Reads Carnival-related performances in relationship to the colonial and national histories of the circulation of Indian and black women's bodies in Trinidad and Tobago, asking what is at stake in these occupations of genre, form, and performative presence in the latest global scenes of late capitalism (where image and sound, as cultural productions, are always in circulation beyond the scope of the nation, and their own "original" referents).
In 2006, the Peruvian government passed a law that made racial discrimination a crime punishable by incarceration. This law, part of a multicultural reform in Peru, can be seen as an effective recognition of the reality of racism in Peruvian society. Such recognition, however, contrasts with official depictions of Peru as a country without racism, and of Peruvians as people who deny the existence of racism in their society.
This essay analyzes representations and imaginaries of blackness in contemporary Puerto Rico, by focusing on the debates raised by 'Raices'/(Roots) (2001), the Banco Popular video special about traditional Afro-Puerto Rican rhythms of bomba and plena. These debates divided public opinion in Puerto Rico and included members of academia, musicologists, bomba and plena groups, and the San Anton (Ponce) community residents. They refer to the ways Puerto Ricans 'speak the unspoken,' that is, the ways Puerto Ricans talk about race and its intersectionalities on the island and in the diaspora.
Journal Article, Taking an Afrocentric approach to the study of Africans who were enslaved by the Spanish in Mexico, the author traveled to Mexico on many occasions to study the retention of African cultural forms, concepts, practices, and values. This article provides the reader with a critical literature brief on the issues surrounding the current discourse.
The use and abuse of alcohol is prevalent in many nations across the globe, but few studies have examined within-group differences found in people of African descent in the United States, in Africa, and in the Caribbean. A review of current research about alcohol use, abuse, and treatment in people of African descent is presented, including information about risk factors and contributors to alcohol use.
Examines the impact of the Universal Negro Improvement League (UNIA) on the British colony of Bermuda where the majority black population was segregated and disenfranchised while white elites enjoyed total political and economic power. The efforts of UNIA leaders like Marcus Garvey made UNIA a global organization and strongly influenced Caribbean regional politics. Attention is given to the impact of tourism which became Bermuda's primary industry in the 1920s when blacks were evicted from their homes to make room for white resorts.
Explanations of the Abolitionist movement's success in Brazil (1888) have, since the 1960s and 1970s, emphasized the movement's material context, its class nature, and the agency of the captives. These analyzzes have misunderstood and gradually ignored the movement's formal political history. Even the central role of urban political mobilisation is generally neglected; when it is addressed, it is crippled by lack of informed analysis of its articulation with formal politics and political history. It is time to recover the relationship between Afro-Brazilian agency and the politics of the elite. In this article this is illustrated by analysing two conjunctures critical to the Abolitionist movement: the rise and fall of the reformist Dantas cabinet in 1884-85, and the relationship between the reactionary Cotegipe cabinet (1885-88), the radicalisation of the movement, and the desperate reformism that led to the Golden Law of 13 May 1888.
Discusses representations of the 'Afro-Cuban-occupied house' in Cuban-American autobiographical narratives of a 1990s return to Cuba. A trope in which island Afro-Cubans inhabit houses once owned or lived in by white Cuban-Americans, the Afro-Cuban-occupied house appears repeatedly in Cuban-American literary and film texts during the period. The article argues that the trope, more than another example of 'literary Afro-Cubanness,' discloses Cuban-American whiteness and its constitutive element, privilege, thus inviting Cuban-American literary and cultural studies to engage in conversations along the lines of a critical Latino whiteness studies.
Examines three ‘cosmopolitan’ traditions in the Caribbean. While the first tradition derives from the universalist intellectual tradition of the European Enlightenment, the other two are linked to vernacular, local Caribbean traditions.
This article presents a conceptual and empirical synthesis of ‘critical action learning’ (CAL) and ‘policy learning’ (PL). We pursue this undertaking by reflecting upon a five-year inquiry into an initiative that aimed to provide business support to an action learning set comprising eight African-Caribbean entrepreneurs. CAL and PL share commitments that are riven with tensions, which we explore in our inquiry in relation to three themes that arose during the course of the investigation.
