243 p., Analyzes three novels by contemporary female Caribbean and Latin American Afro-descendent writers of the diaspora: Peruvian Lucía Charún-Illescas' Malambo (2001), Brazilian Ana Maria Gonçalves' Um defeito de cor (2006), and Puerto Rican Mayra Santos-Febres' Fe en disfraz (2009). In these texts, the old and the new intermingle in the space of the narrative. The colonial past is reexamined and reconstructed out of the need to understand its reminiscences into the present and the necessity to transform the future.
An empirical study of 398 business people in the slums of Jamaica and Guyana. Explains that poor women organize local banks as a form of contestation against the threat of violence, partisan and informal politics. Argues that the banker ladies reorganize money markets for themselves and others. By organizing inclusive financial programs the banker ladies also build social capital through managing locally-based economic resources.