"For the governments of the small, English-speaking island nations of the Caribbean, the traditional concept of national security has less meaning in light of post-Cold War realities. These are countries set in the Caribbean Sea, with minimal defense forces, and no boundary disputes. For them, currents assessments of national security demonstrate clearly and forcefully that the threats they face 'are nontraditional, multidimensional, and international in nature'."
"Caribbean literatures can claim a unique identity: they are one yet made of many, escaping easy categorization. But, to return to Kincaid, there is a way in which the Caribbean, in academic discourse, has become part of a larger picture which Caribbean inhabitants may not claim or recognize. At issue here is the extent to which academic discourse answers to the people of the region or ignores them." (author)
The number of black Caribbean immigrants in America is growing with the most prevalent countries of origin being the Bahamas, Haiti, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Centering Women consists of somewhat altered versions of the author's previously published articles, with an introduction and "summation" that argue for a post-nationalist history of gender in the Caribbean
"In this essay I discuss the thwarted cultural translation of modernity across the Atlantic and how this process affected the cultural self-understanding of the Caribbean. I will frame my argument by referring to the Hegelian theme of the Subject insofar as this particular concept condenses and articulates the ideology of modernity as a Eurocentric drive for world domination." (author)
Discussed is 'Linking Lives,' a newly formed alliance between Western Union Financial Services, Inc. and Air Jamaica to service the home countries of the Caribbean and the 'new' countries where immigrants of the Caribbean have settled
"This work reports on two brief polls recently taken in Cuba and of Santo Domingo. The results in both cases show the need to continue the searching for traditional Spanish language romances in the Americas which have been scantly investigated." (Dialnet)
The fifth annual Bermuda Jazz Festival took place on September 15-16, 2000, to a crowd estimated at 6,000. Some headliners included Roberta Flack, Norman Brown, Spyro Gyra, and Diana Krall. Many local Bermudans displayed their musical gifts as well
"A single highway connects the Caribbean province of Limón to mainstream society in the highlands of Costa Rica. This paper explores the ways in which that highway affects the status hierarchy of mainstream society in Costa Rica, and how the construction of whiteness as an unexamined racial qualifier for total social incorporation constrains the perception of blacks as social liminars and blackness as a state of communitas. The argument elaborates the work of Victor Turner on ritual liminality to suggest the structural ambiguity of Afro-Latin Americans in the context of Costa Rica." (author"
This article profiles comedian Tommy Joseph of Trinidad and Tobago. He comments on subjects such as how he got his start in comedy and his focus on humor that is also appropriate for children
"The contributions of a number of First and Third World scholars to the development of the anthropology of the African diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean have been elided from the core of the discipline as practiced in North America and Europe. As such, the anthropology of the African diaspora in the Americas can be traced to the paradigmatic debate on the origins of New World black cultures between Euro-American anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits and African American sociologist E. Franklin Frazier." (AR Journals Annual Reviews)
"Short commentary on increasing cruelty (i.e., violence in excess) in Jamaica. While there is not yet a culture of cruelty in the country, steps must be taken to arrest its development." (Handbook of Latin American Studies)
A variety of approaches are discussed in this work, dealing with the economic problems, geopolítics, social conditions, and controversial themes affecting the region
"This brings out a vision, both local and transnational, of the inhabited territory. This analysis provides a diachronic outlook that may inform the current policy of regionalization of immigration."
"Argues that the Caribbean needs education that is not over-specialized and aimed at specific skills, but rather education that is integrated with social and cultural characteristics and values of the Caribbean. Author expounds on the value of this broader, cultural view of education, and deplores the narrower work-related view on education predominant in the region. He also points out that in the present dynamic economic conditions learning throughout life, and dealing with change, have become more necessary to ensure varied employment, but stresses that this must be accompanied by attention for arts and cultural knowledge, as well as a strengthening of the bond between education and community." (University of the West Indies, Mona Online Research Database)
Since its publication in 1976, Ivan van Sertima's book They Came Before Columbus has gone through 21 printings, while receiving widespread--though not unanimous--condemnation from the American archaeological establishment, culminating in a hostile, full-length forum in Current Anthropology. And yet, startlingly, the field of American archaeology has recently found itself in the midst of a major paradigm shift, caused by archaeological evidence that obliterates the Clovis model as a legitimate demarcation of the first presence of human settlement in the New World. Kamugisha proposes to trace the response to They Came Before Columbus, while discussing the issue of diffusionism in van Sertima's work.;
"The purpose of this essay is to attempt an analysis - albeit a preliminary one - of the shifting ethnic configurations in the plural society of Trinidad and Tobago with the help of a push-pull model. It basically argues that the boundaries of ethnic groups and identities can be fluid and can be redrawn depending on external and internal factors. These two factors, which I call push and pull factors, can alter the configuration of ethnic relations. External in the sense of forces that ethnic groups have little control over and yet these forces influence their behavior (colonialism, capitalist penetration, globalization and regionalization)." (author);
Guyana is often referred to in the literature as the "land of the six races", comprising East Indian, Blacks, Whites, Portuguese, Chinese and Amerindians. This diversity has attracted in the interest of many social science scholars who have labeled Guyana a "plural society". Here, Ramraj examines the aspects of the demographic history of Guyana and current demographic trends, and notes the changes in the ethnic composition of the country's population, and aspects of its spatial distribution especially in relation to the black population. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT];
Sheridan discusses some of the common endeavours he shared with Douglas Gordon Hawkins Hall concerning the West Indian Economic and Social History. Foremost among the historians of the transition from slavery to freedom in individual West Indian colonies is Douglas Hall, whose contributions to West Indian history and culture are manifold.;
Reviews several books on Cuban history before 1959. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean 1898-1934, by César Ayala; Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, by Ada Ferrer; Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba, by Rosalie Schwartz.;
Describes the botanical gardens of Martinique. Geographical history; Plant species found in the gardens; Details of the country's progress and development.;
Glen reviews "The History of Early Methodism in Antigua: A Critique of Sylvia R. Frey and Betty Wood's Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Carribean to 1830 (University of North Carolina Press, 1998).;
Hall examines the wealth of materials in the diaries of Thomas Thistlewood, a young man with considerable experiences and full of curiosity. Thistlewood's diaries are of special interest, for he entertained representatives from both of the land of gentry and, because of the slaves and free blacks and coloureds.;
The rendering blacker of the Brazilian feminist movement has effectively signified the demarcation and institution within the agenda of the women's movement of the importance which the racial issue has, for example, for the following: the configuration of demographic policies; the characterisation of violence against women - introducing the concept of racial violence as a determining factor of the forms of violence suffered by half of the country's feminine population which is non-white; the introduction of ethnic/racial diseases or diseases that mainly afflict the black population, as fundamental issues in the formulation of public policies in the area of health; and the inclusion in the criticism of the selection mechanisms in the labour market the concept of "good appearance" as an element that perpetuates the inequalities between, and privileges of, white and black women.
British-African-Caribbean cricket players are well represented in the English game but participation appears mediated by ethnic group membership. This contemporary pattern can only be understood when contextualized within the historical development of cricket in the Caribbean and, in particular, the struggles between whites and blacks and between the white elites.
Discusses 1) the concept of blackness in Latin America during the fifteenth century and gives historical background on how the concept of blacks and Indians evolved in Latin America; 2) the social construction of race by West European colonizers in Latin America during the early sixteenth century; and 3) the indigenous concept of blackness among indigenous cultures in latin America.
Analyzes the portrayal of blacks in the magazine Vistazo, one of the most popular publications of Ecuador, since the year of its creation in 1957 until the year 1991. Mainstains that the construction of the Ecuadorian national identity deprives humanity in representation of African-Ecuadorians in favor of appreciation and exaltation of Euro-Ecuadorians and, secondarily, the white-mestizo
The Awardee for the 30th Norman Washington Manley Award for Excellence was Jamaican historian Douglas Hall. The Norman Washington Manley Foundation decided that the award this year should go to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the nation in the field of history. Here, Bryan describes the 1999 recepient of the Norman Washington Manley Award for Excellence, Professor Douglas Gordon Hawkins Hall.;
Campbell discusses the history of education in the Dominican Republic over a long period of time, from the inception of Spanish colonization in Hispaniola to the achievement of its first real independence in 1844. He seeks not to enter into postmodernist debates about the viability of the traditional historical narrative but to search for truth about what really happened through the traditional use of the sources.;
Examines the representations of Jamaican dancehall culture and Yardies in British journalism and in two novels published by X-Press publishing firm. Analysis of the novels Yardie, by Victor Headley and Cop Killer, by Donald Gorgon; Discussion on the Jamaican dancehall music and the raggamuffin or ragga consciousness; Discussion on the symbolic location of Jamaican youth in British discourses.;
Focuses on the Aunt Jemima stereotype of African womanhood and motherhood. Impact of the stereotype on African Caribbean women whose lives have been obscured by this image; Discussion on how a re-invented Aunt Jemima is reflected in the religious symbols of the Spiritual Baptists Church in Toronto, Ontario and the religious lives of individual women; Examination of the symbolic reinterpretation of Aunt Jemima within the everyday lives of immigrant African Caribbean women in Toronto.;