"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"
"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)
"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)
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.
