95 p., While Pan-Africanism is largely understood as Black men's fight for colonial liberation and state independence, women played an important and often unheralded role. This thesis challenges the masculinist history of Pan-Africanism using Amy Ashwood Garvey's life to highlight women's intellectual and political contributions to the movement. The author discusses Ashwood Garvey's role in co-founding the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and her work with the International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA), the International African Service Bureau (IASB), the Council of African Affairs, and the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in 1945. In addition to being an ardent Pan-Africanist, Ashwood Garvey was also a feminist who fought for women's equality through a wide range of anti-imperialist activities. Using her life as a lens through which to examine feminism's intersection with antiracist and anti-imperialist activism, this thesis underscores the fact that, for women throughout the African diaspora, struggles around race, gender, and colonialism operate in a symbiotic relationship to one another.
175 p., Focuses on the lives of enslaved women in the Caribbean and their resistance to bondage. Caribbean enslaved women exhibited their strong character, independence and exceptional self worth through their opposition to the tasks they performed in the fields on plantations. Resistance was expressed in many different rebellious ways including not getting married, refusing to reproduce, and through various other forms as part of their open physical resistance. Identifies the role enslaved women in both the Caribbean and the USA played in major uprisings, revolts, and rebellions during their enslavement period.
203 p., Explores the work experiences of professional Caribbean immigrant English-speaking women in the United States. Much study has been dedicated to the experiences and success of Caribbean immigrant women and men in service and domestic roles. The study explores these professional immigrant women's experiences attaining career success in the United States racial society. Data was obtained from 12 professional Caribbean immigrant women using semi-structured interviews conducted by the researcher.
289 p., Argues that Caribbean writers challenge state notions of democracy and revolution by embracing ideological opacity (forms of political action that are not immediately legible) as a form of radicalism. Writers such as Merle Collins, Dionne Brand, and George Lamming narrated a new revolutionary consciousness using literary form and structure to express créolité (Caribbean cultural hybridity) and represent political resistance. This form of radicalism allows writers to explore political change in terms that are more subtle than discourses of outright revolution. The dissertation draws on the work of theorist Édouard Glissant who uses opacity as a critical term to articulate the right of Caribbean people to create their own forms of knowledge and to refuse Western epistemologies.
289 p., This qualitative study examines five young Afro-Franco Caribbean males in the Diaspora and their experiences with systems of technology as a tool of oppression and liberation. The study utilized interpretive biography and participatory video research to examine the issues of identity, power/control, surveillance technology, love and freedom. The study made use of a number of data collection methods including interviews, round table discussions, and personal narratives.
