leadership of lineages and a segmentary state structuring power in a Maya city; agriculture as Blue Creek's economic
base; the importance of trade and commerce; and power and authority at Blue Creek. Finally, he points at remaining
questions.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 4327
Hansing, Katrin
(2006)
Rastafari in a different kind of Babylon : the emergence and development of the Rastafari movement in socialist Cuba
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 1, pp. 61-84.
Cuba / Jamaica / Rastafarianism / religion / social history / social development
Examines the localization of the Rastafari movement in Cuba. Author discusses how Rastafari reached Cuba since the
1970s in a quite fragmented manner, though Cuba's isolation along with state repression limited its wider spread.
Rastafari boomed in Cuba since the 1990s related to economic opening, as well as to other social changes, heightening
its appeal. Author further describes how Rastafari's fragmented entrance in Cuba, along with its interaction with
specific Cuban social realities, contributed to differing interpretations and identifications among Cuban Rastas,
including mixtures with Afro-Cuban religions. She points out how increased social and racial inequalities as well as
persisting racism in Cuba increased identification with Rasta ideas of Africa, blackness, resistance, and pan-humanity,
and made Cuban Rastas apply the notion of Babylon to the Cuban authorities and state whose claims of social and
racial equality in Cuba are seen as hypocritical and in contrast to the daily reality of poverty, lacking freedom, and
discrimination of young black Cubans.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Hatzky, Christine
(2007)
Julio Antonio Mella : ein kubanischer Mythos
In: Transkulturalität und Geschlechterverhältnisse : neue Perspektiven auf kulturelle Dynamiken in den Amerikas:
(2007), P. 157-171. Berlin : edition tranvía, Verlag Walter Frey
Cuba / Latin America / Mexico / intellectuals / political history / social history
29
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Focusses on the life, ideas, and political activities of Julio Antonio Mella (1903-29), a Cuban student leader and
revolutionary, murdered in 1929 while in exile in Mexico. Author describes how Mella fought against US imperialism
and dominance in Cuba and was also a founding member of the Cuban Communist Party. She further points out how
this made him legendary, and that the combination of anti-imperialism and Communism made the Cuban government
since 1961 incorporate Mella in creating a national myth around him as a trailblazer for the 1959 Revolution, thereby
controlling and spreading a simplified, but heroic image of him. She describes how biographical writings on Mella
appearing in Cuba for long were politically motivated, repeating this exemplary heroism, yet in time more critical and
extensive biographical writings on Mella appeared. She shows how these helped in giving insight in unique aspects of
Mella's personality, and his political stances and activities. Author further describes Mella's life story and political
engagements, discussing how he was in fact ousted from the Cuban Communist Party, and later, having joined the
Mexican Communist Party, also had conflicts with it due to own, differing stances. These related to his Latin American
focus and anticolonial and anti-imperialist stances, similar to José Martí. His background, as son of an US/Irish mother,
shaped his unique and boundary-crossing positions, while his personal attention to appearance, presentation, and
rhetorical qualities further contributed to his wider public appeal among Cubans.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 1794
Hinds, David
(2008)
Walter Rodney and political resistance in Guyana : the 1979-1980 civil rebellion
In: Wadabagei : journal of the Caribbean and its diaspora, ISSN 1091-5753: vol. 11 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 36-63.
Guyana / political history / intellectuals / social history
Reconstructs how in the period from 1974 to 1980 Walter Rodney was a pivotal force in Guyana's politics. Author
describes how Rodney helped shape a multiracial resistance movement against the authoritarian PNC regime of the day,
after his return to Guyana in 1974. This started with a multiracial protest against the rescinded appointment of Rodney
at the University of Guyana, marking, he argues, a new period in Guyana's politics, and resulting in the Working
People's Alliance (WPA) party. This was part of a movement that aimed at uniting the opposition against the PNC
regime, based on the self-organization of working people, multiracial and multiclass alliance against Guyana's racially
divided politics, and civil defiance. There was a focus on public education and community work for this aim, as well as
street demonstrations and strikes. By 1979 Guyana was in a severe economic and political crisis, increasing tensions of
the PNC with unions, whereby the WPA sided with unions, and organized protest rallies and civil disobedience, as well
as wider strikes. The PNC took harsh measures against the WPA and intensified its offensive in the 1979 through
accusations, arrests, as well as violent repression. Author also discusses how new oppositional groups emerged and the
WPA aimed at uniting the opposition. He further relates how by the end of 1979 WPA lost the hope that a massive,
popular upsurge would lead to the removal of the government, mainly because the security forces remained loyal and
little affected by the crisis, but the government continued the repression of WPA up to the death of Rodney in 1980,
which also diminished civil rebellion after this.
SIGNATURE: TA 7622
Janssen, Marie-Louise
(2007)
Reizende sekswerkers : Latijns-Amerikaanse vrouwen in de Europese prostitutie. Apeldoorn [etc.] : Het Spinhuis
Netherlands / Dominican Republic / Europe / Latin America / migrations / prostitution / women / gender relations /
sexuality
Study of Latin American women working in the European sex industry, especially in the Netherlands, of which many
migrated since the 1980s. On the basis of 30 personal histories of these women, relatively many from the Dominican
Republic, the author examines their life, experiences, opinions, position, and identifications. She relates this to cultural
or media images and stereotypes of these women, e.g. in Dutch society, prostitution policies, and in the home countries.
She further describes how the female identity construction of these women involves the crossing of moral and cultural
boundaries, placed in a transnational cadre of family relations. She follows a woman returning to the Dominican
Republic after working in the sex industry in the Netherlands, as well as women on their way to Europe from the
Dominican Republic, Colombia and other countries. She shows how shame regarding the type of work is often
outweighed in the home countries by the migrants' financial contribution when successful. Next, the author discusses
30
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
how the women articulate their own sense of identity mainly as mothers, or breadwinners, employing prostitution as a
temporary strategy, without it being a professional identity as such. She then focusses on femininity representations in
relation to customers, including colonial racial stereotypes on women of colour, involving degrees of "performance".
Author thus shows how these women's sex work involves complex processes and multiple identifications out of which
they form and negotiate their identity, and new meanings of female identity. She finally discusses how these latter can
contribute to feminist theories regarding prostitution, and calls for a renewed approach on these migrant sex workers as
more than mere victims, considering also their agency, and from a transnational, intersectional perspective.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 5240
Jessop, David
(2007)
Globalization and the Caribbean : an overview
In: No island is an island : the impact of globalization on the Commonwealth Carribean: (2007), P. 5-18. London :
Chatham House
Caribbean / CARICOM / globalization / economic development / economic policy / trade agreements / international
relations / international trade
Identifies questions that may determine how the Caribbean addresses the challenge of economic globalization. Author
points at changes in the global environment toward trade liberalization, impacting on the Caribbean's economic
development. He points out how this overall results in a decreased attention to the Caribbean, including regarding
development assistance, and the end of preferential trade agreements. He further points out how characteristics of the
Caribbean economies present challenges for a required strategic repositioning in light of globalization. He discusses the
3 parallel trade-liberalization negotiating processes in which Caricom/the Caribbean engages: FTAA or US/Caricom
free trade options, Economic Partnership Agreement (of ACP countries) with the EU; and multilateral negotiations at
the WTO, as well as other negotiations affecting the Caribbean. He indicates how the US's moving on multiple trade
fronts, and a concomitant piecemeal negotiation of free trade agreements is likely to further disadvantage the smallest
and weakest in the Caribbean and challenge fragile regionalism. Author further highlights the Caribbean response, i.e.
its efforts of economic repositioning vis-à-vis globalization, and fault-lines it will have to face. These challenges
include the possibilities for developing enough competitive industries, now aimed at services, for the region's global
repositioning; tariff or imports reduction and effects on state revenue, and timing and phasing aspects of liberalizations;
the pressures of trade liberalization on a less than mature single market, possibly driving nations in the region apart; the
ability to restructure tax systems; and the payment of a successful transition.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 6433
Jonassaint, Jean
(2008)
Au prisme des autres, des prises de l'autre : Frankétienne
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 14 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 4-230.
Haiti / writers / artists / literature / theatre / cultural history / translation
Issue devoted to Haitian writer, playwright, musician, and painter Frankétienne (1936) consisting of an introduction,
plus 7 contributions on his work by others, as well as 3 reproduced examples of and from Frankétienne's work. Authors
first place Frankétienne's work in a transnational context. Alvina Ruprecht analyses Frankétienne's play
'Totolomannwèl' (2002), to show international Avantgarde and experimental theatre influences on it, as well as from
Haitian popular culture, and how it influenced other "solo" plays across borders. Seanna Sumalee Oakley then focusses
on his poetry, specifically 'Fleurs d'insomnie' (1986), to show how this modern or postmodern work still contains
influences of Romanticism, put in dialogue with Vodou rituals. Rachel Douglas further discusses Frankétienne's
rewriting, particularly of his original work 'L'oiseau schizophone' (1993), reworked into 'Les metamorphoses de l'oiseau
schizophone' (1996-97), and how this rewriting shows key aspects of Frankétienne's aesthetic. Further, Alessandra
Benedicty analyses Frankétienne's 'Les affres d'un défi' (1979), French version of 'Dézafi' (1975), and unravels its
labyrinthic structure. Kaiama Glover compares Frankétienne's early narrative works 'Mûr à crever' (1968), 'Ultravocal'
(1972), and 'Les affres d'un défi' with those of Édouard Glissant, thus comparing the former's Spiralisme with the
latter's Antillanité, to show Frankétienne's influence on Caribbean writing. Next, authors focus on translations of
Frankétienne's work, e.g. from his work 'Gun blesse America' (1995) for didactical purposes, by Isabelle Cata, and
31
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
translators' comments on this same work (translated from 'L'Amerique saigne'), by Alison Dykman, Tracy Elizabeth
Robey, and Natalie Hampshire. In addition 3 works of Frankétienne are (partly) reproduced: 'Gun blesse America'
(with Claude Dambreville), an excerpt from H'Éros-Chimès' (2002) recalling the "rape" of Frankétienne's Haitian
mother by his US father, and the theatre text 'Kaselezo' (1985), in Haitian Creole.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Joubert, Sidney and Mathias Perl
(2007)
The Portuguese language on Curaçao and its role in the formation of Papiamentu
In: Journal of Caribbean literatures, ISSN 1086-010X: vol. 5 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 43-60.
Curaçao / Portuguese language / Papiamentu language / language use / social history / slavery / migrations / Jew
Focusses on the presence and status of the Portuguese language in Curaçao, historically and presently, and examines
whether it influenced Papiamentu. Authors especially discusses 3 sources of Portuguese influence. First, they address
he Afro-Portuguese spoken by slaves, though there is in the case of Curaçao no evidence of Afro-Portuguese found yet.
Next, they reconstruct the Portuguese spoken by Sephardic Jews, but the use of Portuguese declined in the 19th c. and
Sephardic Jews started using Papiamentu with own elements. Nowadays, Portuguese only survives among them in
aspects of lithurgy and in some expressions. After this, they pay attention to Portuguese immigrants, from Madeira,
arriving in Curaçao in larger numbers since 1929, and their descendants today still use Portuguese, but its use is under
pressure from local Papiamentu.
SIGNATURE: TA 11951
Katz-Hyman, Martha
(2008)
Doing good while doing well : the decision to manufacture products that supported the abolition of the slave trade and
slavery in Great Britain
In: Slavery & abolition : a journal of comparative studies, ISSN 0144-039X: vol. 29 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 219-231.
United Kingdom / British Caribbean / slavery / abolition of slavery / slave trade / social movements / economic history
Examines the reasons why manufacturers in late 18th-c. and early 19th-c. Britain chose to manufacture consumer goods
that supported the abolition of the slave trade and slavery. Author seeks to analyse the motivations for this production,
which included ceramics as well as printed textiles, whether these were altruistic/for the good cause or for profit, who
made the designs, and for what markets they were aimed. She points out, however, how aside from a known company
making these pro-abolition products, Wedgwood, there are very few other factory records of the period, making it
difficult to answer these questions. Therefore, she further closely examines one such ceramic product, a very large
transfer-printed Staffordshire jug, from around 1817-19, part of a large group. She analyses the 11 different transfer
prints on the jug, 3 of which use imagery associated with the movement to abolish the slave trade. She discusses the
origins of the jug, probably made by Christopher Whitehead, as well as of specific prints, in particular those related to
slavery, as these appear elsewhere, e.g. on other jugs, such as the image of the kneeling slave with the text 'Am not I a
man and a brother', originally a drawing also used as illustration in a book.
SIGNATURE: TA 3960
Kummels, Ingrid
(2007)
Die Liebe in den Zeiten der Diaspora : Globale Märkte und lokale Bedeutungen von Prostitution, 'jineterismo', Ehe und
Weiblichkeit in Kuba
In: Transkulturalität und Geschlechterverhältnisse : neue Perspektiven auf kulturelle Dynamiken in den Amerikas:
(2007), P. 172-195. Berlin : edition tranvía, Verlag Walter Frey
Cuba / prostitution / gender relations / sex tourism
Argues that sex tourism, or the related "jineterismo" did not grow from nothing in the Special Period in the 1990s, but
relate to historical developments as well as sociocultural characteristics in Cuba. Author discusses the prostitution in
pre-1959 Cuba, and its position after this, pointing out how informal trade and services, part of what was called
32
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
"jineterismo" really started to develop already in the 1980s, when the government allowed entry to exiled Cubans, and
many foreign students living in Cuba, had privileged access to dollars, causing a bifurcated economy. She further
points at the role of neocolonial ideas of black women's sexuality that would further influence the increasing sex
tourism of single men toward Cuba since the 1990s. Additionally, she shows how in the background the historically
developed ideas on sexual relationships, marriage, family, and femininity in Cuba are influential, as pecuniary motives
intertwine with actual affection, causing fluidity between love and interest among Cuban women seeking relationships
with foreigners, e.g. often marrying for instrumental reasons like being able to migrate. Author further describes
differences and complexity among "jineteras", their work, and how others indirectly profit from their work, e.g.
policemen or doormen through bribes.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 1794
Ledgister, F.S.J. and Anita M. Waters
(2008)
Public scholarship and political action : the memory of Walter Rodney in Jamaica
In: Wadabagei : journal of the Caribbean and its diaspora, ISSN 1091-5753: vol. 11 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 4-35.
Jamaica / Guyanese / social history / Black Power / political history / intellectuals / commemorations
Examines how Walter Rodney and the "Rodney riots" in Kingston in 1968, protesting Rodney's ban from Jamaica, are
remembered in contemporary Jamaican society. Authors frame this within theories of memory work, including salience,
valence (valoration), and ownership of memories, the latter also referring to control and manipulation by ruling elites,
contested through countermemories and "unofficial histories". Next, they discuss how Walter Rodney or the Rodney
riots are barely mentioned in official Jamaican national narratives. He is more invoked in popular political discussion,
e.g. in radio talk shows and opinion pages of newspapers. Authors further analyse the invocations of Rodney in
newspapers the 'Gleaner' and the 'Jamaica observer', describing the numbers, and occasion or context of references to
Rodney, such as certain commemorations, contemporaries, or alongside other Afro-Caribbean intellectuals. They also
pay attention to the valence, noting that these were in two-third of the cases positive. They further deduce from this
points of contention regarding the understanding of Rodney's history, such as his Guyanese background and wider
Black Power ideas beyond the nation, and then PM Hugh Shearer's motivations for the ban on Rodney's return. Next,
the authors focus on unofficial histories as popular countermemories on Rodney, as expressed in reggae lyrics and
literary works. They further point out that Rodney had a crucial impact on middle-class university-affiliated youth who
then connected more to the poorer classes and their plight, bridging thus these social groups. They show how especially
people who were at UWI when Rodney was at UWI became active agents in carrying Rodney's ideas and remembrance
into the 21st c.
SIGNATURE: TA 7622
Lekus, Ian
(2007)
Queer harvests : homosexuality, the U.S. New Left, and the Venceremos Brigades to Cuba
In: Imagining our Americas : toward a transnational frame: (2007), P. 249-281. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University
Press
Cuba / USA / homosexuality / social movements / international relations / political history
Focusses on the Venceremos Brigades (SDS), that formed in 1969 out of the then internally divided Students for a
Democratic Organization, a large student organization in the US. Author describes how the SDS since 1969 mobilized
hundreds of Leftist Americans to travel to Cuba and cut sugar cane, in support of the Cuban Revolution, and to gain
experience on third-world revolutions. He pays special attention to the position and participation of homosexuals within
the Venceremos Brigades, related to the nascent gay liberation movement in the US. This became problematic in light
of the antigay policies, including "reeducation camps" for gays, based on tradition, (alleged) sexual culture in preCastro Cuban tourism, and Communist ideas. He shows how the Venceremos Brigade organizers in part shared or
catered to such homophobia, as part of their romanticized and stereotypical view of a machismo-based, culturally
specific Cuban Revolution, with the male heterosexual as perceived model for the "new man". This showed in tensions
among the US Brigadeers, often living and working in intimate circumstances in Cuba, thus showing the homophobia
also in the US New Left movement at the time, even while sharing sympathy for the cause. Later the national
committee of the Brigades even took on the official policy to hide homosexuality of brigadeers, and since the early
33
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
1970s began to exclude open homosexuals from work travel to Cuba. Author points out how this had the effect of
dividing Cuba's defenders of the New Left from gay/queer progressives, and ultimately inspired and gave a boost to
gay and lesbian activism in the US.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3589
Levander, Caroline
(2007)
Confederate Cuba
In: Imagining our Americas : toward a transnational frame: (2007), P. 88-110. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University
Press
USA / Cuba / foreign policy / international relations / race relations / political history
Examines the relations with and ambitions regarding Cuba of the US since the 19th c. Author argues that Cuba was
historically crucial in the emerging imperial logic of the US. She points out how this started with the Southern
Confederacy, of which many propagated a proslavery alliance, and incorporation of Cuba into the Southern states. This
also had advocates among the Cuban elite. After the US civil war the new imperialist agenda was discursively
dissociated from the former Confederate proslavery imperialism, yet the author contends that US imperialism,
specifically regarding Cuba, continued to be based on racial inequality and white supremacy. She further shows how
meanwhile the Cuban anticolonial independence movement in the later 19th c. opted for racial unity and overcoming
racial hierarchies among Cubans in fighting Spanish rule, and an ideal of a raceless free Cuban society was expressed.
This contrasted with the persisting racial logic of the US, also after its involvement in the Cuban war against the
Spanish colonizers, normalizing US rule through references to racial and cultural inferiority, and reinstating racial
hierarchies and inequalities within Cuba after 1898. Yet, some also saw in the US engagement with Cuba a possibility
for black Americans to improve their position through a shared patriotism, and Cuba as a model for improvement of
race relations in the US itself, though others, like W.E.B. Dubois, contradicted this.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3589
Lloréns, Hilda
(2008)
Brothels, hell and Puerto Rican bodies : sex, race, and other cultural politics in 21st century artistic representations
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 192-217.
Puerto Rico / literature / music / cultural values / gender relations / race relations / sexuality
Analyses the novel by Mayra Santos-Febres, 'Nuestra señora de la noche' (2006), and of reggaetón group Calle 13's the
lyrics and videos of their hit songs 'Átrevete te te!' (2005) and 'Tango del pecado' (2007). Author particularly looks at
how these works question sex, race, gender, and nation in Puerto Rico, and invite to spaces outside of social convention,
including different antisocial places like the brothel in Santos-Febres's novel, and hell in a Calle 13 video. She
describes how through these works the artists reinscribe, but also blur, question, and contest existing notions of the
Puerto Rican body politic, including those related to "shame", and traditional respectability. In addition, she pays
attention to how these works discuss the violent encounter between races and gender in Puerto Rico. She describes how
Santos-Febres's novel tells the story of a black women owning a brothel in 1940s Ponce, that thus operates in a place of
"permanent liminality", in a society where shame is a powerful institution and force. This black woman further crosses
borders in her dealings with Ponce's white elite, as well as in her acquiring of some land and property, although her
relative wealth does not transcend racial class/caste structures. Then, the author analyses 2 hit songs by Calle 13, a
group consisting of white Puerto Ricans, who nonetheless claim their space as marginal due to their lower class, and in
their lyrical and music video representations on the one hand challenge prevailing traditional norms of shame, female
beauty, racial and linguistic purity, etiquette, and social surveillance, yet she indicates that they on the other hand fall
into the trappings of gender roles, and masculinist constructions of women.
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
Lodge, Martin and Lindsay Stirton
(2007)
Telecommunications policy reform : embedding regulatory capacity
34
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
In: No island is an island : the impact of globalization on the Commonwealth Carribean: (2007), P. 98-121. London :
Chatham House
Jamaica / Trinidad and Tobago / Barbados / OECS / British Caribbean / telecommunications / economic policy /
economic development / legislation
Examines the building of "regulatory capacity" as part of a telecommunications policy, comparing between the
experiences of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the OECS member states. Authors first point out that
telecommunications represent a crucial contributor to economic development. Next, they examine the building of
regulatory capacity since 1990, particularly through 3 main dimensions: the ability to handle technical complexity;
presence of checks and balances against capture and administrative expropriation; and embeddedness, i.e. relations
between organized interests based on political legitimacy. Authors further compare the telecommunications reforms
between the countries, as these faced similar challenges in liberalizing national telecommunications markets since the
1980s, and responded to in part through domestic "pacts" with the single dominant providing company in the region,
Cable & Wireless. They show how reforms resulted in broadly similar outcomes in market liberalization and license
conditions, but that the processes toward these differed per country, impacting on eventual regulatory embeddedness.
They show how the process went more gradual in Jamaica, more "gridlock" in Trinidad and Tobago, more consensual
in Barbados, while the Eastern Caribbean states opted for a confederal model. Authors conclude that the developed
regulatory body in Jamaica became successful in maintaining a capable staff, which was less the case in the later
developed bodies of Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the OECS member states, while also the degree of regulatory
embeddedness in Jamaica was relatively higher, though increasing in all 4 cases.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 6433
Lovejoy, Paul E.
(2008)
Transatlantic transformations : the origins and identities of Africans in the Americas
In: Africa, Brazil and the construction of trans-Atlantic black identities: (2008), P. 81-111. Trenton, NJ : Africa World
Press
Caribbean / Haiti / Latin America / USA / Africa / slavery / slave trade / cultural history / ethnicity / religious history /
cultural identity / cultural development
Examines ethnicity and religion in the formation of the African diaspora, and in the creolization of enslaved Africans in
the Americas. Author deprecates that ethnicity and religion as identification processes of enslaved Africans in the
Americas are sometimes conflated. He argues that religious and ethnic identification should be treated separately to
understand patterns of slave identification as "resistant responses" to racial slavery. Specifically, he distinguishes
between new identities among slaves adjusting to slavery in the Americas, such as Igbo/Calabari and Nago/Yoruba on
the one hand, and enslaved Muslims on the other, banded together on the basis of religion, not ethnicity. Further, the
author analyses the "charter" principles, fundamental in the establishment of communities evolving in Africa and the
Americas, and in particular examines where and how these were established: in Africa, the Americas, or both. He
points out that a shared language was such a charter principle in determining ethnicity, while also religious traditions
were sometimes (largely) tied to ethnicities. Author further discusses in what ways African ethnic groups underwent
redefinitions in the Americas, and the different scholarly views on the rate of creolization, ranging from rapid to more
gradual. He calls for relating this creolization to the complex, religious and cultural, historical context of Africa.
Includes data on African ethnicities of slaves on plantations in St Domingue. Earlier published in volume 'TransAtlantic transformations : the origins and identity of Africans in the Americas' (2005).
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6402
Luke, Learie B.
(2007)
Identity and secession in the Caribbean : Tobago versus Trinidad, 1889-1980. Kingston : University of West Indies
Press
Tobago / Trinidad and Tobago / autonomy / political history / cultural identity
35
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Chronicles the Tobago movement for autonomy in Trinidad from 1889 to 1980, when Tobago gained internal selfgovernment. Author discusses significant issues in Tobago's history that led to the demand of autonomy. He points out
how identity was the major buttress of the Tobago autonomy movement, and pays attention to Tobagonian identity
construction over time. Further, he shows how the problems about which the Tobagonians complained in the few years
before internal self-government was achieved in 1980 were in fact long-standing problems throughout the history of the
union. Author traces this history, including the precursors of the union in British colonial rule and post-emancipation
economic decline of Tobago, and its loss of previous autonomy. Then, he pays attention to the early administrative,
economic, and social impacts of the union in 1889 up to 1896, and to how Tobago became a ward of Trinidad from
1897 to 1924. Next, he examines the roles of Tobagonian representatives as advocates of Tobago's interests, and the
pioneering role in this of the black Tobago legislator James A.A. Biggart from 1925 to 1932. He further describes how
after his death Biggart was succeeded by the whites Isaac A. Hope and George De Nobriga, who unlike Biggart saw
Tobago as an administrative ward, followed in the 1946 by A.P.T. James, being in favour of Tobago's autonomy. After
his death the ruling PNM party gave more attention to Tobago up to 1976, though conflicts led to the dissolution of the
Ministry of Tobago Affairs. This triggered the parliamentary struggle to grant Tobago self-government from 1977 to
1980.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3350
Major, Flavie
(2007)
Canada : democracy's new champion?
In: Promoting democracy in the Americas: (2007), P. 85-106. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press
Canada / Caribbean / Latin America / OAS / foreign policy / international relations / democracy / political history /
political development
Analyses Canada's role in promoting democracy in the Americas, from 1990 to 2006. Author examines how Canada
encouraged democratic development and how effective it has been. She first discusses the development of Canada's
foreign policy regarding the promotion and protection of democracy, noting that before the later 1980s it paid little
attention to democratization in the Americas, with an evident policy shift taking place in the 1990s, when Canada had
become a permanent member of the OAS, and stimulated inter-American relations. As part of this, Canada often played
a leading role in pro-democracy efforts within the OAS as well as bilaterally, supporting the Department for the
Promotion of Democracy and democracy-promoting mechanisms as Resolution 1080 and the 2001 IADC and
Democratic Charter for the Americas. In addition, the author describes Canada's crucial roles in the cases of Haiti, e.g.
its involvement in the free and fair elections of 1990; Cuba, toward which it developed a "constructive engagement"
approach; and Peru, where Canada strengthened democracy successfully during a democratic crisis starting in 2000.
Author, however, points at contradictions found by some in Canada's hemispheric democracy promotion, related to e.g.
it's nonratification of the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights; its narrow definition of democracy; its refusal
to include binding aspects in the Democratic Charter for countries; and its siding with the US at the detriment of
democracy promotion. She then gives explanations for Canada's at times uneven performance, including its relation to
the US, lacking attention to social and economic rights, a lacking unified and coherent approach, and a limited
American focus after 2001.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6326
Maldonado-Torres, Nelson
(2005)
New Caribbean philosophy
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 33 (2005), Issue. 2, pp. 1-246.
Caribbean / philosophy / literature / intellectuals / social history / cultural history
Issue dedicated to Caribbean philosophy, consists of 5 articles, and further reviews of 2 works related to Caribbean
philosophy, with authors' responses. The 5 articles are by members of the Caribbean Philosophy Association, and are
presented on its second meeting in 2005 in Puerto Rico. Editor explains how this Association aims to develop
conceptual tools for meta-theoretical reflection toward new sciences and methodologies based on concerns and realities
in the Caribbean, to replace transplanted Western ones. Jennifer Lisa Vest presents the conception of a "new dialogic"
as a unique configuration of voices and philosophical sources from the global South, of value to Caribbean peoples.
36
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Enrique Dussel, next, argues that modern ethical and political philosophy first emerged in the Caribbean and Hispanic
world around questions of colonial conquest since 1492, and later critiques, such as by De Las Casas. After this, Carlos
Rojas Osorio gives an account of philosophy in Puerto Rico, interpreting it historically, and reviewing the work of
20th- c. Puerto Rican philosophers. Brinda Mehta further analyses the novel 'The swinging bridge' (2004), by IndoTrinidadian Ramabai Espinet, to show how Espinet presents a particular conception of history, and further represents
how poetry is a dominant medium for philosophical reflection in the region. Nelson Maldonado-Torres further
compares the views of Frantz Fanon and C.L.R. James on the conception of reason and the task of the intellectual, as
part of the project of the decolonization of reason. The 2 philosophical works subsequently reviewed are 'Modernity
disavowed : Haiti and the cultures of slavery in the age of revolution' (2004) by Sibylle Fischer, and 'Frantz Fanon :
política y poética del sujeto poscolonial' (2003) by Alejandro de Oto.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Mancall, Peter C.
(cop. 2007)
The Atlantic world and Virginia, 1550-1624. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press
USA / Caribbean / Latin America / Africa / Europe / imperial expansion / social history / economic history /
international relations / collective volume
Volume consists of 18 contributions on the various Atlantic influences on the English settlement at Jamestown, in 1607,
and colonization of Virginia. Authors specifically place Virginia's development within the wider North American,
Atlantic, and hemispheric contexts, mainly in the period from 1550 to 1625. Part 1 deals with Native Americans (or
Amerindians) in the Eastern (future) US, the characteristics of their chiefdoms in the Greater Chesapeak,e and their first
encounters with Europeans, Spaniards, since the 1540s in the South East. These contributions are by Daniel K. Richter,
Joseph Hall, and James D. Rice. Part 2 changes the focus to Africa and its economic interactions with the Atlantic
world since the 16th c., influencing the European Atlantic slave trade, focussing on the 16th-c. Sahara (by E. Ann
McDougall); Gulf of Guinea (David Northrup); Central African leaders and their appropriation of European culture
(Linda Heywood and John Thornton); and African identity and slave resistance in the Portuguese Atlantic islands
(James H. Sweet). In part 3 authors address European activity in the Americas as models for English colonization in
Virginia, including the international trade in tobacco in the Iberian world from 1492 to 1650 (Marcy Norton and
Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert); the French presence in the Atlantic up to 1650 (Philip P. Boucher); French views on
Amerindian political cultures (Peter Cook); and how the Caribbean, and the British colonial presence there, was an
important prototype for Virginia (Philip D. Morgan). Part 4 focusses on intellectual currents in the period, relating to
the dispossession of native Americans (Andrew Fitzmaurice); Richard Hakluyt on Western planting (David Harris
Sacks); the role of books heralding ways for English expansion, also in Virginia (Benjamin Schmidt); and of calls on
Anglo-Saxon legacies (David S. Shields). The final part 5 returns to Tsenacommacah, as the area was known, at the
time of the English settlement of Jamestown, discussing knowledge and uncertainty in settling Early Virginia (James
Horn); Spain's initial dominance in North America, but allowing the English settlement of Jamestown due to disinterest
(J.H. Elliott); and Stuart B. Schwarts summarizes Early Virginia's relations to the Atlantic world.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6318
Marsteintredet, Leiv
(2008)
Executive-legislative deadlocks in the Dominican Republic
In: Latin American politics and society, ISSN 1531-426X: vol. 50 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 131-160.
Dominican Republic / political history / government / executive power / legislative power / parliament / political
systems
Examines the causes of executive-legislative deadlocks in the Dominican Republic in the period 1978-2005, and tests 4
institutional hypotheses, arguing that certain institutional and party system constellations increase the probability of
deadlocks. Author first discusses in general the causes behind deadlocks, and what prevents them, and presents
hypotheses, including that deadlocks occur more often in presidential systems, as well as with minority governments,
and when there are more, or at least 3 more or less equal-sized political parties, and further relates it to veto powers. He
indicates how deadlocks in the Dominican Republic could in cases be avoided. Author further points out how in the
Dominican case there were both endogeneous and exogeneous factors causing and influencing the deadlocks, showing
37
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
how the deadlocks in 1986, 1990-91, and 1994-95 were clearly influenced by the external economic crises, as Congress
refused to pass budgetary budgets, while the 1998 and 2002 ones related to internal issues, i.e. the instability of
coalitions, magnified by characteristics of the party system, with 3 almost equal-sized parties with limited ideological
distinctions, and thus with little "policy costs" for parties when breaking up existing legislative coalitions.
SIGNATURE: TA 8957
Martínez-Ramírez, Héctor M.
(2005)
Pentecostal expansion and political activism in Puerto Rico
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 33 (2005), Issue. 1, pp. 113-147.
Puerto Rico / Pentecostalism / religion / political history / political development / religious history
Analyses the origins and evolution of Pentecostalism and Post-Pentecostalism in Puerto Rico, and assesses its religious,
social, and political influence. Author reconstructs how Pentecostalism grew among Puerto Ricans especially since the
1930s, starting in rural areas, and continued to expand its influence, helped by, contrary to other Protestant Churches in
Puerto Rico, native pastors and use of Spanish, as well as disregard by the Catholic and other Protestant Churches. Also,
Post-Pentecostalism, with a theology of (material) prosperity, became attractive for many. Author discusses the
political activism of (Post-)Pentecostals, and their indirect and direct influences on politics in Puerto Rico, beyond
elections. In this they differed from the in part related traditional fundamentalist Christians in the US. Author shows
how since the late 1930s Evangelical leaders backed the PPD party, up to the 1980s, when certain PPD policies
dismayed Evangelical leaders. After this, they sought an alliance with the leadership of the (pro-statehood) PNP party.
He points out how their support was a factor in the victory of the PNP in the 1992 and 1996 elections, yet that since
2000, and the PNP's electoral loss, this alliance broke down. Author further explains how despite the (Post-)Pentecostal
support for the PNP, many Evangelicals tend to favour the current Commonwealth status, or at least disavow moves
toward independence, fearing that this would lead to Catholic dominance.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Mazak, Catherine M.
(2008)
Negotiating "el difícil" : uses of English text in a rural Puerto Rican community
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 50-71.
Puerto Rico / English language / language use / sociolinguistics
Account of the uses of English texts in a rural Puerto Rican community, based on data from a school library/community
centre, and including different types of texts, and people of different ages and English proficiency levels. Through this,
the author aims to show the variety of language skills possessed by these Puerto Ricans, and at the same time helps
rethink "bilingualism", also in education, as more nuanced. She thus shows the role of English texts in the everyday life
of these rural Puerto Ricans, in public spaces, work, and home, to which everyone is exposed in some form. In addition,
she dicusses how expected or normalized use of specific languages for certain aspects represents hegemony or
capitalism connected to colonialism. She then examines influences on participants' different uses of English texts,
including factors as gender, age, return migration, military service, and proficiency level. She found that use of English
texts did not increase with higher levels of English proficiency, and that also among novices the use of English texts
was common, especially if they were younger. She further found that community members' participation in English
literacy practice varied most by the factors age, as well as the mentioned level of English expertise. This was noticeable
in the type of English text use. Author concludes that adults mainly read and wrote English texts related to the domains
of bureaucracy, health (e.g. medical referrals), finances, or instruction manuals, while young people used English texts
mostly in the domains of entertainment, creative endeavors, and personal communication.
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
McCoy, Jennifer L.
(2007)
Transnational response to democratic crisis in the Americas, 1990-2005
In: Promoting democracy in the Americas: (2007), P. 270-290. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press
38
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Latin America / Caribbean / intergovernmental organizations / democracy / political development / international
relations / NGOs
Analyses the transnational response to democratic crises in the Americas from 1990 to 2005, with particular attention to
the (non)response of International Governmental Organizations (IGOs), like the OAS and Caricom, as well as
international NGOs. Author first discusses the different types of threats to democracy, and how these threats changed
since the end of the cold war and increased democratization in Latin America. She points out how recently came to the
fore a democratic disconnect in most countries, relating to a (popular) demand for expanded citizenship. This in turn
requires a redistribution of resources and political power, and thus a reformulation of a democratic bargain, which is
however absent in most cases. Author indicates how this increased neopopulism as well as other threats to democracy,
and he elaborates on different sources of democratic crises, including traditional (military) coups, incumbent elected
leaders, intragovernmental conflict, and unarmed and armed nonstate actors. She then gives examples of democratic
crises with these sources in the Caribbean and Latin America since 1990, including (of different types) in Haiti. From
the inter- and transnational responses to these she further deduces lessons, concluding that democracy norms and
legalization are relatively strong in the hemisphere (only bypassed by Europe); specification of democracy and
violations to it remain too vague to warrant international action; new threats related to nonstate actors and
intragovernmental disputes are difficult for international actors to evaluate; international actors favour reactions to
crisis rather than prevention; transnational actors are increasingly important; and that regional powers can play
important roles.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6326
Meeks, Brian
(2007)
Envisioning Caribbean futures : Jamaican perspectives. Kingston [etc.] : University of the West Indies Press
Jamaica / British Caribbean / CARICOM / social development /
political development / economic development / democracy / regional integration
Examines future directions for Caribbean development, with a particular focus on Jamaica, and gives suggestions for
improving Jamaica's present socioeconomic and political conditions. Author first engages critically with new
contributors to Caribbean thought, with visions for a post-cold war Caribbean, including Eudine Barriteau, Davin
Ramphal, Paget Henry, David Scott, and Hilbourne Watson. In part derived from and in response to this, he deduces a
"Caribbean subaltern approach", informing his further analysis. He then traces the evolution of Jamaican political
economy over the last 3 decades, dominated by neoliberalism, describing the development toward advanced
"hegemonic dissolution" characterizing Jamaica at present, and exacerbating its poverty, social inequality, violence,
crime, and other problems. He relates this to the incapacity of past governments to overcome embedded social divisions
in society, resulting in alienation of inner-city youth, as well as other poorer groups. In response to this, the author
further proposes changes not primarily in economic policy (productivity or technology), but rather in new social and
political arrangements, namely a new social consensus, based on a radically transformed, inclusive, and deeper
democracy. This ought to be further accompanied by extensive land reform measures to alleviate rural poverty,
possibilities for agro-producers, a national reconciliation resolving political divisions persisting since the late 1970s, an
Assembly including Jamaicans in Jamaica and the diaspora, and a linking of economy to the popular culture as central
to future development.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 2979
Meighoo, Kirk and Peter Jamadar
(2008)
Democracy and constitution reform in Trinidad and Tobago. Kingston [etc.] : Ian Randle
Trinidad and Tobago / constitutional reform / political systems / democracy / parliament / electoral systems
Reviews the historical, political, and cultural motivations that spawned the most recent debates on constitutional reform,
particularly for parliamentary and electoral reform, in the Commonwealth Caribbean, with a specific focus on Trinidad
and Tobago. Authors discuss characteristics of Trinidad and Tobago's political system and culture, and relate
weaknesses they perceive to proposals for constitutional reform. They first describe core principles of what they call
39
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
"democratic self-government". They associate this primarily with a free and representative Parliament, that is able to
make the Executive, PM and Cabinet, effectively accountable and responsible to it, and with a true separation of the
Legislature and the Executive. They find that these aspects are lacking in present-day Trinidad and Tobago, and
attribute this to the persisting logic of the Crown Colony system with an Executive not responsible to its Legislature.
They further elaborate on human and moral requirements for a democratic self-government with a free and strong
Parliament. Next, the authors focus on the electoral system, based on the first-past-the-post system, arguing that it has
not worked well as it is representative-based, while Trinidad and Tobago's political culture is executive-based. They
further analyse the cases for and against electoral reform, juxtaposing to the first-past-the-post system a system of
proportional representation, which they rename the straightforward list system, with relative advantages. Finally, they
summarize and evaluate proposals for parliamentary reform in Trinidad and Tobago since independence.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 5243
Meriño Fuentes, María de los Ángeles and Aisnara Perera Díaz
Matrimonio y familia en el ingenio, una utopía posible : Cuba (1825-1886)
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 1, pp. 201-237.
(2006)
Cuba / slavery / marriage / family relations / abolition of slavery
Study of marriage and related family relationships among slaves on 2 Cuban plantations, in the south of the province of
Havana, throughout the 19th c. The 2 plantations are San Rafael, in Bejucal, owned by Pedro Rafael Armenteros y
Castellón, and San José (a) Recuerdo, in San Antonio de los Baños, owned by Jacinto González Larrinaga. Through
parish registers, the authors examine the number, frequency, and other characteristics of marriages among the slaves, as
well as of their descendants after the abolition of slavery in 1886. They relate this to different theories and
contemporary discourses focussing on the marriage of slaves and its desirability. They point out how these included
moral or religious ones, as well as slaveowners' material interests in increased procreation of and stability among slaves.
They indicate, however, that despite these pressures from above for formal Church marriages, the slaves themselves
had some agency in and interest for it, as a way to assert humanity, and develop affective and kinship relations amidst
oppression, as marriage offered some legal protection. They further describe and juxtapose characteristics of marriages
among slaves on the 2 plantations. General recurring ones among these include that most marriages were with slaves on
the same plantations, or from those with the same owner, were mostly by partners who had a prior relationship and
children, and often among partners with at least a partly shared African ethnicity. Women mostly married at a younger
age than men, or soon after arriving from Africa. Authors further found that after slavery the frequency of marriage
among descendants of married slaves diminished more and more.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Metzgen, Humphrey and John Graham
(2007)
Caribbean wars untold : a salute to the British West Indies. Kingston [etc.] : University of the West Indies Press
British Caribbean / Caribbean / United Kingdom / military history / social history / political history / race relations /
armed forces / war
Reconstructs the contributions made by British Caribbeans to Britain's military endeavors since the time of Columbus
to the present. Authors describe how this includes World War I and II, but they also pay attention to earlier
involvements, including the wars with France and Spain in the early 18th c., involving black slaves in battles. With the
American War of Independence wars between Britain with France and other rivals resumed, and especially since the
French Revolution as Britain sought to recapture French territiories in the Caribbean, and many local black soldiers
were employed. Authors further pay attention to the development of militia in the region, which since the mid-17th c.
increasingly included free people of colour and free blacks, and were later active during the Napoleonic wars. They
further describe how in the postemancipation era a new consciousness developed among former slaves, the history of
Mary Seacole, as active during British war efforts in the Crimea, and the West India Regiment, which included service
for the British against rebellion in West Africa, from the 1820s to the late 19th c. Then, the authors focus on the
involvement of British Caribbeans in World War I, the effects of this, as West Indian soldiers were active in British
service in the Middle East and elsewhere. They next describe how World War II again led to service of Caribbean
people, with the Royal Air Force including most West Indians. Further, they discuss the effects of World War II, and
40
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
how this partly left negative feelings about Caribbean rejection and discrimination, and stimulated independence
stances.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 2982
Miller, Jake C.
(2008)
International concern for Haitians in the diaspora
In: Journal of Caribbean studies: vol. 22 (2008), Issue. 3, pp. 177-196.
Haitian / USA / Dominican Republic / Bahamas / migrations / refugees / human rights / international organizations /
migration policy
Assesses the international concern shown for Haitian migrants in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and the
Bahamas. Author points out how Haitian migrants are abused often, and undergo distress in their efforts to reach the
host country as well as hardship upon and after arrival. He further describes the treatment of Haitian refugees in the US
as was taken to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, accusing US authorities of
denying asylum to Haitians, against international and regional agreements to which the US was party, making them
return to Haiti putting their life or freedom at risk, and denying
them further due process and legal protection in the US. This issue later also got the concern of the UN, through the
UN High Commissioner of Refugees. Next, he discusses the mistreatment of Haitian migrants in the Dominican
Republic, where Haitians in the sugar industry work forced under poor conditions, raising human rights issues.
Through an international NGO this came before the International Labor Organization in 1981, while the IACHR and
the UN Commission on Human Rights later also took up the issue, specifically also the harsh mass deportation of
Haitians the Dominican government undertook in 1991. There were also efforts to increase pressures by the US to halt
the human rights abuse, with limited success. Further, the author discusses the treatment of Haitians in the Bahamas,
that in the course of the 1960s sought to regulate the migratory flow of Haitian immigration, considered overwhelming
culturally, while the Bahamian less-than-humanitarian response to hungry shipwrecked survivors on one of its islets in
1980, led to international criticism. This issue returned later with more Haitian refugees, involving the IAHCR,
UNHCR, and Amnesty International. Author concludes that NGOs, especially international human rights organizations,
were crucial in helping Haitians to relieve their plight in these cases, e.g. through petitions to the said international
organizations of the OAS and UN.
SIGNATURE: TA 3631
Miller, Rebecca Susan
(cop. 2007)
Carriacou, string band serenade : performing identity in the eastern Caribbean. Hanover, N.H : Wesleyan University
Press
Carriacou / cultural festivals / folk culture / music / cultural history / cultural development / cultural identity
Focusses on the Parang Festival, yearly held on the weekend before Christmas, and examines how it reflects societal
transformation in contemporary Carriacou. Author shows how the Parang Festival has enduring significance, since its
start in 1977, for local cultural identity and community empowerment, as well as for the evolution of this identity due
to globalizing influences. She describes how the Parang Festival features traditional music and dance forms of
Carriacou, including the local quadrille music and dance, Hosannah band (a cappella singing) competitions, and string
band music, the latter also present in the final, climactic string band competition. She describes these folk expressions,
and changes in them over time since 1977, including a move from folk expression to standardization and folklorization,
and increased international influences in the Festival, notably of music and dance styles from the wider Caribbean.
Author relates its start to the changed sociopolitical climate in the years leading up to Grenada's 1979 Socialist
Revolution, in which "community empowerment" became crucial, and Carriacou culture revived after a period of
neglect, and stimulated African-derived expressions on the island like Big Drum, along with more creolized ones. She
further focusses on the Parang weekend, and examines component parts of the Festival, including quadrille, and the
"cultural ambivalence" of this creolized expression; the increasingly homogenized Hosannah band singing (and
competition); and the string bands (and competition), describing the music, performance, texts, and increasingly diverse
audiences of them. Author shows how these performances reflect the contemporary values and local mores of
41
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Carriacou culture and autonomy, yet at the same time negotiate cultural identity through an increasingly outward focus
toward a regional, Afro-Caribbean belonging.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6319
Mitchell, Richard W.
(2008)
Derek Walcott's 'Pantomime', Old San Juan's monuments, and the everyday spectacle of Caribbean tourism
In: Wadabagei : journal of the Caribbean and its diaspora, ISSN 1091-5753: vol. 11 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 64-82.
Puerto Rico / Tobago / St Lucia / Caribbean / tourism / social history / theatre
Examines performative dimensions of Caribbean tourism. Author especially pays attention to the tendency in
Caribbean tourism to transform the region's violent colonial past into idealized tourist spectacles. He focusses on 2
examples of this, Spanish colonial remnants, such as a fort (el Morro) with sentry boxes, in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico,
as a much-visited tourist site, and Derek Walcott's play 'Pantomime' (1980), which deals with tourism in Tobago, and at
the same time rewrites the imperialist text 'Robinson Crusoe'. He describes how 'Pantomime' includes a "play within the
play" as a guesthouse owner wants to perform the pantomime of the Robinson Crusoe story with his black employee
Jackson as other actor. Jackson, however, defies the original script, questioning its white colonial bias and its "hiding"
of historical oppression and horrors. His white employer does not want to make tourists feel unpleasant with this
historical confrontation, but ultimately they come to a sort of understanding for a revised pantomime. Next, the author
focusses on how the sentry boxes, or "garitas" of Old San Juan's Morro became a touristic symbol, reproduced as
souvenirs, and in other references to Puerto Rico, thereby disregarding the exploitative history of African slaves having
built the fort. Author further points out that, as allegorized in Walcott's play, there is a potential for equally
performative opposition to and within such idealizing spectacles or performances in the Caribbean.
SIGNATURE: TA 7622
Morgan, Kenneth
(2007)
Slavery and the British Empire : from Africa to America. Oxford [etc.] : Oxford University Press
United Kingdom / British Caribbean / USA / Africa / slavery / slave trade / abolition of slavery / social history
General overview of the history of British involvement with slavery and the slave trade, from the Cape Colony to the
Caribbean, covering mainly the period from mid-17th c. to the mid-19th c., and including attention to abolitionism.
Author focusses particularly on the Atlantic world and the plantations of the Caribbean and North America. He
analyses the distribution of slaves within the empire and how this changed over time;
merchants and planters; and the organization and impact of the triangular slave trade. Further, he discusses slave
demography, health, and family life in North America and the British Caribbean; work, law, and culture during slavery;
and slave resistance and rebellion. After this, he focusses on the abolition of the slave trade in 1806 in the British
empire and the development toward slave emancipation in 1834.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 5739
Morris, Mervyn and Carolyn J. Allen
(2007)
Writing life : reflections by West Indian writers. Kingston : Ian Randle
British Caribbean / UWI / literature / writers / cultural identity / social development / cultural history / cultural
development / conference report / collective volume
Report of the UWI Mona Academic Conference of 2006, focussing creativity. Creative writers from the British
Caribbean, former UWI students or staff members, reflect on West Indian life and their experience as writer. 19
presentations, including both performances and delivered papers, are reproduced. They probe the writers' relation to
Caribbean history, community, identity, trauma, politics, development, origins, and place. Contributors include Mark
McWatt (on Guyana's rivers), Erna Brodber (on her imaginative writing's relation to the region's development issues
and public policy), Brother Resistance presents poems on poverty and Caribbean history, Cecil Gray describes his early
42
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
encounters with poetry in Trinidad, and Kendel Hippolye the social function of her activity as poet in St Lucia. Other
contributions are from Kevin Baldeosingh (on writing from the Caribbean), Kwame Dawes (writing outside of Jamaica
as a migrant), Staceyann Chin (a verbal "theatre" on a rape), Honor Ford-Smith (on writing and her memories of
Jamaica, including violence), Jean Small (on writing and life experiences), Paul-Keens-Douglas (on his Carnival
experience in Trinidad), Rawle Gibbons (on cultural rebellion in the 1970s influencing her theatre), Alwin Bully (on
the calypso theatre experiment in Dominica, from 1972 to 1980, calling on Dominica's folk protest music), Joan Andrea
Hutchinson presents poems on Jamaica and the hurricane Ivan in Jamaican Patois, and Merle Collins reflects upon her
experiences with the hurricane Ivan in Grenada. Then, Jean D'Costa relates his Jamaican youth to his children's fiction
writing. Amina Blackwood Moses presents a critique of tourism through a fictional walking tour, and a story in patois
on bananas and globalization, Merle Hodge discusses writing in Creole, and Olive Senior reflects upon her writing, and
her role as writer and at the same time "interpreter".
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 4598
Muñoz, Laura
(2006)
"Actuar con sentido estratégico" : México en la Asociación de Estados del Caribe y la coooperación regional para el
desarrollo
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 1, pp. 85-109.
Mexico / Caribbean / regional cooperation / international relations / foreign policy / ACS
Examines the Mexican attitude toward cooperation and integration with the Caribbean, particularly in the cadre of the
Association of Caribbean States (ACS). Author discusses the historical development of Mexican-Cuban relations,
including avowed changes since the Vicente Fox governments, as well as of the ACS. She points out how especially
since the 1999 meeting of Heads of Governments and States in the Dominican Republic, the ACS increasingly got to
focus on, alongside economic goals, political and cultural cooperation. Further focussing on Mexican positions on the
Caribbean in its foreign policy and ACS participation, she shows how there overall was continuity in Mexican politics
toward Caribbean countries, though this engagement shifted in relation to perceived national interests. Mexico
increasingly promoted multilateral channels of international negotiations for its national interests, and further
cooperates with the Caribbean with regard to especially sustainable tourism and science and technology. Author points
at challenges and points of improvements in Mexico's cooperation with the Caribbean, in light of regional development.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
N'Zengou-Tayo, Marie-José
(2007)
Ana Lydia Vega and Haiti : between fascination and rejection
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 42-60.
Haiti / Puerto Rico / literature
Analyses how Haiti and Haitians are represented in the fiction of Ana Lydia Vega. Author examines 5 short stories, 4
from the collection 'Encancaranublado y otros cuentos de naufragio' (1982-83) and one from 'Vírgenes y Mártires'
(1991). Three of these have a Haitian protagonist, 2 a Puerto Rican. Author relates this further to the literary
representation of Haiti, notably Western or US stereotypes on Haiti and Haitians as Others. She describes how in
Vega's stories with Haitian main characters Vega evokes 3 different Haitian migrations: to the Dominican Republic and
the 1937 slaughter (in the story 'El dia de los hechos'), the 1962-65 emigration under Duvalier (in 'Contrapunto
haitiano'), and the boat people migration (in 'Encancaranublado'), and how Vega refers to relations with other
Caribbean nationals, such as from the Spanish Caribbean. The stories with Puerto Rican main characters ('La alambra'
and 'Puerto Príncipe abajo') (also) discuss Haiti's present problems and squalor, contrasted with its glorious history,
expressing thus an ambivalence on Haiti. At the same time, the author argues, through her references and allusions to
Haiti, Vega critiques Puerto Rico's neocolonial status and Caribbean identity, and presents at the same time a negative
scenario for the Caribbean's future.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Nater, Laura
(2006)
43
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Colonial tobacco : key commodity of the Spanish empire, 1500-1800
In: From silver to cocaine : Latin American commodity chains and the building of the world economy, 1500-2000:
(2006), P. 93-117. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University Press
Cuba / Caribbean / Latin America / Spain / tobacco / tobacco industry / economic history
Analyses the chain of production and marketing of Cuban tobacco since the 16th c. , and how the Spanish imperial state
played a decisive role in this. Author first traces the historical development of tobacco as it spread from the Americas
to Europe in the 16th c. and became increasingly popular and spread worldwide. Tobacco's widespread
commercialization took place from the early 17th c. She further expounds on how with tobacco demand also its
production increased, and tobacco exports from Spanish American colonies to Seville increased strongly in the early
17th c.. She points out, however, how agro-industries were initially not supported in Spanish colonies, and she explains
how this relates to tobacco's income possibilities for the Spanish state through taxation. In addition, she describes how
this fits within the competition within the Caribbean as other European powers obtained colonies and competed also in
trade with Spanish colonies. Cuban tobacco had the most prestige and was most in demand in Europe, while the Dutch,
and later British and French colonies on the other hand had an advantage in the sugar industry and production. Due to
this Spain and Spanish Caribbean colonies focussed on extending the advantage in tobacco, resulting in measures to
control, improve, and expand
tobacco production and exports. Tobacco revenues increased up to well in the 18th c. This began to change since the
American Revolution, and the shift to sugar production taking place in Cuba since the late 18th c.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6163
Parker, Jason C.
(2008)
Brother's keeper : the United States, race, and empire in the British Caribbean, 1937-1962. Oxford [etc.] : Oxford
University Press
Jamaica / Trinidad and Tobago / USA / United Kingdom / foreign relations / political history / international relations /
independence
Examines the roles of the US, Britain, the West Indies, and the transnational African diaspora in the decolonization
process in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago from the 1930s to the islands' independence. Author addresses a number
of questions regarding changing US policy in the mid-20th c., including why US relations with the Anglophone
Caribbean were generally more constructive than with Latin America. Regarding Britain, he explores how London and
West Indian nationalists used the US presence to further their own ends. He studies the role of the African diaspora by
focussing on the island-US ties linking Caribbean expatriates and African-Americans and what these relations tell
about the place of the British Caribbean in the third world transition to independence and about the importance of that
transition to the cold war.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 7055
Pizza, Murphy
(2007)
Sacred body in a clear mirror : a comparison of women's theologies in Vodou and Neopaganism
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 84-98.
Haiti / Voodoo / religion / women
Departs from the Lwa of femininity in Vodou, Ezili, having a triplicate nature, as Ezili represents, through 3 variants,
primordial womanhood, warriorship, and/or flirtatiousness. Author points out how these facets of Ezili reflect the
realities and historical experience of Haitian women. She describes different Elizi spirits, Dantò (black), Freda (white),
and La Sirène (more supernatural), to show how these reflect Haitian history and culture of slavery, rebellion, and
struggle. Next, she discusses how the progressive spiritual Neopagan Goddess Movement among mainly Western
women has adopted forms of female divinity from different cultures, including Ezili from Vodou. Author, however,
points at differences in the conceptions and experiences of the divine feminine between Vodou and the Neopagan
traditions, attributable partly to the philosophical, acculturative, and theological differences between African and
44
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Western cultures. She further examines these contrasts in the concept of self, of the divine, and of the female body
between Vodou and Neopaganism, and consequently examines how white women's different historical experience and
position, when compared to Haitian women, complicate taking Ezili out of its cultural specific context. She points at
differences, e.g. the interconnectedness between humans and the world in Vodou and African worldviews, and the
differing relation to cultural maintenance in relation to Western patriarchy. She notes another essential difference in
religious practice, as physicality and religious extacy, possession and trance, play important roles in women's
engagement with Ezili in Vodou. Author argues that there is a way to bridge the gap through recognition of fluidity
common to both theologies.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Polyné, Millery
(2006)
Expansion now! : Haiti, "Santo Domingo," and Frederick Douglass at the intersection of U.S. and Caribbean PanAmericanism
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 2, pp. 3-45.
USA / Dominican Republic / Haiti / imperial expansion / political history / race relations / Blacks / intellectuals /
international relations
Analyses the responses of Frederick Douglass to US empire formation, between 1870 and 1872 in Santo Domingo, and
in Haiti between 1889 to 1891. Author describes how Douglass stated in 1871 his support for US annexation of Santo
Domingo, viewing this as part of a nonviolent, non-interventionist Pan-Americanism, supported also by Dominicans
themselves and, while US-centered, aiding modern, democratizing development. Douglass became Assistant Secretary
to President Ulysses S. Grant's commission to annex the Dominican Republic. Later, he became US minister to Haiti.
Author explains how Douglass's support for such annexation, that did not occur, related to his belief that it could be
beneficial for race relations in the US and internationally, and to his faith in Radical Republican policies in the late
1860s and early 1870s, aiding African American social and political progress, with implications for non-white peoples
of the Caribbean and Latin America. He points out, however, how Douglass opposed US empire if it perpetuated US
notions of racial domination, and his ideas on these themes changed over time, and he became more critical. This
related to changes in domestic policies in the US, toward racial segregation and worsening race relations, as well as to
the case of US encroachment on Haitian territory. Douglass became US Minister to Haiti in 1889, and as such further
supported his view of US egalitarian imperialism, yet guided by his respect for Haiti and the Haitian Revolution. He
was critical of biased US policies stimulating US business interests, and in part of US encroachment on Haitian
territory, as it sought to acquire Môle St. Nicolas as a site for a US naval station.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Pousada, Alicia
(2008)
The mandatory use of English in the Federal Court of Puerto Rico
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 136-155.
Puerto Rico / courts / language use / administration of justice / human rights
Questions the mandatory use of English in the federal courts, or District courts, in Puerto Rico, as proceedings in these
specific courts, meant to deal with federal rights, and interstate and international interests, are in English. Author points
out how this is implemented through tests for attorneys and jury selection, disqualifying non-English proficient
candidates. She points out that as only about 17% of Puerto Ricans over 18 are very fluent in English, and these are
mostly of the higher classes, this mandatory English use has human rights as well as constitutional implications, going
against the required guarantee of a "jury by one's peers". She traces the historical development of the District Court of
Puerto Rico, soon set up after 1898 as part of US rule, and continuing also after Puerto Rico's acquisition of the
Commonwealth status in 1952. There were meanwhile some legal revisions regarding the District Courts, while the
mandatory use of English was maintained. Author further discusses efforts to change this, including bills and
resolutions by the 3 main Puerto Rican political parties, all failing and rejected in US Congress. She evaluates the
arguments used for the use of Spanish, constitutional, financial, practical and otherwise, finding that these are mostly
invalid. Moreover, she argues that the language used in District Courts is a matter of human rights, as formulated in the
UN cadre. She thus calls for the use of Spanish, with English translations or interpreters in these courts.
45
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
Price, Richard
(cop. 2008)
Travels with Tooy : history, memory, and the African American imagination. Chicago, IL [etc.] ; London : University
of Chicago Press
Suriname / French Guyana / Saramaka / Maroons / social history / religion / folk culture / social development
Account of the social and cultural history and development of the Saramaka Maroons of Suriname, particularly the
group presently living in French Guiana, a migration that increased especially since the civil war in Suriname (198692). Author particularly delves into Saramaka culture, including African-derived religious views on spirits, placed in
the historical contexts of slavery, colonial developments, Maroon history in the interior, and recent developments in
French Guiana. He does this through the oral traditions and history and also the personal life story shared by a main
informant as well as friend of the author, Tooy, a Saramaka captain residing in French Guiana. Through Tooy's
accounts, interrelated with "official" historical sources, the author thus relates the Saramaka worldview on their history
and own historical explanations. This includes remembered African foreparents of Tooy, from both the Congo and FonEwe regions in Africa, their arrival in Suriname while taking their spiritual world along, further being constitutive of
separate communities and lineages among the Saramaka. He elaborates on creolization processes among the Saramaka,
and other changes, in interaction with other (Maroon) peoples and the colonial authorities. Author thus points at the
importance of Wénti's, sea gods, in Saramaka culture, as well as of other deities as the Mama-Gádu, divination, and
various protective spirits.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3927
Pérez-Stable, Marifeli
(cop. 2007)
Looking forward : comparative perspectives on Cuba's transition. Notre Dame, IN : University of Notre Dame Press
Cuba / political development / democratization / social development / economic development / comparative analysis /
international relations / scenarios / collective volume
Volume consists of 12 essays reviewing the possible transition scenarios in Cuba. Covering institutions, social relations,
and ideology in Cuba and their, eventual or required, transformation, authors further take on a comparative approach,
especially comparing with transitions in Eastern and Central Europe, Spain, China and Vietnam, or Latin America (e.g.
Nicaragua). Marifeli Pérez-Stable discusses the difficulty of political change after a limitedly institutionalized, personal
"Fidelista" government style. Jorge I. Domínguez focusses on the need for civilian control over Cuba's relatively
powerful military for a democratic transition. Gustavo Arnavat highlights the role of legal reforms for Cuba's
democratization, and of constitutional courts as these had in Central and Eastern Europe. Damián J. Fernández points at
possible post-transition developments of Cuban civil society, as elsewhere its reduction caused social fragmentation.
Mala Htun, then, discusses possible implications of a transition for gender relations, comparing with transitions
elsewhere. Alejandro de la Fuente focusses on future race relations in relation to their deterioration since the 1990s,
compares with Brazilian developments, and calls for state-directed efforts against discrimination. Jorge F. Pérez-López
sheds light on economic liberalization reforms, and possible and required macro- and microeconomic policies. Next,
Carmelo Mesa-Lago elaborates on social policy and welfare in Cuba from 1990 to 2002, and on future prospects under
different transition scenarios, calling for an important role of tax policy. Daniel P. Erikson pays attention to corruption
and its possible future developments under different scenarios. Further, Lizandro Pérez describes the possible roles of
the émigré/Cuban-American community, including international comparisons, and in light of recent political
moderation. Rafael Rojas discusses the need for a national reconciliation, with international comparisons. Finally,
William M. LeoGrande deals with Cuba's future relations with the US, including compensation (for confiscated US
property).
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 1265
Raja, Masood Ashraf
(2006)
"We is all people" : the marginalized East-Indian and the economy of difference in Lovelace's 'The dragon can't dance'
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 1, pp. 111-130.
46
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Trinidad and Tobago / literature / interethnic relations / East Indian / literary criticism
Analyses Earl Lovelace's novel 'The dragon can't dance' (1979), in particular the difficulties and possibilities it contains
for interethnical communication. Author thus focusses on the lack of communication and understanding in the novel
between the East Indian Pariag, and the predominantly Afro-Trinidadian population of the urban ghetto of Calvary Hill
where Pariag moves to from rural Trinidad. He describes how Pariag after arrival seeks to negotiate his self within the
community of Calvary Hill, but fails in this. He attributes this not just to racial differences, but also to competing
economies, specifically the opposition of symbolic vs. material capital, and their significance in what are theorized as
"native fields". Within such native fields, he further explains, symbolic capital depends on a misreading of its
functioning, thereby "hiding" material capital and keeping economism covert. Author describes how Pariag entered the
Calvary Hill community with an universalist sense of self and an overt material economy, conflicting with the
particularist, and "non-possession" values of the other inhabtitants. He further shows how in the novel this relates to e.g.
Pariag's buying of a bicycle, critiqued most by influential "spokespersons" for the community, whose relative material
wealth makes them feel threatened. At the same time he indicates how the interactions in the novel and changes toward,
albeit limited, interethnic acceptance point the way toward mutual recognition and a future lateral alliance, thus
overcoming "native field mentalities".
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Ramcharan, Robin
(cop. 2007)
The national security of Guyana : a study in foreign policy. Lewiston, NY [etc.] : Edwin Mellen
Guyana / foreign policy / political history / international
relations / social development / political development / national development
Examines how Guyana has fared in its foreign policy since its independence in 1966 up to the present, and whether
Guyana's foreign policy served its national security, or contributed to nation-building and its development. Author pays
attention to global geopolitical forces at the moment of independence and preceding autonomy, including US and
British intervention against the communist-leaning PPP, resulting in the PPP-PNC split based on racial divides. Next,
he discusses the threat to Guyana's territorial integrity since 1966, related to Venezuela's and Suriname's claims on
parts of Guyana's territory, national disunity due to racially oriented politics and the foreign policy response, and
foreign policy in relation to developmental decline and increased crime. Then, he treats efforts of influencing
international markets in vital sectors of Guyana's economy, notably sugar production. Further, the author highlights
whether Guyana's national security can be achieved through regional diplomacy or multilateral fora, and the efforts of
Guyana to help advance globally a new human order. Author concludes that the crafters of foreign policy in Guyana
have performed well externally, by using international fora within the Caribbean and at the UN, for protecting its
territorial integrity, as well as its national security. Also, he notes that cooperating with the US and Canada in dealing
with regional crime and drugs problems went well, as did Guyana's working with ACP partners in sugar trade
negotiations with the EU before preferential access ended. He infers, however, that the contribution of foreign policy to
nation-building in Guyana, and in overcoming ethno-political disunity, was and is deficient.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6322
Raynolds, Laura T.
(2008)
The organic agro-export boom in the Dominican Republic : maintaining tradition or fostering transformation?
In: Latin American research review, ISSN 0023-8791: vol. 43 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 161-184.
Dominican Republic / agriculture / exports / economic development / peasants
Examines the factors that promoted the rise and persistence of the organic export sector in the Dominican Republic,
expanding especially since the late 1980s. Author explains how in its development small producers were crucial, often
maintaining organic cultivation practices due to the relatively limited use of pesticide in Dominican agriculture. She
further describes how international trends and developments influenced the increase, notably neoliberal shifts away
from production for the domestic economy and toward economic liberalization and the export market. During the
47
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
1990s Dominican organic exports expanded and also institutionalized, including certification, with the support of
foreign donors, business, and government agencies, while it today represents an important segment of Dominican
agriculture and the national economy. The country is at present the world's foremost exporter of organic bananas and
cocoa, and a top exporter of other products. Author analyses specifically the implications of global organic market
trends for Dominican exports and for the thousands of small producers involved. She concludes that despite their
historical prominence, recently rising international competition and buyers' quality expectations have the effect of
displacing and disempowering small Dominican organic producers. She points out, however, how strong producer
associations and transnational movement ties have countered this, helping to improve the position of small organic
producers in the Dominican Republic.
SIGNATURE: TA 3736
Richman, Karen E.
(2008)
A more powerful sorcerer : conversion, capital, and Haitian transnational migration
In: NWIG : New West Indian guide/Nieuwe West-Indische gids, ISSN 1382-2373: vol. 82 (2008), Issue. 1-2, pp. 3-45.
Haiti / Haitian / USA / migrations / Protestantism / religion / Voodoo / religious practice / moral aspects / social values
Focusses on how since the arrival of Haitians in South Florida since 1979 many of these increasingly joined and
converted to Haitian evangelical Protestant churches, and came to disavow the combined Catholic and Vodou beliefs
they adhered to. Author points out how this echoes trends in Haiti since the 1970s of increased conversions to
evangelical Protestantism, with these localized/Haitianized Protestant churches later also moving to Florida. She further
examines the motivations behind and meanings of these conversions, and argues that poor Haitian migrants construe
conversion as a rhetoric and set of behaviours for mastering a model of individual, social, and economic success in the
US. At the same time, she shows how this Protestant evangelical practice offers converts an escape route from familial
and other obligations and interdependence connected to traditional, transnational domestic and ritual ties, that are also
spiritually and magically enforced. Author however indicates that while the pastors model for their flock an assertive,
separatist disposition, central to Protestantism's historical appeal, combined with a modern, ascetic approach,
underneath this is often an instrumental logic aimed at instant money and private ambition. As these traditionally were
illicit rewards of sorcery and magic, the pastors are seen by some as renewed and successful sorcerers. Author further
examines the conversions relating these to the moral dialectic from Vodou, known as Guinea and Magic, mediating the
conflicts between individualism and community, and gives examples of often pragmatic motivations for conversion.
She thus concludes that Haitians' interpretations of their conversions are unique in that they are filled with their cultural
concerns, images, and morality.
SIGNATURE: TA 5617
Rivera Ramos, Efrén
(2007)
American colonialism in Puerto Rico : the judicial and social legacy. Princeton, NJ : Markus Wiener
Puerto Rico / USA / legal history / political history / political development / law / social development
Examines the role of law in not just reflecting but also helping to constitute the colonial relationship between the US
and Puerto Rico. Author elaborates on the historical legal construction of social reality, resulting according to him in a
relationship that is essentially still colonial, yet with at present a generalized acceptance of US constitutional, legal, and
political institutions and values, and a majority preference among Puerto Ricans for ties with the US. He first
reconstructs the development of the expansionist movement within the US and the forces behind it, including racism,
Manifest Destiny notions, as well as political and economic interests, that would ultimately influence the US legal
construction. He further describes pre-1898 Puerto Rico, and post-1898 transformations under US rule. He next
focusses on what he calls the "judicial construction of colonialism", including how the US Supreme Court elaborated
the category of "unincorporated territories", as part of creating a wider legal framework for colonialism and
incorporation of Puerto Rico, called the 'Insular Cases', in the early 20th c. This legal "unincorporated status" allowed
flexibility for the US as dominant party. Author pays attention to associated ideological perspectives, and further to the
social, cultural, and political effects flowing from this legal doctrine. Further, the author describes how hegemony has
operated in Puerto Rican society and the place of law in that process, including the effects of extending US citizenship
to Puerto Ricans in 1917, and the developing hegemony through legal consciousness, including rights, representative
48
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
democracy, and the rule of law. Author concludes that this legal framework still constrains possibilities for action and
conditions self-determination, and that the US citizenship status has become a key factor in the production of US
hegemony, i.e. shared by substantial parts of the Puerto Ricans, due to its association with tangible benefits and values,
later modernized through the said legal consciousness, rights and rule of law discourse.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 2289
Robinson, Nancy P.
(2006)
Origins of the international day for the elimination of violence against women : the Caribbean contribution
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 2, pp. 141-161.
Dominican Republic / Latin America / UN / women's rights / gender relations / political history / violence against
women / social history
Traces the development of the international human rights framework for women's rights. Author first describes how
women's rights and protection of women from violence came since 1945 on the agenda of the UN and its organizations,
and the theme increasingly received attention, while widening in scope in time. The 1993 human rights conference in
Vienna, resulting in the Vienna declaration, meant another, revolutionary step forward in really equaling women's
rights and human rights, taking also private forms of violence against women out of the discretionary realm. After this
resolutions were passed in the UN cadre related to reproductive rights, and to violence against women during war,
while the regional inter-American bodies paralleled these UN efforts. Further, the author points at a global Caribbean
contribution, as the UN designation of the
25th of November as Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women related to the murder of the Mirabel
sisters, who opposed the Trujillo dictatorship, on November 25, 1960.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Rodríguez Ramos, Reniel and Jaime Pagán Jiménez
(2006)
Interacciones multivectoriales en el circum-Caribe precolonial : un vistazo desde las Antillas
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 2, pp. 99-139.
Caribbean / Latin America / USA / Amerindians / archaeology / cultural history / social history
Examines the role of inter-regional interactions in the formation of pre-Columbian circum-Caribbean societies, with
special emphasis on the Caribbean islands. Authors argue that although local adaptations and independent interventions
were important in the configuration of Amerindian societies of the islands, continuing inter-regional interactions had
also clear cultural and political influences. They describe how the Caribbean Sea in this sense unified regions through
navigation, and they especially pay attention to parallels and interactions with extra-Antillean areas, notably the
Ishtmus-Central American-Colombian area and the US Southeastern area. They point out how interactions with these
last areas have been underresearched in comparison to the more commonly theorized historical migrations from
Northeastern South America/Orinoco Delta, or from Yucatan, to the Caribbean islands. Authors further follow the time
frame, from early interaction vectors between 7500 to 2500 BC, noting links between pre-Arawak cultures in (current)
Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Virgin Islands and the Ishtmus-Colombian region; between 2600 and
1500 BC, when the Saladoid/Arawak culture began, following, they assert, not just migrations from South East
Venezuela, but also from more western South America; and the later 1500-500 BC period, when continued extraregional influences showed in the increasingly more complex societies. Fore each period they point at inter-regional
influences and parallels regarding agro-economics, material culture, as well as superstructure aspects, especially since
2600 BC.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Rodrigo y Alharilla, Martín
(2008)
Empresarios en la distancia : con el negocio en Cuba y la vivienda en Cataluña (1830-1880)
In: Illes i imperis : estudis d'història de les societats en el món colonial i post-colonial = Islas e imperios : estudios de
historia de las sociedades en en mundo colonial y post-colonial = Islands and empires : historical studies of societies in
49
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
the Colonial and Post-Colonial World = ^ÿêIles et empires : études historiques des sociétés dans le Monde Colonial et
Post-Colonial, ISSN 1575-0698: (2008), Issue. 10-11, pp. 153-166.
Spain / Cuba / Puerto Rico / economic history / social history / entrepreneurs
Reconstructs how especially since the late 18th c. and throughout the 19th c. Cuba and Puerto Rico became locations
for Catalan entrepreneurs active in commercial activities as well as land and plantation ownership. Author discusses
examples of several of these entrepreneurs, who temporarily went to live in Cuba or Puerto Rico with as main goal
accumulating wealth, and foreseeing their return to Barcelona or elsewhere in Catalonia, where the capital thus gained
was invested. He shows how consequently these businessmen, later becoming absentee owners, showed mostly little
interest in actually integrating into Cuban and Puerto Rican societies, having often even disdain for it. Some however
found marriage partners there, who would later come with them to Catalonia, and who came from wealthy, often also
Catalan circles, as there were in periods in parts of Cuba and Puerto Rico quite sizable Catalan communities. Author
describes how many Catalan merchants were active in the Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos, and Santa Clara areas,
initially mainly as merchants, soon followed by (part) ownership of sugar plantations and farms. These were affected
by the independence wars in Cuba, during which a capital flight toward Europe and other places took place.
SIGNATURE: TA 7403
Roopnarine, Lomarsh
(2008)
Eastern Caribbean islanders in St. Croix : inter-island migration and ethnic relations
In: Journal of Caribbean studies: vol. 22 (2008), Issue. 3, pp. 137-153.
St Croix / United States Virgin Islands / Caribbean / migrations / social history / social development
Traces the history of migration to St Croix from Eastern Caribbean islanders since Danish colonial times. Author
describes how following the abolition of slavery in 1848, between 1849 and 1917 around 10,000 foreign contract
workers were imported to work in the sugar plantations in St Croix, of which a large part came from the Lesser Antilles,
especially Barbados. They worked under a coercive postemancipation labour system, that met a response in the 1878
Fireburn Insurrection, in which many of the migrants participated, and other forms of resistance, influencing colonial
policies in time and even the giving up of the Virgin Islands by Denmark, selling these to the US in 1917. He further
discusses migration after 1917, showing how economic decline first stimulated out-migration to the US, causing labour
shortages, partly filled by migrants from the Lesser Caribbean, part of whom remained illegally. Migration was
stimulated by the early 1960s in line with an economic shift from agriculture to industrial development in St Croix,
entailing what would be a "bonded labour system", under restrictive conditions, for Eastern Caribbean migrants with
temporary contracts, but many migrants overstayed in the Virgin Islands, responded to with tough measures by the
authorities, including deportions. Eastern Caribbean migration continued, however, and later laws changed, and
migration was restricted, but by the 1990s migrants became even a majority on St Croix over the local population, with
Eastern Caribbean migrants being the largest minority. Author further pays attention to tensions between original St
Cruzians with these migrants, especially as these obtained higher positions, and despite similarities in history and
culture. These diminsihed in time, although he points out that a shared St Croix national consensus across groups is still
lacking.
SIGNATURE: TA 3631
Ross, James
(2007)
Routes for roots : entering the 21st century in San Andrés island, Colombia
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 35 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 3-36.
Colombia / Caribbean / cultural history / political history / cultural identity / ethnicity
Traces the historical development of the 'Raizal' ethnic community on the island of San Andrés in the Colombian
Caribbean. Author reconstructs the history of the San Andrés archipelago, including also Providencia, in the Western
Caribbean Sea, with special attention to its settlement and consequent identities developing historically. He describes
how due to Spanish disinterest the islands were settled by British, Dutch, and French privateers, while later connections
with especially British Jamaica developed, resulting in resettlements from Jamaica, including white colonists and slaves
50
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
throughout the 18th c. Throughout, Spain sought to differing degrees to enforce Spanish and Catholicism on the islands,
but an Anglophone, English-speaking Creole community remained long dominant. After Colombian independence in
the early 19th c. the islands joined Colombia, and the conflicting identities continued to develop, as did NicaraguanColombian border conflicts. In the later 19th c. the US influence in the region increased, and Baptism, arrived there
through a Jamaican migrant since 1847, became another mainstay of Islander culture. Author further relates how a thus
developed Islander culture faced cultural and educational Colombianization pressures from mainland Colombia,
especially since 1886, meant to stimulate the use of Spanish and Catholicism on the islands, with only limited success
at first. He describes how this continued through the 20th c., while the islands becoming a Freeport, in 1953, increased
economic changes and migrations from mainland Colombians and others, making the native Islanders, later called
Raizals, since the 1970s a numerical minority on the San Andrés islands. These consequently sensed their culture to be
threatened.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Rupprecht, Anita
(2008)
"A limited sort of property" : history, memory and the slave ship 'Zong'
In: Slavery & abolition : a journal of comparative studies, ISSN 0144-039X: vol. 29 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 265-277.
United Kingdom / British Caribbean / slavery / commemorations / social history / slave trade / reparations / literature
Discusses the legal case of the Liverpool-based slave ship 'Zong' of 1783, when 132 Africans were jettisoned from the
ship in order to claim on an insurance, with special attention to the role of the Zong case in shaping the 2007
bicentenary commemorations of the abolition of the British slave trade, the black Atlantic literary tradition, and the
campaign for reparations. In addition, the author examines how this relates to the contrasts between history and
memory, and archive and truth, as well as to the interface between trauma and healing, and political critique and
material redress. She describes how a replica of the Zong figured in 2007 in London as part of slave trade
commemorations, along with a British Navy ship, and how this in part continued a recurring historical rendering
heralding abolitionism and British benevolence. She further indicates how British Caribbean writers also returned to the
Zong, but with another perspective, focussing on archival absence or limitations, retelling the Zong story from the
literary perspective of a survived slave, as in Fred D'Aguiar's novel 'Feeding the ghosts' (1998), by questioning
narration and closure of the "official" Zong story through poetry, as Marlene Nourbese Philip, and in Michelle Cliff's
novel 'Free enterprise' (1993). These works at the same time allude to the unspeakability of the slave murders, and other
slave trade and slavery horrors. Author relates this further to trauma studies, and to how such memory work can
actually grasp the history
of slavery, or contribute to the healing of the historical trauma. She further treats the response to this trauma through
material redress as proposed by the reparations movement in the black diaspora. This also involves history and memory
issues, as the maneuvering within the law and recent pragmatic strategy to achieve reparations or redress toward
consumer fraud law, and corporations' historical involvement in slave trade and slavery, moved away from the original
broader demand for justice and a human rights focus.
SIGNATURE: TA 3960
Santa-Cruz, Arturo
(2007)
Election monitoring and the Western hemisphere idea
In: Promoting democracy in the Americas: (2007), P. 133-151. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press
Caribbean / Latin America / USA / elections / democracy / observers / international relations / NGO
Examines how international election monitoring emerged and normalized. Author especially points out how the origins
of the developed system of election monitoring lie in the Americas, where an international norm favouring this evolved.
Specifically, he shows how the Western Hemisphere Idea, formulated in the Americas since the later 19th c., asserting
the Americas as a system of interest separate from Europe, albeit with 2 contrasting parts: the US/North America and
the Caribbean and Latin America, contributed to an hemispheric norm. This was further consolidated over time even if
at times nonintervention demands were invoked by Latin American countries in response to interventions of the US.
With the OAS, this extended further, as it combined as fundamental values representative democracy and
51
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
nonintervention regarding the member states, and the OAS became the concrete institutional arrangement through
which international election monitoring took place since the 1960s. Author describes how since the late 1970s, added to
this state-sponsored election monitoring, international NGOs engaged in this, with as important player the US-based
Carter Center. With the international NGOs the election monitoring became more substantial and less symbolic, and he
discusses how international government organizations and international NGOs converged in 1989, starting with the
Nicaraguan elections, for a more comprehensive electoral observation, and the first of its kind and volume
internationally.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6326
Santiago-Valles, Kelvin
(2007)
"Our race today [is] the only hope for the world" : an African Spaniard as chieftain of the struggle against "sugar
slavery" in Puerto Rico, 1926-1934
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 35 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 107-140.
Puerto Rico / intellectuals / race relations / cultural identity / social history
Focusses on how Pedro Albizu Campos, leader of the Puerto Rican Partido Nacionalista, understood and deployed
"race". Author analyses Albizu Campos's ideas on race and colonialism, compared with other Latin American and
Caribbean perspectives on "arielismo", "indigenismo", and "racial democracy", as well as Garvey's ideas. He further
frames this within the period between the 1920s and 1940s, and US dominance in Puerto Rico, including an economic
sugar monopoly of US firms. Albizu Campos in 1924 joined the Nationalist Party, which defended the interests of the
labourers, many working under exploitative conditions on sugar plantations. Albizu Campos called this a (new) "sugar
slavery". Author explains how this critique related to his racial views, pointing out how these can be characterized as
"racial democracy from below", differing for a large part from the racial democracy "from above" as espoused by white
or near-white, Westernized Creole elites in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in Latin America. Albizu Campos, himself a
Mulatto, instead defined the Hispanic Race as non-colour exclusive, and historically formed by black-white and other
racial mixture, yet with an own, shared cultural essence set against the US/Anglo-Saxon one.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Saunders, Patricia Joan
(cop. 2007)
Alien-nation and repatriation : translating identity in Anglophone Caribbean literature. Lanham [etc.] : Lexington
Books
British Caribbean / Trinidad and Tobago / literature / nationalism / literary history / gender relations / women / national
identity / literary criticism
Examines emergence and transformations in representations of national identity in Anglophone Caribbean literary
traditions. Specifically, the author analyses the links among gender, migration, exile, and nationalism as reflected in
postcolonial literature, from the black female perspective. Focussing first on Trinidadian writers, she shows how gender,
migration, and female sexuality and subjectivity framed the earliest representations of Caribbean identity, specifically
in the short fiction of the 1920s and 1930s, and the "barracks-yard fiction" of C.L.R. James and Alfred H. Mendes. She
shows how these created a protonationalist, anticolonial aestheticism that engendered a woman-centered national space,
arguing that this differed from the middle-class sexuality or cultural values of the later fiction. Chronologically, she
further analyses how the tradition changed as the elite later began to assert its hegemony, resulting in a circumscribing
of the representation of poor female subjects, relating to the primacy of race and nation over gender, also by migrated
writers. She illustrates this through George Lamming's 'Water with berries' (1971), 'The pleasures of exile' (1992), and
other works. Next, the author discusses how this marginalization of female subjectivity from discourses of citizenship
and belonging has been questioned through an imaginative reordering of language, foregrounding the relation between
"being and meaning" as provisional, rather than fixed. She exemplifies this especially through M. NourbeSe Philip's
'She tries her tongue, her silence softly breaks' (1989), Erna Brodber's 'Louisiana' (1995), Paule Marshall's 'Brown girl,
brownstones' (1996), and Elizabeth Nunez's 'Beyond the limbo silence' (2003).
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 4324
52
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Schuller, Mark
(2007)
Haiti's 200-year ménage-à-trois : globalization, the state, and civil society
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 35 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 141-179.
Haiti / historiography / social history / political history / social development
Analyses dominant historiographies of Haiti, challenging more particularly the "binary frameworks" within discourses
of globalization and civil society. Author describes how writings on Haiti's recent and longer history tend for the most
part to follow binary logics to explain Haiti's heroic yet later problematic history, blaming the deterioration and crises
either to global, foreign powers, to Haiti's predatory state or local elite, or even cultural traits. He further focusses on
these historiographic tropes, calling these "Istwa" (Haitian Creole for both story and history), while analyzing the
implicit theories and ideologies contained in them. These include the "globalist" trope, Haiti as victim of imperialist,
foreign interests since Columbus up to now; the "statist" trope, focussing on Haiti's corrupt and exploitative ruling
apparatus; and a civil society, or "populist" trope. Author argues that these 3, mutually unintelligible tropes are
imperfect, with different "blind spots", impeding a sharp and proper analysis. He therefore calls for a "tripartite"
analytical framework, including a combined focus on the 3 general sets of actors, and not just 1 or 2 of them: including
thus foreign powers, the state, and Haiti's people, with particularly the latter's agency and resistance up to now
receiving scant attention, and their relative interrelations.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Schuller, Mark
(2007)
Invasion or infusion? Understanding the role of NGOs in contemporary Haiti
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 2, pp. 96-119.
Haiti / development aid / NGO / economic and social development
Calls for a critical understanding and evaluation of the role and work of NGOs in Haiti, as at present most grant aid to
Haiti is directed to more than 300 officially recognized NGOs. Author aims at providing a framework for evaluating
NGOs as either "good", closer to the people and less corrupt than the government, or "bad", as tools of foreign
imperialism. Similarly NGOs assist according to some in either "infusion" of funds into Haiti, or are a foreign invasion.
Author further addresses these questions by first focussing on differences the definition and conception of NGOs,
including classifications according to criteria such as sector, type of aid, emergency aid or contributing to degrees of
development, and funding sources (northern NGOs or otherwise). He relates this to partially critical views of Haitian
political parties on NGOs, taking over policy functions of a mandated government, and related bureaucratic procedures
for NGOs in Haiti. Based on this NGO registry, he further examines what the data say on the role and NGOs, noting
that a majority is registered as Haitian, but probably not all with actual Haitian directors and board members. In
addition, he found that in general most NGOs were active in health, education, agriculture, or social assistance, but
with differing focusses between NGOs of different nationality, or orientation, providing avenues for further research.
Author further points out that assessing local participation is crucial in the NGOs' evaluation, and he presents a chart
and method that can be helpful in the research on local participation in different stages from identifying problems,
organizing/planning, and execution, as a heard critique is that local Haitians are often relegated to just execution tasks.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Schwarz, Bill
(cop. 2008)
Caribbean literature after independence : the case of Earl Lovelace. London : Institute for the Study of the Americas,
University of London
Trinidad and Tobago / literature / literary criticism / culture / writers / collective volume
Collection of 12 essays assessing Earl Lovelace's fiction and his role in Caribbean letters. Contributers include Bill
Schwarz (Being in the world), Kate Quinn (writers and the conditions of cultural production in postindependence
Trinidad), J. Dillon Brown (Lovelace's novels), Chris Campbell (an ecocritical perspective), Aaron Love (history and
self in C.L.R. James and Lovelace), Patricia Murray (nation and hybridity in 'The dragon can't dance' and
'Witchbroom'), Nicole King (performance and tradition in 'A brief conversion'), James Procter (brevity and 'A brief
53
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
conversation'), John Thieme (carnival forms and creolization in 'The dragon can't dance' and 'Salt'), Louis James ('Salt'
as a Caribbean epic), Tina Ramnarine (sonic narrative and the politics of freedom in the literary imagination of
Lovelace), and Lawrence Scott (on the road to Kumaca).
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 7518
Sengupta, Vishnupriya
(2008)
The world, the text and Sir Vidia
In: Journal of Caribbean literatures, ISSN 1086-010X: vol. 5 (2008), Issue. 2, pp. 1-212.
Trinidad and Tobago / Caribbean / writers / literature / literary criticism / East Indian
Issue devoted to V.S. Naipaul consists of 15 articles by authors from different continents addressing Naipaul's
background, the problems of locating him culturally and politically, the journey across the globe in his works, the main
themes in his works, including cultural identity and diaspora, and the difficulties of translating his works. Combined,
the editor argues, these situate Naipaul in the midst of a fragmented postcolonial identity crisis. Authors discuss his
childhood and family (Kumar Mahabir); the difficulty of locating Naipaul as neither English, Indian, or Trinidadian
(Harish Trivedi); and Naipaul's early visions on the Indo-Caribbean experience, characterized as ambivalent (Victor J.
Ramraj). Next, authors focus on Naipaul's representations and visions, including through specific works, e.g. humor
and ruin in 'Miguel Street' (1959) (Aaron Astley); 'A house for Mr. Biswas' (1961) compared with a work from
Bangladesh (Meenakashi Mukherjee); and read from an alternative, diasporic angle to refute negative critique's of
Naipaul's writing (Kavita Nandan); Naipaul's work reconsidered as ambivalent rather than in favour of colonialist
power, as some criticizers assert, through his nonfiction stories on India (Vishnupriya Sengupta); landscape, memory,
and identity in Naipaul's 'A way in the world' (1994) (Shirley Chew); the role of Naipaul's memories and past in his
'The enigma of arrival' (1987) (Jasbir Jain); the postcolonial condition in relation to Naipaul's 'The mimic men' (1967)
(Dorota Kolodziejczyk); and this last novel considered as representing a political voice of East Indians in the
independent Caribbean against creolization (Atreyee Phukan). Further, authors analyse pessimism and existentialism in
Naipaul's work (Serafin Roldan-Santiago); Naipaul's development as person and writer (Tarun J. Tejpal); Naipaul's
writings and (critical) opinions on different parts of the world: Islamic countries, India, Africa, as well as Caribbean
movements (Farrukh Dhondy); and the difficulty of translating Naipaul's texts into Italian (Franca Cavagnoli).
SIGNATURE: TA 11951
Shamsie, Yasmine
(2007)
The international political economy of democracy promotion : lessons from Haiti and Guatemala
In: Promoting democracy in the Americas: (2007), P. 249-269. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press
Haiti / Guatemala / democracy / political development / globalization / economic development / international relations
Shows how economic globalization has clear implications for the development of democracy, specifically through the
cases of Haiti and Guatemala. Author describes how Haiti engaged in a democratization path especially after the
Duvalier dictatorships, as did Guatemala after 1986, following a civil war. She discusses how different aspects of
economic globalization limited actual, popular demands for an inclusive democracy, and how what was favoured
instead was a "low intensity" democracy, framed within neoliberalism, with little attention to social, equalizing changes.
She demonstrates how in the case of Haiti especially the conditionality on foreign/international aid and loans
influenced the course of the democratic transition, as distributional equity, effective land reforms favouring peasants,
and poverty reduction, were absent or trivialized in relation to the creation of an enabling environment for transnational
capital, whereby the elite's connections with foreign capital strengthened its economic power and thus inequality. She
further describes how in Guatemala the progressive and promising Peace Accord in 1996 proposed land reform and
distribution favouring the disadvantaged Maya, which was however limited by trade and investment agreements in the
cadre of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, similarly favouring connected foreign
capital-elite interests.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6326
Shaw, Carolyn M.
(2007)
54
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
The United States : rhetoric and reality
In: Promoting democracy in the Americas: (2007), P. 63-84. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press
USA / Caribbean / Latin America / international relations / foreign policy / foreign intervention / democracy / political
history / political development
Examines the motivations behind US foreign policy making with regard to Latin America and the Caribbean. Author
first examines the contradictions in this US policy, after which she traces the development of historical US-Latin
American relations. She describes how a first period from 1820 to 1889 was one of US isolationism and of political
disengagement from the rest of the Americas beyond trade. This was followed by a period of US dominance, from
1889 to 1923, with the US foreign policy, and inter-American cooperation stimulation, mainly aimed at its economic
and trade motivations, or security interests. This period included the occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic
in the early 20th c. and other interventions. Author then describes how this was followed by a slowly changing focus
since the 1920s, and then a more cooperating, unifying period from 1933 to 1948, laying the basis for the OAS. Overall,
however, these improved relations, and the US stated goal of democracy promotion often contradicted by its
intervention practices, did little to actually bring about democratization in the Caribbean and Latin America. After
World War II, this continued, and the foundation of the OAS promoted hemispheric solidarity, yet as the cold war
deepened US democracy promotion was often sacrificed for the main aim of containing Communism in the hemisphere,
for which also right-wing undemocratic regimes were supported. Author then shows how after the cold war in the
1990s the US role in promoting or supporting democracy in the regions was more positive, with a changed approach
toward multilateralism, but that this changed again after 2001, when US priorities shifted away from the region and
democracy and toward security interests. For the future, the author recommends a US foreign policy for the region of
"enabling", through multilateral means, democracy.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6326
Simounet, Alma
(2008)
Delegitimizing oppressive culture : the voice of counter-discourse in Umpierre's poetic work
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 22-35.
Puerto Rico / Puerto Rican / literature / literary criticism
Examines the poetic work of Luz María Umpierre and her use of linguistic and rhetorical devices to deconstruct the
enactment, reproduction, and legitimization through text and discourses by elite groups of their dominance within
cultures. Author addresses how Umpierre thus creates a counterdiscourse against the discursive construction of power.
Specifically, she shows how her counterdiscourse aims to unmask the oppressiveness of the patriarchal model of Puerto
Rican culture, derived from Catholicism, as well as the discriminating practices of US culture in its stereotypical
portrayal of Puerto Ricans. She also points out how this relates to Umpierre's position between cultures, as residing in
the US and her lesbianism. Author analyses some poems in Umpierre's works 'Una puertorriqueña en Penna' (1979),
'En el país de las maravillas' (1982), 'The margarita poems' (1987), and 'For Christine' (1995). Through a sociolinguistic
approach and Critical Discourse Analysis, she further discusses through poems the macro- and microlinguistic devices
used by Umpierre for empowerment. These include language choice, including mixes and shifts between English,
Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish, and secret, Spanish-based languages; the use of taboo topics of erotic content; and at
the micro level, word use and verbal play, conveying powerful images and multiple, hidden meanings; and shifts
between registers or sociolects.
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
Singh, Amardeep
(2006)
The lifting and the lifted : prefaces to colonial modernist texts
In: Wasafiri : perspectives on African, Caribbean, Asian and black British literature, ISSN 0269-0055: (2006), Issue. 47,
pp. 1-9.
Martinique / Asia / South Africa / Europe / literature / literary criticism / cultural history
55
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Analyses prefaces written by European writers for works written by non-European modernist writers. In particular, the
author focusses on William Butler Yeats' 1912 preface to Rabindranath Tagore's 'Gitanjali'; E.M. Forster's 1935 preface
to Mulk Raj Anand's 'Untouchable', and André Breton's 1943 preface to Aimé Césaire's 'Notebook of a return to my
native land'. In addition, he compares these prefaces, considered as "late colonial" to the more postcolonial and
anticolonial prefaces of Jean-Paul Sartre, i.e. to a poetry work by Leopold Senghor, and to Frantz Fanon's 'The
wretched of the earth' (1961). Author relates this to the function of prefaces in modernist writings, and to modernism in
general, as chracterized by totalizing, wordly pretentions, yet from a European, colonial perspective. He points out that
this shows in the marginalized, derivative space often attributed to modernist writings from colonial non-European
writers. He further describes how while the fact that some works by non-European writers were prefaced by known
European modernist writers theoretically could help rethink modernism toward inclusion of non-Europeans, this is
partly contradicted in the mentioned prefaces themselves. He analyses their rhetoric, style, and statements, noting that
the respective white preface authors largely "absorb" and thus relegate the actual works by Tagore, Anand, as well as of
Césaire into their own views, such as Breton who reads only what he wants to into Césaire's work, with limited
attention to racial issues. Author points out how Sarte's prefaces, dealing with Négritude, have a different, more
condemning and confrontational approach to race and colonialism, yet also had a limited focus, and "overwrote" and
preempt, rather than introduce, the writings by Senghor and Fanon, which was criticized by the latter.
SIGNATURE: TA 7961
Smallman, Shawn
(2008)
A cautious hope : HIV/AIDS in Latin America
In: NACLA report on the Americas, ISSN 1071-4839: vol. 41 (2008), Issue. 4, pp. 13-41.
Latin America / Cuba / Caribbean / USA / HIV / AIDS / health services / public health / medical care
Section devoted to HIV/AIDS in Latin America consists of 6 contributions. Shawn Smallman gives a general overview
of the development of HIV/AIDS throughout Latin America, after it first appeared in the US and Haiti in the 1970s, but
in the course of the 1980s spread throughout the other nations in the hemisphere as well, and he highlights policy
responses in different countries, as well as reasons for the fact that most of Latin America, despite differences, has
escaped a generalized epidemic. Smallman in a cadre also evaluates Bush's AIDS initiative. Richard Parker then
focusses on the Brazilian response to HIV/AIDS, which was successful in its treatment-access promotion program
since 1996 with affordable generic drugs combined with a poverty focus. Arachu Castro, Yasmin Khawja, and Ida
González-Núñez further pay attention to the response to HIV/AIDS in Cuba, where due to effective state intervention
its spread was limited, while also mother-to-child transmission through the wide availability of zidovudine and
amtiretroviral therapy, was strongly reduced since 1997, and the authors describe how this improved the lives of the
women with HIV, including in limiting their social stigma. Meanwhile, the controversial mandatory quarantine policies
for people with HIV/AIDS in Cuba has also been abandoned by 1993. After this, Teo Ballvé focusses on AIDS in the
war conditions of Colombia, pointing at how this increases the diseases's spread, also due to stimulated prostitution in
war zones, where health and education programmes tend to be absent, and over time there is a feminization of the
disease. Finally, Alfredo González addresses how the HIV/AIDS movement in the US, including Latinos, joined with
the global justice movement/anti-globalization movement in addressing global treatment inequalities and called for
making HIV treatment more available in the global South.
SIGNATURE: TA 11116 [K204B]
Smith, Matthew J.
(2007)
'From Dessalines to Duvalier' revisited : a quarter-century retrospective
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 27-39.
Haiti / historiography / research / social history / political history / race relations
Analyses David Nicholls's classic study 'From Dessalines to Duvalier' (1979). Author points out how this work is one
of the most influential commentaries on Haiti by a non-Haitian, and also received criticism. He further addresses
central aspects of Nicholls's work, discusses its significance to Haitian historiography, contrasted with other writings on
Haiti, and analyses his methodology, theses, and conclusions. After sketching Nicholls's background, he discusses the
work's theses and arguments. Nicholls especially argues that historical colour divisions, between a Mulatto elite and the
56
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
black majority, were the main source of political tensions and national underdevelopment. He departed from
Duvalierism, tracing its origins in earlier Haitian history, and historically developed race-related ideologies, while not
totally disregarding other factors. Author emphasizes that while other earlier works discussed the colour division in
Haiti, what was groundbreaking in Nicholls' interpretation is how it exposed how the basic colour division operated in
political life, and in different ideologies, and in the thinking of less-known actors and thinkers. Further, he pays
attention to critical reactions and responses to the work, including partial critiques doubting the validity in all cases of
colour over class divisions, and the first departure from it by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, who instead pointed at classcolour connections and the state's alienation from the nation. Author argues that Nicholls's work greatest relevance lies
in its scholarly example as a result of serious and rigorous scholarship on Haitian history.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Soler Torrijos, Giancarlo
(2008)
In the shadow of the United States : democracy and regional order in the Latin Caribbean. Boca Raton, Fl. : Brown
Walker Press
Dominican Republic / Nicaragua / Panama / Caribbean / Latin America / USA / foreign policy / international relations /
political history
Author discusses 3 hypotheses: the exercise of US power distorted regime transitions, without being sufficient to
determine the outcomes; domestic actors altered their calculations and strategies to take into account the likely
reactions of the US; and, the set of domestic-international interactions propelling each regime transition is also
conditioned by the broader regional order and by the sequence of events in neighbouring countries. He uses 3 case
studies on the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Panama to analyse the impact of US influences upon Caribbean
and Latin American regime trajectories.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 7058
Stark, David M.
(2005)
Aprovechándose de las oportunidades : buscando el momento oportuno para contraer matrimonio entre la población
esclava de Puerto Rico a través del siglo XVIII
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 33 (2005), Issue. 1, pp. 177-203.
Puerto Rico / slavery / marriage / agriculture
Studies how the dates of marriage among slaves in Puerto Rico in the 18th c. were influenced, or restricted, by Catholic
prescriptions and the liturgical calendar on the one hand, and by labour demands of the agricultural economy on the
other. Author examines historical data on marriage among slaves in 4 communities in Puerto Rico: Arecibo and Caguas,
mainly focussed on animal husbandry, and Coamo and Yauco on the south coast focussed mainly on tobacco
production. He shows how this is relevant as different agricultural bases caused differing seasonal/yearly labour
patterns. In addition, he points out how the Church was against marriage ceremonies in the penitential seasons of Lent
and Advent. Through the data, the author then examines which of these factors probably influenced the frequency of
marriages among slaves most, taking into account regional and economic/agricultural differences. Author concludes
agricultural exigencies had a larger influence on slave marriages than liturgic calendar prohibitions.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Stecopoulos, Harilaos
(2007)
Up from empire : James Weldon Johnson, Latin America, and the Jim Crow South
In: Imagining our Americas : toward a transnational frame: (2007), P. 34-62. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University
Press
USA / Caribbean / Latin America / race relations / international relations / imperialism / literature
Focusses on the writings and life of James Weldon Johnson, a mixed-raced African American, in relation to US
imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean. In particular, the author discusses how Johnson aimed for a career at
57
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
the service of US imperialist expansion and interests in Latin America, viewing it at first as a possibility for AfricanAmericans' "reconstruction" or protection from regional white supremacy, such as in the US South. He also worked as
a diplomat defending US interests in Nicaragua. Author shows, however, how Johnson later turned to anti-imperialist
politics and recognized that empire, and US racism, should be combatted at home and in the world, and, while part of
the NAACP, criticized US racial, Jim Crow policies in Latin America and the Caribbean. He discusses how the earlier
ethical compromises involved in Johnson' s uneasy position between a white imperial elite, rendering him privileges,
and a black US population are expressed in his work 'The autobiography of an ex-Colored man' (1912). This novel is
about an opportunistic coloured man who travels from the US North to the US South, and in part through his
knowledge of Latin America and the Spanish language, contacts with Cuban-Americans, and at times by masquerading
as a Latin American somehow obtains a better position than other African Americans in a white supremacist,
segregated South, further pursuing such privileges after leaving the US, as part of a career at the service of US
hemispheric imperialism.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3589
Stephens, Michelle
(2007)
Uprooted bodies : indigenous subjects and colonial discourses in Atlantic American studies
In: Imagining our Americas : toward a transnational frame: (2007), P. 190-213. Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University
Press
Caribbean / USA / Latin America / Amerindians / Blacks / social history / race relations / literature / cultural identity
Departs from (Native American) Leslie Marmon Silko's epic novel 'Almanac of the dead' (1992), to sketch new
directions for the study of colonial discourse and history in the Americas by deploying notions of the "uprooted" and
the "indigenous". Author discusses how definitions of the indigenous included reference to their expropriation,
connecting further colonized peoples vis-à-vis European colonizers, whether indigenous to the Americas, or elsewhere.
She relates how this poly-cultural body shows in Silko's novel, in which both Amerindian and African ancestors and
spirits are invoked, as part of a broader Marxist-based vision for progress for the "expropriated" of the character
Angelita, and in the other character Clinton's mixed African and Amerindian family tree. She relates this further to new
readings resulting in reimaginings of the Caliban trope as a hybrid, multiracial trope, as mixed, or "creolized", as
theorized by Kamau Brathwaite, Paul Gilroy and others, rather than the usual colonial Self-Other dichotomy.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 3589
Stipriaan, Alex van
(2008)
Global names, creolized identities
In: Africa, Brazil and the construction of trans-Atlantic black identities: (2008), P. 147-178. Trenton, NJ : Africa World
Press
Suriname / slavery / name-giving / social history / cultural history / personal names / family names / cultural
development
Reconstructs the history of naming and identification among Afro-Surinamers. Author specifically examines how the
globalization of European names in Suriname did not result in a Europeanized (or Dutchified) identity, but became
something creolized and Afro-Surinamese. He first explains how stripping Africans of their identity was crucial in the
enslavement process. Planters or their representatives gave slaves new, European names (just first names), including
newborn slaves in the colony, although sometimes informed by their mothers. The author gives examples to
characterize different types of names given, and how these could be bizarre or degrading. He points out how these
names had little meaning to the slaves themselves, although in time they started to use them partly among themselves,
as slave and plantation names even persist among Maroons. With increased Christianization in the 19th c. more
Christianized names were given. Over time, formally, African name use diminished. With the abolition of slavery in
1863 in Suriname surnames had to be newly invented, and the author describes characteristics and sources of these
names. Author further indicates how alongside these top-down processes Afro-Surinamers maintained African naming
cultures as part of a creolizing process, resulting in multiple names, divided between formal or informal situations.
Many had a formal European name, an African one, as well as a nickname. With later inter-African creolization and
Sranan Tongo dominance, most African names were no longer used, though nickname traditions continued. Author
58
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
finally pays attention to postslavery naming, e.g. Europeanizing changes among upward mobile Afro-Surinamese. At
the same time, he notes that since the 1970s and migration to the Netherlands a rediscovery of African or Surinamese
roots occurred, influenced by black diasporan international culture, reflecting in naming.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6402
Stricker, Pamela
(cop.2007)
Toward a culture of nature : environmental policy and sustainable development in Cuba. Lanham, MD [etc.] :
Lexington Books
Cuba / environment / sustainable development / environmental policy / economic policy
Study of Cuba's environmental policy, especially as it developed as a response of the government to the collapse of the
Soviet Union and subsequent shortage of petroleum products. Author analyses Cuba's transition to sustainable models
of agriculture, efforts toward energy independence through renewable resources, adoption of "green" medicine, as well
as the developed law framework for environmental protection, environmental education, and the impacts of tourism
and foreign investment. Framed within Cuba's political system, the economic crisis since the 1990s, and the at first
economic necessity for alternatives in food and energy, she shows how Cuba eventually engaged in a largely effective
environmentally sustainable development, providing lessons for other countries. Scientific work in Cuba since the
1970s, having remained in the lab, since the 1990s began being practiced as part of these new policies, that were at the
same time aimed at the maintenance of economic viability and social justice, alongside environmental goals. New
(agricultural) decentralization policies contributed to this. Since the 1990s environmental protection also expanded, as
did environmental education, all part of the promotion of a "culture of nature". Author further describes how this
culture of nature relates to the specific conceptualization of sustainable development in Cuba as the joining of social
justice and environmental protection.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 2291
Stuart, Sheila
(2007)
Nutrition, gender and poverty in the Caribbean subregion. Port of Spain : ECLAC, Statistics and Social Development
Unit
British Caribbean / Caribbean / Suriname / nutrition / health / poverty / gender relations / females / food
Examines the links between nutrition, gender, and poverty in the Caribbean, with special attention to the British
Caribbean and Suriname. Author points at the central role that women play in the nutrition of their children and the
family, and analyses intervening factors as poverty and gender on nutrition in the Caribbean. In relation to this, she
further addresses the economic and social conditions of women in the region, particularly the gendered dimensions of
poverty and the way these impact on nutrition. She first discusses the level of poverty in the Caribbean, now at an
average of 38%, including recent developments and regional differences, and then gender inequalities and their impact
on the stronger female poverty in the region. Next, the author focusses on nutrition, and their links to poverty and
gender, looking at the quantity and quality, including still prevalent micronutrient deficiencies, with specifically iron
being a widespread deficiency. In addition, undernourishment and malnutrition remain severe problems; nutritional
deficiencies affect girls more than boys. Author also pays attention to the recently increased obesity problem in the
region, affecting mostly also women more than men.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 B 782
Sued Badillo, Jalil
(2007)
Guadalupe : ¿Caribe o Taína? : la isla de Guadalupe y su cuestionable identidad Caribe en la época pre-colombina : una
revisión etnohistórica y arqueológica preliminar
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 35 (2007), Issue. 1, pp. 37-85.
Guadeloupe / Amerindians / cultural history / social history / archeology
59
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Rereads the early Amerindian history of Guadeloupe and surrounding parts of the Caribbean, particularly the decades
following the encounter of Columbus and colonizers with the inhabitants of Guadeloupe. Author reconstructs how
Columbus, and other early colonizers had a special interest in this particular island, which was relatively densely
popultated, for its supposed gold. Early colonial accounts by Columbus and others referred to the presence of cannibals
on the islands, probably meant to legitimize their enslavement, while Amerindian uprisings in Puerto Rico were partly
attributed to Carib involvement from Guadeloupe. Author shows, however, how in these accounts and references
cultural and social characteristics were mentioned of Amerindians in Guadeloupe that corresponded more to the Taíno
(or Arawak) cultures of Puerto Rico and the other Greater Antilles, including "cacique" chiefs and matrilineality,
putting into question the (strictly) Carib identity of pre-Columbian Guadeloupe. Due to colonial raids against Caribs
and other factors, including for enslavement elsewhere, Guadeloupe, became largely uninhabited by 1515. Author
further presents corresponding archaeological evidence further pointing at a stronger Taíno presence in Guadeloupe,
and more similarities with Puerto Rican findings than previously assumed.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Swords, Alicia and Ronald L. Mize
(2008)
Beyond tourist gazes and performances : U.S. consumption of land and labor in Puerto Rican and Mexican destinations
In: Latin American perspectives : a journal of capitalism and socialism, ISSN 0094-582X: vol. 35 (2008), Issue. 3, pp.
53-69.
Puerto Rico / San Juan / Mexico / tourism / tourism development / economic development / social inequality
Examines US consumption of tourist destinations and hospitality labour in Puerto Rico and Mexico. Authors pays
specific attention to the production and consumption of land and labour, showing how tourism transformed landcapes,
involving segregated land use as well as displacement of the local population. They contextualize this within the
general development of tourism, based on assymetrical relations, exacerbating inequalities. They show how the "tourist
gaze" influences this as expectations are met or shaped, resulting in a required "performance" of local labourers, as part
of a wider servility. They exemplify this further by relating tourism's development in Puerto Rico, including high
numbers of visitors and high income, but with little trickling down to the masses. They show how in time a focus came
on excluded beach resorts with mainly low-paying, demanding employment for Puerto Ricans, who, when living in or
near destinations, function as not much more than "folkloric" figures, and are otherwise socially and economically
displaced. They also discusses other much-visisted sites in Puerto Rico, including the old colonial town of Old San
Juan, where a "sanitized" version of Spanish colonial history, with little attention to violence, exploitation, and slavery,
is presented to tourists, and to cruise ship tourism. Authors relate this further to sex work aimed at tourists in Puerto
Rico. Then, they discuss tourism's development in Mexico, starting near the border with the US, and coming to include
beach resorts, urban destinations, and archeological sites, and further, like in Puerto Rico, linked to increasing social
inequality and exploitation, as well as environmental and cultural damage.
SIGNATURE: TA 3661
Thomas-Hope, Elizabeth and Adonna Jardine-Comrie
(2007)
Caribbean agriculture in the new global environment
In: No island is an island : the impact of globalization on the Commonwealth Carribean: (2007), P. 19-43. London :
Chatham House
Caribbean / agriculture / agricultural development / globalization / international trade
Analyses the challenges facing Caribbean agriculture with the changes in the global political economy, and possible
new strategies in response to this. Authors first sketch the historical dominance of agriculture in the Caribbean, and of
agriculture's increased marginalization since the second half of the 20th c. though it remained dominant on some
smaller islands. They pay attention to preferential markets and recent limitations in this. Next, they discuss the effects
of trade liberalization and globalization on Caribbean agriculture, showing in removed subsidies from food crops
resulting in price increase, and liberalized import resulting in a flood of foreign goods. They then show how changes in
the ACP-EU trade regimes, the Cotonou Agreement, had further devastating effects on Caribbean agriculture, as
liberalization does not result in export expansion of the traditional products of the Caribbean, but rather contraction.
Authors further describe the development since the 1990s of the sugar industry and future prospects, noting that its
60
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
viability will probably be even more threatened in the future, and they also point at the improbability of future viability
of the banana industry. They also pay attention to mixed farming in countries with a strong small farming sector, and its
importance for the domestic farmers, small farmers' income, and biodiversity. They then outline agricultural production
options, including: reviving select traditional export crops, of which cocoa is said to have the brightest future prospects;
diversification into non-traditional export crops; alternative agriculture (Fair Trade, agro-processing); and niche
agricultural marketing for the tourism industry.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 6433
Toland-Dix, Shirley
(2007)
'This is the horse : will you ride?' : Zora Neale Hurston, Erna Brodber, and rituals of spirit possession
In: Just below south : intercultural performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. south: (2007), P. 191-210. Charlottesville
[etc.] : University of Virginia Press
Jamaica / USA / Caribbean / literature / religion / Afro-Caribbean religions / cultural anthropology / literary criticism
Analyses writings on spirit possession in Afro-American religions, specifically of Zora Neale Hurston and Erna
Brodber. Author discusses how both authors examine African cultural legacies in the US South and the Caribbean
through an African diasporic lens. She points out that they both engage in recording academically and through
ethnographic research spirit possession and the connected Afro-American culture, yet employ ultimately alternative
ways to give a deeper insight into this spirituality,
representing alternative epistemologies, differing from Western academic norms. She shows how both Hurston and
Brodber consider spirit possession as transgressive knowledge, and as a transformation of consciousness, and further
highlights how Hurston in her later collection of folklore 'Tell my horse' (1938) expands her focus from southern black
folk culture to include also the Afro-Caribbean cultures of Haiti and Jamaica, with e.g. attention to the complexity of
Vodou practices and possession. Author points out how by negotiating the contradictions of the participant-observer in
these different cultures, and by her own self-perception as a to-a-degree insider, she enacts a resistance strategy against
the repressiveness of social sciences and of dominant cultures toward black folk-cultures of the circum-Caribbean. She
further focusses on how Brodber in her novel 'Louisiana' (1994), that claims to be an anthropological study, expands on
many of Hurston's issues, including by placing black cultural expressions in Louisiana in an African diasporic cadre,
through comparisons with Afro-Jamaican beliefs and religious rituals. Further, the author shows how
Brodber through the spirit possession and related oral accounts in the novel presents a way to tell hidden stories
while valorizing a spiritual way of knowing.
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 4029
Townsel, Sylviane
(2008)
The Caribbean multilingual, multidimensional and multicultural identities
In: Journal of Caribbean studies: vol. 22 (2008), Issue. 3, pp. 155-163.
Caribbean / migrations / international relations / culture
Reflects upon the multilingual, multidimensional, and multicultural identities of the Caribbean islands and how these
make them small but relatively important globally. Author relates this further to the historically strong international
migration from the islands to especially Europe and the US, and the different forms this can take, as well as the
"migration" of cultural expressions grounded in the Caribbean's unique culture, formed out of different influences on an
African base, including music, and literary writings, such as salsa, reggae, and e.g. literary magical-realism. She gives
specific examples of this from Haiti, Jamaica, and Guadeloupe and Martinique. In addition, she points out how
Caribbean migrants exert to differing degrees influence in their host countries, economically, and even (locally)
politically, e.g. the Cubans in the US. In part in relation to this she further calls for looking at the underlying causes of
the migration push in the Caribbean, being poverty and lacking development in the region, and solving these through
Caribbean-US (and European) cooperation, beyond, as at present, drug traffic and migration issues.
SIGNATURE: TA 3631
61
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Twinam, Ann
(2007)
The Church, the state, and the abandoned : 'expósitos' in late eighteenth-century Havana
In: Raising an empire : children in early modern Iberia and colonial Latin America: (2007), P. 163-186. Albuquerque :
University of New Mexico Press
Havana / Cuba / abandoned children / orphans / social history / political history / child care / family relations / race
relations / social classes / orphanages
Reconstructs the legal treatment of so-called 'expósitos' in late 18th-c. Havana. Author explains how expósitos can be
defined as illegitimate children, unacknowledged by parents, and often, though not always, abandoned and left at
orphanages. She describes how the expósitos faced discrimination, were seen as bastards and a result of promiscuity,
and even elite expósitos were sidelined in their social circles, and only a few of them were able to achieve civil
legitimation later in life. She points out, however, how the fate of most expósitos after being abandoned was worse, as
orphanages, e.g. the Casa de Expósitos (or: Casa Joseph) in Havana, had bad conditions and a majority of children died
there. In part in response to this a progressive, radical Bourbonic reform decree of 1794 ordered that the all expósito
children henceforth be considered legitimate and acknowledged by the King. Expósitos hereby were granted benefit of
the doubt also racially as those of mixed race could be considered legally white. Author further shows how these
radical changes were contested and eventually obstructed by Cuba's local elite, fearing social mobility of those who
they perceived to have natal or racial "defects". The bureaucrats of the Council and Cámara of the Indies were
disinclined to enforce the 1794 decree, refusing to intervene on behalf of the expósitos, and thus throwing the decision
process, of granting legitimate status to children or as adults, to the informal as well as traditional ways of the local
elite. This included allowing mobility on a person-to-person basis or on racial grounds, according to elite interests.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 4087
Ulysse, Gina A.
(2007)
Downtown ladies : informal commercial importers, a Haitian anthropologist, and self-making in Jamaica. Chicago
[etc.] : University of Chicago Press
Jamaica / Haitian / informal sector / vendors / women / economic development / social classes / gender relations / race
relations / social development
Ethnographic study describes the history, development, and present of female independent international traders in
Jamaica, who since regularizing (and constraining) policies since the 1980s came to be known formally as Informal
Commercial Importers (ICIs). Author especially pays attention to the self-making of these women, as these shape their
gendered and racial/labour (individual and collective) identities, and cross boundaries. She places this further within the
context of historically developed Jamaican gender, race, and class constructions, including its political and spatial
dimensions. Throughout this, the author reflects upon her own experience as a young Haitian anthropologist. First, she
treats the history of gendered class and colour codes, tracing it back to slavery, including a racially opposed
lady/woman continuum. Next, she discusses the political-economic context, including the official categorization of
"higglering" as informal since 1980, which related to the rise of neoliberalism. She further focusses on differences
among ICIs across the class and colour structure, showing how the state category of ICI is oversimplified and
anachronistic, and on the ICIs' daily activities, specifically in a downtown arcade, and on their different gendered
survival strategies, as well as relationships with organizations representing them. After this, the author highlights the
ICIs negotiation of import and export and international travel, e.g. to Miami, as part of their self-making as more
modern than traditional higglers, and she finally focusses on personal style and strategies of distinction in the mediation
of gendered class and colour dynamics in Jamaica.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 6324
Vargas Ramos, Carlos
(2005)
El género y la participación política en Puerto Rico
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 33 (2005), Issue. 1, pp. 205-248.
Puerto Rico / gender relations / political participation / politics
62
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Examines the impact of gender on political participation in Puerto Rico. Author looks at different aspects and
dimensions of female participation in politics, compared with men, discerning whether eventual differences reflect
socioeconomic inequalities between the sexes, or are exclusively gender-related. He points out how regarding voting
patterns there are no significant gender differences. Differences appear, however, when looking at other forms of
political participation. Author specifically points out how women relatively less than men contribute to or work for
election campaigns, and also participate less in cooperating efforts in response to local problems, e.g. for petitions.
After focussing on aggregate data, he discusses how sociodemographic, individual factors like income, education level,
civil status, and age impact on political participation, to thus glean whether these impacts explain gender differences.
He found that this is not the case. In addition, he looks at psychological, attitude aspects, including interest in politics,
knowledge of it, talking about politics, or faith in capacity of oneself or politicians to solve problems, noting that these
attitude aspects strongly relate to political participation, and likewise differ between men and women. Women showed
overall relatively less interest in politics, as well as less knowledge of it, in turn explaining women's more limited
participation in certain activities. Author indicates how this relates to institutional aspects, and the numerical male
dominance in political functions.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Vergne, Aida
(2008)
Lengua, poder y estrategias en los tribunales de justicia : análisis discursivo de cuatro vistas para determinación de
causa en el tribunal de San Juan de Puerto Rico
In: Centro : journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies: vol. 20 (2008), Issue. 1, pp. 112-135.
Puerto Rico / administration of justice / advocacy / language use
Examines the power strategies employed by attorneys and analyses the linguistic mechanisms that are used to organize
the dynamics of the oral legal discourse in court proceedings in Puerto Rico. Author studies the cross-examinations and
counter-cross-examinations in 4 actual cases, and looks at the structure of the questions posed by the attorneys, their
handling of the topics at issue, evaluative commentaries, and "epistemological filters". Through this, she shows how the
relative power of the participants affects what is said, the way it is said, and the understanding of these speech acts. In
particular, she points out how language plays a crucial role in law, having creative rather than merely reflective effects
with regard to facts and reality, and how thus form can become more important than the content of the testimonies. She
further describes how this greater importance of form is attributed through language use and discursive strategies, and
further focusses on such linguistic power and control strategies. These include the form of questions, theme handling,
evaluative comments, subtly raising doubts about the knowledge of witnesses, several lexical and grammatical choices,
as well as tone and order in the questioning of attorneys. In addition, the author shows how the shifts between different
linguistic registers from formal to informal Puerto Rican Spanish, reflect hierarchies in court.
SIGNATURE: TA 9165
Verna, Chantalle Francesca
(2007)
Maurice Dartigue, educational reform, and intellectual cooperation with the United States as a strategy for Haitian
national development, 1934-46
In: Journal of Haitian studies, ISSN 1090-3488: vol. 13 (2007), Issue. 2, pp. 24-38.
Haiti / USA / educational history / educational reform / political history / international relations
Reconstructs how educational reformer and public official Maurice Dartigue worked to increase intellectual
cooperation and connections with the US as a means for Haiti's national progress and sustenance of its sovereignty.
Author explains how Dartigue during the US occupation became first Director of Rural Education (1934-41) and after
this remained influential on educational reform policies and debates, as Minister of Public Instruction, Labor, and
Agriculture (1941-45) and in general as leading educational reformer in the 2 decades following the end of the US
occupation. She discusses Dartigue's specific ideas in this regard, pointing out how he considered education as crucial
for Haiti's national development, and with this aimed to extend earlier efforts based on the education-development links
since early after 1804. These resulted in partial improvements, but in time certain characteristics remained dominant,
notably a prominence of foreigners in educating Haitians, with often French clergymen as teachers, and a general focus
63
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
on French culture and traditions in education. US educational reforms during the occupation were criticized for their
limited focus on agricultural and manual training. Author describes how Dartigue criticized all these aspects, in part
influenced by his studying in the US. He called for a broader scope for education beyond basic French literacy skills to
include a focus on scientific expansion, different world cultures, social change, and an abandonment of a mimicking of
French cultural and educational models, in favour of a drawing on foreign cultures and advanced achievements,
especially of the US, yet aimed at Haiti's distinct identity. This resulted in a shift toward the US as intellectual model
for educational reform in the 1930s and 1940s.
SIGNATURE: TA 9391
Victoria Ojeda, Jorge
(2006)
Jean François y Biassou : dos líderes olvidados de la historia de la revolución haitiana (y de España)
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 34 (2006), Issue. 2, pp. 163-204.
Haiti / Spain / revolution / military history / social history / political history
Reconstructs the history of the 2 Haitian leaders of the Haitian Revolution Jean François (Juan Francisco) and Georges
(Jorge) Biassou. Author explains how these 2 rebellious slaves played important roles as generals at the beginning of
the Haitian Revolution, but later went to the Spanish side, joining the Royal Spanish Auxiliary Troops. He relates this
to the context of Spanish involvement in the Haitian conflict, between 1793 and 1795, motivated by Spain's aims of
reconquering entire Hispaniola. This ended in 1795 with a peace treaty between France and Spain, as part of which,
however, Spain conceded its eastern two thirds, Santo Domingo, to France, then in war with rebellious slaves on the
island. As part of this treaty, the French required that Juan Francisco and Biassou left Hispaniola. The author further
relates how since then they, despite their privileged status as Auxiliaries for Spain, were mainly a burden for the
Spanish authorities, that created difficulties regarding the place of residence of Juan Francisco and Biassou, showing
thus how the alliance was uncomfortable and self-interested on the part of the Spanish Crown. He further indicates how
this shows how personal interests of the 2 leaders outweighed the broader goal of mass emancipation of St. Domingue
slaves. Author further points at differing trajectories, as Biassou ended up in Florida, where he, and his soldiers, were
of use against the invading US and therefore received recognition, whereas Juan Francisco, once superior to Biassou
during the Revolution, died in quasi-anonimity in Cádiz, Spain.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
Walicek, Don E.
(2007)
Farther south : speaking American, the language of migration in Samaná
In: Just below south : intercultural performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. south: (2007), P. 95-120. Charlottesville
[etc.] : University of Virginia Press
Dominican Republic / USA / Blacks / English language / social history / cultural identity / language use
Reconstructs the social history of a group of African Americans who migrated to Eastern Hispaniola, then unified with
Haiti, in the early 1820s, specifically settling in the peninsula of Samaná. Author relates it to the development and
maintenance of their own variety of the English language, Samaná English, as this language interrelated with history,
society, and power structures in the Spanish-speaking context. He frames this further within the historically frequent
US South-Caribbean connections and migrations, also linguistically, and discusses how Samaná English is derived
from the vernacular of African Americans in the 1820s. He describes Samaná English's grammatical features, including
attention to recent linguistic trends, and sociolinguistic heterogeneity within it. Next, he relates the language's
development to the social development within Santo Domingo, showing how local factors contributed to its
maintenance, in which the Protestant (Methodist) Churches played important roles, as well as identity "performance",
as the migrants were often seen as black, foreign outsiders in the Santo Domingo context. He shows how up to 1900
little language shifts (to Spanish) occurred, but that since 1900 these increased due to encroaching public education in
Spanish, and organizational changes of the Methodist Church (fusing with Spanish-speaking Protestant Churches). In
the course of the 20th c. Samaná English declined more and more, and at present is even seen as endangered, though it
is still used.
64
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
SIGNATURE: M 2007 A 4029
Warden, Nolan
(cop. 2007)
Afro-Cuban traditional music and transculturation : the emergence of cajón pa' los muertos. Saarbrücken : VDM Verlag
Dr. Muller
Cuba / Afro-Caribbean religions / music / cultural history / religion / cultural development
Examines the Afro-Cuban spirit possession ritual, called 'Cajón pa' los muertos', that developed in Cuba over the past
few decades. Author explains how Cajón ceremonies are sculpted from different older, religious traditions in Cuba,
notably Palo, Santería, Espiritismo, and popular Catholicism, along with other traditions, and that they thus represent a
site of preservation and innovation in a process of transculturation. He further points out how musicians are integral to
the creation of these religious practices, combing influences. He takes as a case study the music and ceremonies of the
Grupo Cuero y Cajón, based in Marianao, Havana. First, he elaborates on the different preceding cultural traditions,
feeding into Cajón ceremonies, describing the origins, religion/philosophy, and music related to Espiritismo, Bantu
(Palo) cultures, Lucumí/Yoruba (Santería) cultures, as well as other influences, including Marianism and popular
Catholicism, Tumba Francesa, and Islam. Next, the author discusses the origins of the musical instrument known as
cajón, dating back to the rumba of the late 19th c., its musical characteristics, and then the activity of the Cajón
ceremony, which has as its main purpose communicating with and honoring the dead. Songs, in tandem with drumming,
are important as part of this, and he thus pays attention to the songs documented, mostly coming from Palo and
Espiritismo, their characteristics, song cycle order, melody and rhythm, and language use. Then, the author focusses on
rhythms and drumming, and their use. Further, he sheds light on the transculturation theory, as formulated by Fernando
Ortiz, and critiques.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 4597
Welie, Rik van
(2008)
Slave trading and slavery in the Dutch colonial empire : a global comparison
In: NWIG : New West Indian guide/Nieuwe West-Indische gids, ISSN 1382-2373: vol. 82 (2008), Issue. 1-2, pp. 47-96.
Netherlands / Suriname / Netherlands Antilles / Caribbean / Latin America / USA / Africa / Maluku / Asia / slavery /
slave trade / WIC / VOC / economic history / social history / Indonesia
Compares slave trading and slavery in the Dutch colonial empire, specifically between the former trading and territorial
domains of the West India Company (WIC), the Americas and West Africa, and of the East India Company (VOC),
South East Asia, the Indian Ocean region, and South and East Africa. Author presents the latest quantitative
assessments concerning the Dutch transatlantic as well as Indian Ocean World slave trade, placing the volume,
direction, and characteristics of the forced migration in a historical context. He describes how overall the Dutch were a
second-rate player in Atlantic slavery, though in certain periods more important, with according to recent estimates a
total of about 554.300 slaves being transported by the Dutch to the Americas. He indicates that while transatlantic slave
trade and slavery received much scholarly attention resulting in detailed knowledge, the slave trade and slavery in the
Indian Ocean World by the Dutch is comparatively underresearched. Based on demand-side estimates throughout
Dutch colonies of the Indonesian archipelago and elsewhere, he deduces that probably close to 500.000 slaves were
transported by the Dutch in the Indian Ocean World. In addition, the author points at important differences between the
nature and contexts of slavery, as in the VOC domains slavery was mostly of an urban and domestic character, contrary
to its production base in the Americas. Slavery further did in the VOC areas not have a rigid racial identification like in
WIC areas, with continuing, postslavery effects, and allowed for more flexibility, while unlike the plantation colonies
in the Caribbean, as Suriname, not imported slaves but indigenous peoples formed the majority. He also points at
relative exceptions, e.g. imported slaves for production use in some VOC territories, as the Banda islands and the Cape
colony, and a certain domestic and urban focus of slavery in Curaçao.
SIGNATURE: TA 5617
White, Christopher M.
(2007)
65
Caribbean Abstracts July-September 2008
Creating a third world : Mexico, Cuba, and the United States during the Castro era. Albuquerque, NM : University of
New Mexico Press
Cuba / Mexico / USA / international relations / foreign policy / political history / revolution
Reconstructs the development of the political relationship between Cuba and Mexico, and relates these in turn to the
relationship to the US and its hemispheric dominance. In this trilateral context, the author analyses the characteristics as
well as degree of Mexico's uniqueness as the only Latin American nation not to sever relations with Cuba during the
1960s. This was partly based on a preceding "revolutionary" connection of Mexico's revolutionary governments of the
1920s and 1930s, aimed at wealth distribution, inspiring the Cuban 1959 Revolution, and continuing as legacy of
Mexico's ruling PRI party. Author discusses the impact of Castro's arrival to power in Mexico among leftists, anticommunists, and the government from 1959 to 1964. He then describes how the US viewed the Mexican-Cuban
connection from 1957 to 1961 with concern, but that this concern diminished as the anti-Castro policies of the US
during the 1962-64 period changed toward addressing Communism's threat through the OAS as legitimizing force,
rather than through unilateral action. Further, he discusses the 1964-76 period as special within Mexican-Cuban
relations, due to Mexico's improved relations with the US and increased cooperation to counter Cuban influence, while
continuing the "revolutionary" rhetoric. This, he argues, shows the often rational, strategic policies of the Mexican
government, trying to compete with Cuba and the US for third world leadership. In addition, the author describes
Mexican-Cuban relations during the period 1976 to 2006, on the way toward US-Mexican free trade, and during the
PAN and Vicente Fox administration in Mexico after 2000, with a generally changed, anti-communist and anti-Castro
foreign-policy direction.
SIGNATURE: M 2008 A 928
Zacaïr, Philippe
(2005)
Haiti on his mind : Antonio Maceo and Caribbeanness
In: Caribbean studies, ISSN 0008-6533: vol. 33 (2005), Issue. 1, pp. 47-78.
Cuba / Haiti / independence fighters / independence war / political history
Examines Cuban independence fighter Antonio Maceo's relationship to Haiti. Author points out how Maceo's struggle
against Spanish colonialism was closely associated to his ideal of Caribbeanness, as he also called for a political entity,
including Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. He further focusses on Maceo's views on Haiti, showing how he
claimed Haiti's history of liberty and resistance as his own, and further contested colonialists' depictions of Haiti as
barbarous, as well as fears of a "war of the races" among white Cuban insurgents. He thus espoused an inter-Caribbean
independence vision based on racial affinity, yet without racial dominance. Author further points out how Maceo
visited Haiti, from Jamaica where he was exiled at the time, in 1879, making contacts with key Haitian political figures,
especially of the Liberal Party, as well as with the exiled Cuban community in Haiti, sharing the cause of Cuban
independence. Conditions for the Cubans and Maceo became less favourable under President Salomon, opting for
formal connections with Spain against Cuban independence fighters, and finally Maceo got expelled from Haiti in 1880.
Author describes how after this Maceo traveled throughout the wider region, and probably maintained relations with
Haitians, such as, in Jamaica, with exiled Liberal politician Boyer-Bazelais.
SIGNATURE: TA 3533
66