Disclosure among a population disproportionately affected by HIV in the Netherlands, namely African and Afro-Caribbean diaspora, was investigated. Participants reported disclosing because they were in a close and supportive relationship, disclosure led to emotional release, disclosure could lead to emotional or financial support, they felt a perceived duty to inform, and they had a desire to educate others about sexual risk-taking. The findings suggest that stigma plays an important role in disclosure decisions among these populations.
Although the Americas and Caribbean region are purported to comprise different ethnic groups, this article’s focus is on people of African descent, who represent the largest ethnic group in many countries. The emphasis on people of African descent is related to their family structure, ethnic identity, cultural, psychohistorical, and contemporary psychosocial realities. This article discusses the limitations of Western psychology for theory, research, and applied work on people of African descent in the Americas and Caribbean region.
Taylor,Robert Joseph (Author), Woodward,Amanda Toler (Author), Chatters,Linda M. (Author), Mattis,Jacqueline S. (Author), and Jackson,James S. (Author)
Format:
Journal Article
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
Netherlands: Springer, Dordrecht The Netherlands
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Examines use of clergy for serious personal problems within a representative sample of US black Caribbean adults from the National Survey of American Life. Findings for black Caribbeans indicate similarities, as well as important departures from prior research on the correlates of clergy assistance among African Americans.
This article addresses how Northamptonshire Afro-Caribbeans c. 1960-1990 were simultaneously part of the transformation from people of the Caribbean with individual island identities or nationalities into Afro-Caribbean British people whilst helping to shape this ethno-racial development. Oral history has been integral in conducting this research. Northamptonshire Black History Association (NBHA) interviews from 2002 to 2005 supplemented the interviews conducted by the author in 2009-10. Economic concepts derived from understanding monetary currencies and flight to quality will be used to help historians understand how culture and its manifestations are forms, and have systems, of exchange. These monetary concepts will also be used to create an understanding of cultural currency, as well as the frameworks for analysing how acquiring strong cultural currencies often leads to a process of exchange for other strong cultural currencies. Northamptonshire Afro-Caribbean organisations and individuals' usage of their historical and developed cultural currencies to obtain greater ethnoracial pride will be illuminated in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR].
President Obama eventually intervened to defuse the tension by inviting both the professor and the arresting officer to the White House for a glass of beer by Rose Garden. Prior to the media circus surrounding that "Beer Summit," Dr. Gates was already well known as a tenured Professor at Harvard University, as well as director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research.
KW: Dr. Karanja Ajanaku, (executive editor of the Memphis Tri-State Defender, says: "You seem to be making the point that in the U.S., we are mostly unaware, substantively, of "blacks" in Latin America. Would you speak to how aware or unaware, substantively, "blacks" in Latin America are of African Americans? HLG: No, I didn't see any sign of that, because most of those folks' first identity is a national one, as a Brazilian or a Cuban, not as a black person. For instance, in the Dominican Republic episode, Juan Rodriguez says he never even thought of himself as black until he visited New York. One of the points of the series is that identity is a very complex and ever-shifting matter. We might think that these people are obviously black, but they might not identify themselves that way.
Discusses the highlights of a 2-day workshop organized by Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) held in Antigua, Guatemala. The advocacy workshop which coincided with the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) members consultation meeting in October 2010 focused on access to safe and legal abortion.
Focuses on the report released by the Latin American and Caribbean office of the International Lesbian, Trans, Gay, Bisexual and Intersex Association on June 28, 2011. The existence of lesbian and bisexual women living with human immunodeficiency virus in several Latin American and Caribbean nations was established by the report.
Discusses the highlights of a seminar on democracy, freedom and reproductive rights sponsored by Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales-Chile in Santiago, Chile on June 21, 2011. The event recognized abortion as a priority issue in the Latin American and Caribbean region.
Focuses on calls by the Campaign for Education Free from Sexism and Discrimination for the human right to free, secular, public education for all in the Latin American and Caribbean regions.
Discusses highlights of the workshop organized by the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network in Guatemala in October 2010 which focused on positioning and promoting in the region the agenda of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) adopted 15 years ago in 1994 in Cairo, Egypt.
Focuses on calls by the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) for the full exercise of human rights regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Highlights the discrimination facing lesbian women in the field of healthcare services.
Deals with various topics including the appointment of Martha Mesquita Da Rocha as the first woman police officer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, sexual orientation which was included in the nondiscrimination policy of the University of Alaska, and the death of Haiti's feminist Paulette Poujol Oriol.
About the Colectiva Mujer y Salud or Women and Health Collective from the Dominican Republic leadership in coordinating efforts to decriminalize abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean through the September 28 Campaign. Notes that the Campaign's action is driven by factors including restrictive abortion laws, persecution of women who engage in the practice despite the risks, institutional obstacles, and interference from organized religion.
Discusses the 2011 May 28 Call to Action for the Ongoing Campaign for Comprehensive Health, Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights of Women and Girls. References a 1987 proposal of the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) for an International Day of Action for Women's Health, the first of which was launched in May 28, 1988.
Discusses the highlights of the second members coordination meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) in October 2010 which focused on seeking ways to widen participation and representation from the membership throughout the region.
Discusses the campaign Punto Final a la Violencia contra las Mujeres by the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) and advocates a shift in attitudes related to gender discrimination, institutional and social response on the prevention of violence against women, and strengthening of women's networks.
Discusses the highlights of the public hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held on March 28, 2011. Topics focused on legal obstacles and violations of the exercise of reproductive rights in Latin America and the Caribbean countries.
Focuses on the November 25 International Day Campaign to stop gender-based violence, an international initiative which has become part of the United Nations' efforts. Underscores the need to pursue heightened action on a broad front to combat and eliminate unjustified violence against women and girls.
Presents the Antigua Declaration of the feminist and women's organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean adopted at the closing of their 2010 meeting in Antigua, Guatemala. Highlights concern by women's groups in the region regarding the slow implementation of the agreements in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt.
Discusses the highlights of the 44th Session of the United Nations (UN) Commission on Population and Development which dealt with the issue of Fertility, Reproductive Health and Development in which the 1994 Programme of Action from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt was reaffirmed.
A speech by General Coordinator Nirvana González of the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) at the 44th Session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development.
One Hundred Black Men, Inc. of New York City (OHBM) First Vice-President Fitzgerald Miller led a nine-member delegation of officers, members of the organization and the executive director to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for the ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the completed construction of a classroom sponsored by OHBM at École Bon Samaritain on Sunday,...
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Index number: AMR 38/004/2011, 14 pp., Amnesty International is submitting this briefing to the Human Rights Committee ahead of its examination of Jamaica's third periodic report on the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The document briefly highlights main aspects of Amnesty International's on-going human rights concerns in Jamaica as well as human rights violations which occurred in the context of the state of emergency between 23 May and 22 July 2010.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
39 p., On 23 May 2010, the Governor-General of Jamaica declared a State of Public Emergency in the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew. Within two days, at least 74 people, including one member of the security forces, had been killed in Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston, and at least 54 others, more than half of them members of the security forces, were injured during police operations. Despite the loss of life and compelling testimonies of grave human rights violations -- including possible extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests -- investigations into the violence have yet to establish the facts and the responsibilities conclusively.
This article looks at French Indochina, metropolitan France, and French West Africa from 1914 through 1946 to illustrate specific ways in which French colonial authority operated across the French empire. We look at how colonized people challenged the complex formal and informal hierarchies of race, class, and gender that French administrators and colonizers sought to impose upon them. We argue that both the French imperial prerogatives and colonized peoples' responses to them are revealed through directly comparing and contrasting various locales across the empire. Our case studies explore interracial families and single white women seeking compensation from the French in Indochina, black men defining their masculinity, and Africans debating women's suffrage rights.
Health disparity and socio-biological determinants of the poorest quintile and the wealthiest quintile have never been examined for Jamaica. The current study examines health status, illness, age at which the lower and upper classes indicate having illness and particular illnesses, and parameters that explain health status of the upper and lower quintiles in Jamaica as well as the social context of disparities between the two groups.
This article reports on the researchers' findings 20 years after Lord Gifford's inquiry into race relations in the city after the 1980s Toxteth riots. Gifford reported on the prevalence of racial attitudes, racial abuse, and racial violence directed against the Black citizens of Liverpool. The authors' research focused on education and specifically the low percentage of Black teachers compared to the whole teaching workforce and the percentage Black population in the city. Accessing complete Black teaching data proved difficult and unearthed issues within policy and priority in the city authorities and led the researchers to begin to gather data to explore teacher training, entries and completions, and the lack of status of the Black teachers as measured through representation in senior leadership positions in schools.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
45 p., Presents some of the key law enforcement and socioeconomic policy lessons from one type of response to urban slums controlled by non-state actors: namely, when the government resorts to physically retaking urban spaces that had been ruled by criminal or insurgent groups and where the state's presence had been inadequate or sometimes altogether nonexistent. Focuses specifically on Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Jamaica.
Discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the association of legal reform challenges with public discourse on homosexuality and heteronormativity, sexual expression in the dancing of Caribbean women, skin bleaching for dark-skinned women.
On the deaths of feminists Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcellin, and Anne Marie Coriolan. Topics include their research on Haitian women, the use of micro-credit in Haiti and women's economic conditions, and Haitian women's participation in the political process.
Uses data from a sample of working age Jamaicans to explore dimensions of their attitudes towards homosexuals. The results confirm strong negative attitudes towards homosexuals and suggested alignment with attitudes emanating from sources as distinct as the church, the state and the proponents of popular culture.
Discusses the social conditions and family relations of African-Caribbean women migrants in Canada from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Explores the complexities of relationship between, migrant labor, motherhood, and transnationalism.
Examines the colonial experiences of eight formerly British-controlled territories- Barbados, Jamaica, Botswana, Nigeria, Kenya, India, Burma, and Singapore -to identify how the processes and policies of the colonial enterprise affected their respective contemporary rule of law outcomes.
A personal narrative of the author's experience of the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, describing a visit to the town of Petit-Goâve, Haiti.
"This paper examines the tradition of misogynistic picong or satire in calypso songs recorded as artists moved from Trinidad to Britain during the period immediately after World War II. I argue that, while these traditions of anti-woman representation began in conflicts around race and class inequalities within Caribbean culture during the Depression, they came to take on an anti-colonial animus when translated to the mother country. Calypso singers' tales of their exploits with hapless wealthy Englishwomen thus functioned not simply to express superiority over other men from the Caribbean, but to challenge the forms of racial subordination that black male migrants encountered in Britain during the 1940s and 1950s." --The Author
Focuses on specific culturally and socially based gender issues that enhance HIV risk and complicate access to care and services for women and girls in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). Literature review and interviews with clinicians providing HIV care in the USVI were used to examine causative factors for the high HIV prevalence rates among USVI women.
Considers the association of cohabitation experience with externalizing behavior among children of Latina mothers whose ethnic origin is in Mexico, Puerto Rico, or the Dominican Republic. Children of Mexican-origin mothers had greater externalizing problems in childhood and adolescence when their mothers were born in the United States or had immigrated as minors. For children of Caribbean-origin mothers, being born to a cohabiting or married mother had a statistically equivalent association with externalizing behavior when mothers were born outside the mainland United States (Dominican and island-born Puerto Rican mothers). Children of mainland-born Puerto Rican mothers had more behavior problems when their mothers cohabited at birth.
Reviews several books: "Women's Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering Social Justice, Democratizing Citizenship" edited by Elizabeth Maier and Nathalie Lebon, "Making Transnational Feminism: Rural Women, NGO Activists, and Northern Donors in Brazil" by Millie Thayer, and "Developing Partnerships: Gender, Sexuality, and the Reformed World Bank" by Kate Bedford.
Focuses on education in developing countries in the context of globalization and with specific reference to the Caribbean. Explores the possibility of the creation of a third space where the local and the global can co-mingle and new understandings can emerge.
Discusses the reception of South African activist Winnie Madikizela Mandela in the U.S. press, an essay on literature about the suicides of women during India's 1947 partition in Punjab, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Jamaica's water supply sector is recognized as the largest electricity consumer in the island's public sector. This paper evaluates whether replacing high-cost groundwater abstraction with surface water treatment and distribution is a viable option to minimize electricity consumption in the water sector.
Explores the experiences of Bangladeshi, Caribbean and Pakistani women working in three parts of the public sector: health, local government and higher education. Drawing on interviews with managers and with women employees, the study demonstrates the complexity and unevenness in the way inequality regimes are produced, reproduced and rationalized.
Throughout the 19th century, political migration within the Caribbean coincided with large-scale labor migration. This essay reconstructs the long-overlooked experience of political refugees who fled from Cuba to Jamaica during the Wars for Independence, focusing on their early reception and their eventual assimilation. Despite the official position of neutrality, white and brown elites, anxious to increase the number of Europeans, welcomed the Cubans who were mainly white.
Discusses the contribution of fostering and surrogate mothering on the presence, settlement, and communities of Afro-Caribbean immigrants in the U.S. from 1910 to 1950. Offers an overview of the Boston West Indian community in the U.S. and the successful formation of an immigrant neighborhood through childcare arrangements.
24 pp., This paper looks at Jamaica's recent history of indebtedness, its experience during the global economic downturn, and examines its current agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It finds that Jamaica's economic and social progress has suffered considerably from the burden of an unsustainable debt; and that even after the debt restructuring of 2010, this burden remains unsustainable and very damaging. Pro-cyclical macroeconomic policies, implemented under the auspices of the IMF, have also damaged Jamaica's recent and current economic prospects.
Literary criticism of the book "A Description of Millennium Hall" by Sarah Scott. Focuses on the roles of slavery and imperialism in the novel. Details on the charitable transfer of wealth gained and the narrator's identity as a creole planter and slaveowner in Jamaica are also discussed.
In the colonial Americas and especially in the Caribbean, black slaves were often influenced by the rumor that a king had decreed their emancipation. The refusal of slaveowners and colonial authorities to honor this imaginary decree set off revolts from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, their number peaking after the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Utilizing confidential Census data for 1990 and 2000, the authors develop new destination classifications for 741 labor markets that take into account the differential growth and composition characteristics of 24 Asian, Latin American and Caribbean immigrant groups living in those markets. The empirical analysis of labor market out-migration indicates that immigrants do not see internal migration as an either/or choice between economics and social support but prefer residence places that allow them to maximize both conditions.
This paper focuses primarily on the challenges of nurse migration, although it makes reference to the crisis in education as it argues that the two are inter-connected. Also, while it acknowledges the problem as a regional one and speaks to this, its focus is on Jamaica, especially in assessing the feasibility of a 'training for export model.' It draws primarily on secondary literature, supported by interviews.
Analyzes the separate roles and functions of the police and the military in the context of the current security environment in the Caribbean, which now includes such diverse factors as trans-national organized crime, corruption, links between politics and crime, natural disasters, oil dependency, high levels of public debt and the chronic marginalization of large sectors of the population. This paper argues that rapidly evolving challenges require that the roles, functions and training of the police and the military be kept separate and distinct, and that the policy community needs to understand why the purpose and architecture of the training has to be appropriate for the different missions of the respective organizations.
37 p., Discusses the evolution of housing conditions in urban areas of Latin America and the Caribbean from 1995 to 2006 based on data from household surveys done in 18 countries that comprise 95 percent of the urban population of the region. The results indicate that, on average, the proportion of urban households facing housing shortages is declining. This decline holds for households of all income levels, particularly those in the lower quintiles of the income distribution structure. The estimates made in this study indicate that in 2006 lack of infrastructure affected almost 19 million households.
An August 2010 letter written by the author, a Haitian University teacher, to her daughter Ana Ménard about the impact of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti on their relationship.
Three poems by Claudine Michel. "Unequal Distribution." First Line: Unequal distribution that forces; Last Line: to throw away her whistle and dream of a new Haiti? "Darkness." First Line: It is; Last Line: comes. "Brigitte." First Line: Did your mother call you Brigitte; Last Line: Child?
Tracing the shifting meanings of British liberty and subjecthood in relation to persons of African descent in the West Indian colonies - from tentative acceptance and ambivalence in the early eighteenth century, to outright hostility after 1760 - this article argues that planter elites ultimately embraced a rigid, outmoded racial ideology in order to preserve white hegemony. In Jamaica in particular, the master class came to see free 'black' participation in civil society as a threat to their own birthright and privileged status as transplanted Britons. Yet non-white West Indians also made use of the English system of law and liberty in their efforts to affirm their identity as British subjects and to be considered as such by metropolitan Britons.
A personal narrative of the author's experience of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake and the aftermath, focusing on the psychological impact of the destruction, the warnings by radio host Ingénieur Preptit who predicted the earthquake, and the lack of government leadership.
Presents the views of a lesbian mother regarding the laws in the U.S. She highlights her several experiences related to political, children, family and sexuality including the anti-Klan protest, abortion rights rallies, and her arrest for demanding an end to apartheid. She explores the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) Sexual Diversity Project.
A photo essay entitled "Ayiti: Reaching Higher Ground" depicting Haitian people after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti to counter the press coverage of the event, including photographs entitled "Holding Innocence," "We Can Feed the Country," and "Pretty in Pink."
Reviews the history of the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN), a women's organization founded in 1984 in Colombia for the defense and promotion of women's health and rights. Discussed are the diverse experiences, key achievements, major challenges, and future directions for the network.
Reviews the book "World Crisis Effects on Social Security in Latin America & the Caribbean: Lessons & Policies," by Carmelo Mesa-Lago is presented.
Reviews the books "Economies of Desire: Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic," by Amalia L. Cabezas and "The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade," by Sheila Jeffreys.
This study identifies strategic organizational drivers of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) in the Caribbean hotel sector. Hotels face institutional pressures that question their environmental legitimacy, competitive pressures that force market re-positioning decisions and constraints/advantages based on their resources and capabilities for managing CER. Empirical evidence collected here suggests that CER improves when hotels declare environmental policies; target eco-conscious tourists; are foreign owned; affiliated to MNCs; and experience healthy financial performance. The latter three factors also enable the implementation of environmental policies thereby strengthening CER. They play no such role in how market re-positioning strategies impact CER. Neither did strategic targeting of luxury tourists affect CER. These findings are useful to policy makers in tourism-dependent economies where CER is intrinsically tied to sustainable development and the tourism product is so dependent on the quality of the natural environment in which it is immersed.
In 1979 a Black theatre group from London toured the north island of Aotearoa New Zealand, visiting community centres and marae (traditional Maori meeting places).1 The troupe was named after a small Guyanese bird renowned for its resilience - the Keskidee - and consisted of Black British, African-Caribbean, African-American and African performers including a group of Rasta musicians, the Ras Messengers. The New Zealand organizers of the tour called their collective Keskidee Aroha, aroha being the Maori word for compassion and empathy. This article explores the colonial stage upon which Keskidee played and assesses the type of inter-cultural translations that are prompted when (post-)colonized subjects speak to each-other rather than address the colonizer.
Analyses Sistren Theatre Collective's theatrical and organizational collective model by contextualizing the company's commitment to collectivity in terms of political and social shifts in Jamaica during the 1980s. Argues that race- and class-based divisions within Jamaican society were masked by collectivity masked.
Reviews several books including "Notions of Identity, Diaspora, and Gender in Caribbean Women's Writing," by Brinda Mehta, "Representation of the Island in Caribbean Literature: Caribbean Women Redefine Their Homelands," by Florence Ramond Jurney, and "The Caribbean Women Writers as Scholar: Creating, Imagining, Theorizing," edited by Keshia N. Abraham.
An investigation of relationship violence within 35 gay male couples living in Santiago, Cuba. Informants narrated how violence was enacted within their relationship. Men's construction of masculinity and economic hardships were primary contributors to relationship abuse.
Makes reference to the sixth visit of Radio International Feminista (Feminist International Radio Endeavour, FIRE) on April 8-15, 2011 to highlight the development in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. Particular focus is offered on the role of Haitian women and other citizens in providing first hand information on policies on international humanitarian aid, offer their inputs to international actions on women's groups and human rights, among others.
Discusses the status of women in Haiti in terms of accessing basic needs and services and education. States that women's invisibility was overshadowed by global media's coverage of the 2010 earthquake, wherein people were exposed to extreme poverty and gender inequity. It adds that Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV) is one of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that helped women victims from the prosecution of assailants.
Discusses the ways in which Santeria gatherings produce an alternative use of otherwise stigmatized language for 'gay' practitioners. Through the use of distinctive language to reference all of these populations, we may rethink the relationship between identities and practices, and within that, gender presentations vis a vis identities.
In 2008, a new style in Jamaican dancehall music and dance culture known as "Daggering" emerged. Daggering music and dancing, which included lyrics that graphically referred to sexual activities and a dance which has been described as "dry sex" on the dance floor, took Jamaica by storm. The Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica was forced to crack down on broadcasting and cable stations preventing them from playing any Daggering content. This article focuses on the subsequent clash between the government and the dancehall, and seeks to identify an appropriate method for monitoring and enforcing these new standards.
Reviews several books including "Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America," by Mary L. Gray, "Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic," by Mark Padilla, and "The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora," by Gloria Wekker.
Considers the meaning of feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the Methodological and Thematic Commission of the 12th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting, the event presents an opportunity to explore the routes that will enable feminism to move forward. Decribes feminism in the Latin American and Caribbean regions as plural and diverse.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
34 p., After 25 years in exile, former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti in January 2011. Within days, survivors of serious human rights violations and families of victims of his regime filed complaints of such abuses between 1971 and 1986. This report makes public the testimonies and other evidence gathered by Amnesty International during that time, demonstrating that these violations were widespread and systematic.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
10 p., In this submission, prepared for the Universal Periodic Review of Haiti in October 2011, Amnesty International raises concerns that key institutions for implementing reform of the judicial system have still not been established. The state has failed to provide security forces with adequate training and supervision in relation to the use of force. Haitian law does not provide a protective framework for children's rights. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless by the earthquake; and at the end of 2010, nearly a million people were still living in appalling conditions in camps.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
23 p., The January 2010 earthquake devastated Haiti. The risk of rape and other forms of gender-based violence in Haiti's camps has increased dramatically in the past year. This report highlights the protection needs of women and girls in camps against the background of research undertaken by Amnesty International and other organizations on violence against women and girls after the earthquake.
Haiti's election debacle of November 28 can be directly linked to the 1991 and 2004 coups. The political upheaval in both cases allowed the de facto president to unilaterally select members of the electoral council, bypassing constitutional provisions requiring popular representation. The result this time: the arbitrary banning of 14 political parties, including Haiti's largest and most representative, the Fanmi Lavalas party of ousted, exiled former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
160 p., Chronicles the history of slavery in Haiti through a recitation of the brutality of the colonisers and the often mundane and trivial ways in which they attempted to dehumanize Haitians. It seeks to illustrate how Haitians' 300-year journey to freedom was illuminated by the African philosophy of Ubuntu, a world view that embodies human solidarity, respect, dignity, justice, liberty, and love. In this philosophy, Africans found an unmatched strength to resist slavery.
This essay is framed around interpretations of Haiti's long history in order to demonstrate that there is neither curse nor punishment in Haiti's history; there is only intrigue, interest, and interference. The natural disasters whether earthquakes or hurricanes do not occur because of some rational targeting of the country but are the results of the arbitrariness of nature.
Considers the potential contribution of traditional construction techniques and materials to rebuilding in Port-au-Prince and other areas in Haiti that were devastated by the 2010 earthquake. Based on different examples of housing that collapsed or was damaged by the earthquake, it shows how traditional construction systems often demonstrated better resilience to earthquakes than buildings constructed with modern materials.
Discusses food aid organization Numana's community-based strategies for organizing food packaging events for Haiti and coordination of nongovernmental organizations for distributing emergency food. A feminist analysis of Numana's principles is compared to a culture-centered, community agency model.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
20 p., Cholera is both a preventable and easily cured disease, yet in July-nine months after it was inadvertently introduced into Haiti by UN troops-a Haitian was infected almost every minute, and 375 had died over the course of the month.
Develops data from interviews about stereotypes of Jamaican and Barbadian men and women. The popular music from Jamaica and Barbados is used as a lens for understanding the cultures within which the respondents develop their gender stereotypes. The stereotype data is then compared with the music that is popular during the interviews.
Colorism and skin bleaching is evident in contemporary Jamaica as expressed in some dancehall songs which praise skin bleachers, and the explanatory narratives of skin bleachers that bleaching makes them pretty and sexually attractive to potential spouses. Similar themes are reflected in the criticism that the browning Dancehall Queen Carlene was deemed sexually attractive and choreographically talented only because of her brown physicality. Some spouses request that their partner acquire the bleached physicality because they find it sexually attractive similar to many male clients in 'massage parlors' who only request female sex workers who bleach their skin.
Clemens,Michael (Author) and Velayudhan,Tejaswi (Author)
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
Oct 2011
Published:
Center for Global Development
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
4 p., The United States should take modest steps to create a legal channel for limited numbers of people fleeing natural disasters overseas to enter the United States. This would address two related problems: the lack of any systematic US policy to help the growing numbers of people displaced across borders by natural disasters and the inability of US humanitarian relief efforts to reduce systemic poverty or sustainably improve victims' livelihoods. The aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake presents a compelling case study of the administrative and legislative ways the US government could address both problems. Migration is already a proven and powerful force for reducing Haitians' poverty. A few modest changes in the US approach could greatly aid Haiti's recovery.
Cohen,Marc J. (Author) and Gauthier,Amelie (Author)
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
Mar 2011
Published:
Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estrategicos
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
7 p., Following the 20 March 2011 elections, Haiti faces a potential political stalemate whilst confronting the massive reconstruction needs created by last year's earthquake. Many organizations have criticized the government for its lack of leadership in addressing pressing issues of relief, relocation and reconstruction. This paper analyses the effects of the political situation on aid effectiveness, good governance and the strategies of the international community.
Uses the content analysis of publicly available information to explore the posture of key public-policy actors on homosexuals and homosexuality. Concludes that this discourse evinces a settled heteronormative value system, reflecting a consensus on either side of the political divide and applauded by popular culture and popular opinion.
Examines how post-earthquake conditions in Haiti have left women and girls in a heightened state of vulnerability as well as the ineffectiveness of the U.N. and government to uphold obligations under international law to include grassroots women's leadership in the planning and implementation sessions to address sexual violence in displacement camps.
An essay on medical tourism, or travel with the intention of obtaining health services abroad, in the Caribbean. An overview of the economic impacts of medical tourism on several Caribbean countries, including Cuba, Jamaica, and Barbados, is presented.
An interview with Haitian physician Lise Marie Dejéan, executive director of Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen (SOFA) or the Solidarity with Haitian Women, who narrates the daily struggles, the difficulties faced by women's organizations, and government's slow recovery effort.
Addresses the socially controversial issue of the public expression of sexuality in dance in the Caribbean. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of 'wining' or 'wukkin' up', dancing involving pelvic gyrations.