Fair Trade

“Whiteness is invested in like property” (p. viii), writes author George Lipsitz in his book entitled “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics.” In this blog, I share a full colour newspaper advertisement (published in Trinidad’s Sunday Express Newspaper, page 19, on November 18, 2007) for a cream that promises to make you fair and handsome. Using Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan, the ad appeals to Trinidad’s East Indian peoples to buy the cream – to invest in whiteness and secure the privileges and power of being closer to the white end of the skin colour spectrum. However, author Lipsitz adds that whiteness “is also a means of accumulating property and keeping it from others” (p. viii). Lipsitz argues: “whiteness almost always comes to possess white people…unless they develop antiracist identities, unless they disinvest and divest themselves of their investments in white supremacy” (p.viii). “The power of whiteness depend[s] not only on white hegemony over separate racialized groups, but also on manipulating racial outsiders to fight against one another, to compete with each other for white approval, and to seek the rewards and privileges of whiteness…” (p. 3). In other words, “whiteness” – and its associated rewards – is kept under guard by white people; whiteness is policed by white people; whiteness is protected from racialized minority groups. Lipsitz shares: “Contemporary whiteness and its rewards have been created and recreated by policies adopted long after the emancipation of slaves…Each of these policies [have] widened the gap between the resources available to whites and those available to aggrieved racial communities” (pp. 4 and 5).

The advertised fairness cream with its “Unique 5 power Fairness System” may regulate melanin production and lighten your face but unless you’re white, you won’t get “whiteness” IN your hands.

The Asian Experience

Earlier this month, I participated in a conference at the University of Miami. The conference was entitled: The Asian Experience in the Caribbean and the Guyanas: Labor and Migration, Literature and Culture (You may read my conference paper by visiting: http://www.tissa.com/marshapearce.html).

The event facilitated reflection on and the sharing of various perspectives of Asian contributions and realities in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Yet, it was at Miami International Airport that I got a lesson on the Asian Experience in the Americas – specifically, the United States of America – in a post 9/11 era.

I was waiting in a long line to have my shoes and hand luggage checked and my body scanned. This was the necessary preamble to getting to my gate for my flight home to Trinidad. I had been standing there for some time when I noticed that the people ahead had moved forward but something was keeping the woman in front of me from moving. It was then that I saw a Chinese woman sitting on the floor – in the line – reading a newspaper. I guess she must have been tired of the long wait and had decided to get comfortable. She sat there, lost in the news – oblivious to the world about her. A Black female airport staff member saw the seated woman and shook her head in displeasure at the Chinese woman’s disregard for what was happening around her. But, it was a White female airport staff member who approached the seated woman and barked the order for her to rise and allow those in the line behind her to advance. The White airport staff member then turned to the Black airport staff member and said angrily: “Who does she think she is? Does she think she is in her own country?”

And, there it was: Encapsulated in those words was the xenophobia; the “other” phobia; the fear and scorn for non-whites in America. The Black airport staff member stood there…mute. She bent her head then looked away.

That Chinese woman could have been an American but her phenotype suggested otherwise. There, at that airport, she was an Asian who was “troubling” America with her “Asian practice” – “the Asian practice of sitting on the floor.”

I visited Miami to explore the Asian Experience and returned home with a taste of the “Other” Experience.

Woman Politics

It is election time in Trinidad and Tobago and with it, has come politics in its various vestments. The politics of gender has received much attention since Leader of the Opposition Party (the United National Congress Alliance or UNC-A) Kamla Persad-Bissessar was not asked to lead the political party into the general elections to be held on November 5, 2007. Instead, Persad-Bissessar has been recommended to run the women’s arm of the UNC Alliance while Mr Jack Warner has been appointed as chairman – the person to lead the UNC-A party to a hopeful victory. Many see this task of tending to “woman matters” as an insult to Persad-Bissessar and the nation’s peoples have been voicing their disgust at her acceptance of the post.













































Kamla Persad-Bissessar – a lawyer – has been in the political arena for approximately 21 years. She was the first woman of Trinidad and Tobago to serve as Attorney General and she has functioned as Legal Affairs Minister and Minister of Education. In 2006, Trinidad and Tobago’s President George Maxwell Richards declared the position of “Leader of the Opposition” a vacant one after then UNC leader Mr Basdeo Panday was convicted of failing to make an accurate declaration to an Integrity Commission concerning a London bank account. Persad-Bissessar was appointed Leader of the Opposition in April 2006. Yet, for the upcoming elections, she has been bypassed in favour of man power. Her new post has been conceived by Basdeo Panday who has re-emerged as co-chairman of the UNC-A.

Rather than walk away, Persad-Bissessar addressed a gathering at a UNC Alliance rally on October 7, 2007. She declared: “I want to tell you here today that you are not dealing with a woman scorned but a woman in love. I love my party and my country with a great love and I am here to stay.” Her speech stirred responses in the form of letters from the public. One letter to the editor of the Daily Express (dated October 9, 2007, page 14) said about Kamla Persad-Bissessar: “What kind of woman leader would provide such a sorry and embarrassing example? Kamla Persad-Bissessar has now become the poster-girl for the ‘hit me if you love me’ generation.” Another letter questioned whether there was a men’s arm of the UNC. Yet another letter described Kamla as Basdeo Panday’s puppet. While most of the reactions portray her acceptance as a setback to feminist efforts, one letter to the editor urged Kamla to “assume the position” because the role of Women’s Arm Leader was an “exalted position.”























The biggest rejoinder came in the form of a full-colour newspaper advertisement from the Congress of the People (COP) - another political party vying for votes. The COP advertisement takes advantage of what has been regarded as the nonchalant deflating of woman power. The headline of the COP advertisement says it all: “Woman is Boss.” The ad features the pictures of fourteen COP woman political candidates. The ad also cleverly inserts the word “GENDER” into the last line of Trinidad and Tobago’s national anthem to drive the point home: “Here every [GENDER,] creed and race finds an equal place…” COP describes this as our NATURAL anthem.

God Game

My friend who is a gamer (that is, a devoted computer and video game player) recently introduced me to the game called "Black and White." Black and White is a god game. That is, the player takes on the role of god and must decide how to run the simulated world of the game. As the god player you must consider how to gain the trust, the belief of the people. Do you instill fear? Or, do you impress the people with wondrous acts? Do you sway them with your power to positively impact their lives? Do you make followers through compassion?
Well, a god game is afoot in Trinidad and Tobago. Elections are coming up on November 5, 2007. Campaigns have become intense and political candidates are luring followers and appealing for the trust of the people through wondrous acts. Last night, at a political meeting, the notion of the god game in action was made manifest when a candidate cast himself as the Christ.
Yesterday, the PNM (People's National Movement) held a political meeting in Barrackpore Trinidad and the event was televised. The PNM is the present political party in power and its leader, Patrick Manning is the current Prime Minister. In his address to the people, Manning made reference to Dr Eric Williams who was the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Eric Williams was the founder of the PNM in 1956 and as the party's political leader, he became the country's first non-colonial Chief Minister. In 1962, he led the country to independence from colonial rule. Dr Eric Williams is known as the "Father of the Nation."
Last night, Patrick Manning quoted from the bible (Matthew 3:17) and declared that Dr Eric Williams was looking down from heaven and saying (about Manning): "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
What a glaring injection of divinity into politics: God and Christ; Father and Son; Dr Eric Williams and Patrick Manning.
Manning rendered himself a most powerful entity.
I am reminded that there is nothing black and white about politics – it is characterised by many shades of grey.

Meat and Vegetables

One of today's daily newspapers in Trinidad published an Associated Press photograph of a new advertisement by PETA Asia-Pacific (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Asia-Pacific). The advertisement features a naked actress in a bed of chilli peppers next to the tagline: "Spice Up Your Life – Go Vegetarian." Who is the intended audience of this advertisement?
In an effort to lure people away from harming animals in their want for a diet inclusive of meat, the advertisement invites the male viewer to get his protein by consuming the female body. Here, the naked actress becomes a piece of meat on a bed of veggies for the satisfaction of sensual appetites; she becomes animal flesh to feed male cravings. This advertisement serves up a dish of meat and vegetables. What about the treatment of animals? What about the treatment of women?

Archaeology Lecturer Debunks Knowledge of Caribbean History

Dr. Basil Reid, Archaeology Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the West Indies, delivered a lecture entitled “Popular Myths about Caribbean History” on August 29, 2007 at the National Museum and Art Gallery, Trinidad. The event was part of a Heritage Lecture Series hosted by The National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Reid also launched his book entitled: “Popular Myths about Caribbean History” at the public lecture.

Dr. Reid takes on an epistemological project, which challenges what we know and revisits sources of knowledge. He contends that history should not be solely sought in written records and proposes that other data sources and methodologies such as archaeology and ethnography, along with oral data and images, be used. He further asserts that we should not hold on to knowledge simply because that knowledge enjoys longevity. “Economic and social agendas are always a part of [the writing of] history,” says Dr. Reid. Indeed, we must remain cognizant of the fact that there are various motives behind the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

Dr. Reid’s lecture took the form of excerpts from his book, which exposes eleven myths about Caribbean history. He challenges a Eurocentric concept of history and explodes the myth that Caribbean history started with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Through archaeological time, Dr. Reid uses the oldest site in the West Indies – the 7000-year-old Banwari Trace in South West Trinidad, which shows evidence of the oldest occupation of people in the Caribbean – to declare that the arrival of Banwari Trace people, not the arrival of Christopher Columbus, marks the beginning of Caribbean history.

Dr Reid also invalidates the simplification of Caribbean history by describing a rich diversity of pre-colonial Caribbean peoples. He, therefore, declares that the notion that the Arawaks and Caribs were the two major groups in the Caribbean is a myth. Dr. Reid illustrates such groups of peoples as the Ortoiroids, Casimiroids, Saladoids, Barrancoids, Troumassoids and Ostionoids.

Other myths negated by Dr. Reid include: “The Island-Caribs were cannibals,” “The Early Europeans brought civilization to native societies in the Caribbean” and “Christopher Columbus wrote Columbus’s Diary (Diario).”

Giving Voice to an Enslaved Female

On August 9, 2007, Professor Brinsley Samaroo addressed the issue of erasure – that is, the historical silencing of enslaved women – through his Emancipation Lecture entitled: “Maria Jones: Africa, St Vincent and Trinidad.” The event was held at the National Library, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Professor Samaroo’s lecture examined the life of an enslaved African woman who was taken from her West African village around 1787, subjected to the Middle Passage and sold to a plantation owner in St Vincent. She was then sold to a Vincentian slave trader and owner of an estate in Trinidad. Later on, she was sold to another estate owner in South Trinidad. Again, she was transferred to an estate – this time in East Trinidad. Maria Jones’s frequent change of ownership was due to her continued resistance to enslavement. Her demonstration of resistance included use of the Christian church to her advantage – Maria Jones defied the erasure of African culture by her persistent integration of African practices.

Using such sources as a biography of Maria published in 1851 by a Baptist missionary and an 1860 account of conversations between Maria and a visiting Baptist from the London Baptist Missionary Society, Professor Samaroo made audible, a strong female culture of resistance.

2008 Conferences

1. Global Reggae: Jamaican Popular Music A Yard and Abroad
The University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica
February 18–24, 2008
This conference, to be held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica and other venues on the island, is the third in a series focusing on Caribbean culture. The first, held in 1996, honoured the distinguished legacy of Professor the Hon. Rex Nettleford, Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies. The second, held in 2002, celebrated the work of the Barbadian griot/historian, Professor Kamau Brathwaite. This third conference, to be held in association with the Recording Industry Association of Jamaica (RIAJam), the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, the Bob Marley Foundation, and the Jamaica Tourist Board, pays tribute to the generations of musicians who have created reggae – Jamaica’s distinctive contribution to world culture. These icons include: Count Matchuki, Don Drummond, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Count Ossie, Mrs. Sonia Pottinger and Prince Buster. The Global Reggae 2008 conference will provide an opportunity for musicians, scholars, cultural practitioners and entrepreneurs from Jamaica and around the world to share their perspectives on the ways in which reggae has been appropriated and adapted in a variety of cultural contexts. This international conference will also examine the local impact of the reggae music industry in Jamaica and assess ways in which the Jamaican economy can benefit through the development and encouragement of internationally competitive local music enterprises. The proposed conference sub-themes include: The Roots of Jamaican Popular Culture (Revival, Mento, Nyabinghi, Jazz, Jump Blues); The Rise of Jamaican Popular Music; Reggae’s Influence on Global Popular Music (Hip Hop, Reggaeton, Jawaiian, Techno, Trip-Hop, Jungle, Soca); The Technological Transformations of Reggae; The Bob Marley Phenomenon; Reggae’s Social and Political Contestations.
For more information email: globalreggae2008@uwimona.edu.jm
Deadline for abstracts is October 12, 2007
Deadline for final papers is December 28, 2007

2. The Synthetic Aesthetics of New Media Art
Presented by The New Media Caucus in Association with the College Art Association
February 20–23, 2008, Dallas, TX
Contrary to traditional aesthetic theories that argue for the primacy of either the subjective and phenomenological, or formal and objective interpretations of artwork, the aesthetics of electronic media, like the logic of technical media itself, is thoroughly removed from anthropomorphic sensibility. One could say that electronic media aesthetics are marked by technical trauma.
However, much contemporary new media art criticism exemplifies a hermeneutic approach that seeks to rationalize and transform work into intelligible "art objects" for canonization and social theories. Is this approach problematic for the logic of technical media? Can certain attributes such as color, form, affect, or sound, effectively reconcile computer based artwork with the subjective and humanistic drives in art making?
The panel invites papers that address the aesthetics of New Media art in distinction to previous aesthetic models or media platforms. For instance, papers suggesting the ways in which color, sound, line, form, symbolism, affect, anti-aesthetics, or ideology may be distinct to new media aesthetics are all welcomed. Essentially the panel inquires: what do aestheticians address in New Media art, and why? Which artists and / or commercial work do you think best exemplifies these issues? Special attention will be given to those abstracts that are concerned with the use of color in New Media work.
Deadline for the receipt of abstracts is October 1, 2007.
Send abstracts to Carolyn Kane: clk267@nyu.edu

3. Virtual Caribbeans
Presented by The Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute at Tulane University in conjunction with the Stone Center for Latin American Studies
February 27–March 1, 2008, New Orleans Louisiana
The definition of the Caribbean as primarily a geographical region is no longer viable. Through the movement of its peoples, cultures, and languages, we also make or find the “Caribbean” elsewhere. It has become an imagined community beyond geographic contours, while simultaneously retaining an immediate materiality that impacts the everyday experiences of Caribbean (and non-Caribbean) subjects. This conference will offer a space for the exploration of manifestations across various media, technologies and performances. Due to a unique history that features French, Spanish, African, Canadian, and other immigrant influences, as well as a legacy of traffic in peoples, cultures, dialects, and products from the West Indies and the circum-Caribbean, New Orleans provides an ideal site for these explorations. Topics for consideration include: Configurations of the Caribbean in Cyberspace; Filmic and other visual Caribbeans; Listening to the Caribbean; Portable Caribbeans; Tangible sites of Caribbeanness created through migrations and diaspora communities.
Deadline for abstracts is November 15, 2007
Email: nporto@tulane.edu

4. Console-ing Passions: A Conference on Television, Audio, Video, New Media and Feminism
University of California Santa Barbara
April 24-26, 2008
Topics for consideration include: Gender, media and presidential politics; History and Theory of Television; Women, race and the Don Imus Effect; Feminism and the Blogosphere; YouTube and Social Networking; Women in Media Industries; Reality TV; Media and gay/lesbian politics; Second Life, Gaming and Virtual Reality Online; Religion and Media; Gender Media and Globalization
Deadline for receipt of proposals is November 1, 2007
Visit: http://www.filmandmedia.ucsb.edu/cptv/cptv.html

5. The Caribbean: Embracing the Diasporas Within and Without
San Andres Island, Colombia
May 26-30, 2008
The Caribbean Studies Association invites papers on all aspects of the Caribbean and its diasporas, whether the focus is on those that fall within the region, or those more traditionally constituted in the large metropolitan centers of non-Caribbean countries. The idea is to interrogate the historical and contemporary processes of migration (whether forced or voluntary) to the region, and later away from it, with a view to celebrating the Caribbean zeitgeist, and highlighting the role played by the diaspora both in spreading the culture and idea of the Caribbean abroad (second, third and later generations of migrants away from the region) and in nourishing political, economic, literary and cultural expression back in the homeland or home region. In all of this the links among geography, history, society and identity are central.
Deadline for receipt of proposals is December 12, 2007
Visit: http://www.caribbean-studies.org/ACCSA2008/en/call.html

6. Subjectivity: International Conference in Critical Psychology, Cultural Studies and Social Theory
School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK
June 27-29, 2008
This conference explores shifting conceptualisations of subjectivity in contemporary culture, politics, social science and theory. Although subjectivity is a key analytic term in fields as diverse as critical psychology, postcolonial studies, film theory, gender studies, social theory, geography, anthropology and cultural studies, it is rarely discussed in its own right. The conference attempts to explore subjectivity as a locus of social change, to rethink possibilities for everyday social interventions, to explore how subjectivities are produced and how emerging subjectivities remake our social worlds. Proposals are invited for papers and symposia whose scope falls within or between one of the following areas: 1) Embodiment, Affect, Materiality; 2) New Political Subjectivities/New Social Movements; 3) Redistributing the Psychological
Deadline for receipt of 200-word proposal is January 31, 2008
Email: subjectivity@cardiff.ac.uk

7. Of Sacred Crossroads: International Crossroads in Cultural Studies 2008
University of the West Indies, Jamaica
July 3-7, 2008
The Caribbean could well be regarded as one of the first crossroads of the modern era, where Africa and Asia met Europe on Amerindian soil. The conditions were a forced and bitter crucible. The results of that encounter contributed not only to the making of the modern western world but also to the dynamism that is central to all the cultures of the Western Hemisphere. Contemporary emphasis on materialism and consumerism as measures of our humanity, arising from the unbridled excesses to which science and technology have been sometimes put, is of growing concern, putting under duress the intangibles embodied in the values by which we live as human beings. Out of these concerns has sprung deepening dialogue at the interface between science and spirituality. UNESCO’s celebration of the intangible heritage of humankind is a timely reminder that civilizations rise not only on great edifices, monuments and artefacts that defy time, but also on those moments of ‘livity’, or human relationships, that last only as long as they are lived, without which human life would have little meaning. Of Sacred Crossroads captures many of these concerns in a manner that allows for the broadest of interpretation and accommodation across disciplines and forms.
Areas of interest include: Identity and Difference; Media; Gender and Sexuality; Popular Culture; Cultural Industries; Youth Culture; The City; Politics of Opposition; Centre and Periphery
Deadline for receipt of abstracts is November 30, 2007
Visit: www.crossroads2008.org

Education, Emancipation, Empowerment: Teaching the Subject of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans

On July 27, 2007, the Department of History at the University of the West Indies St Augustine Campus Trinidad, held one of its events to commemorate the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans. The event, which focused on education and emancipation, was the fifth stop along what the History Department has labeled its “Freedom Road” Public Lecture Series – a series conceived and managed by Dr. Heather Cateau. Since April 2007, the department has held events aimed at public education by presenting Caribbean perspectives driven by Caribbean scholarship on issues of emancipation. Other events have addressed the meaning of freedom, examined the clauses of the abolition act and explored the relationship between culture and emancipation.

On the evening of the 27th, a presentation was given by Dr Sandra Gift who tackled the matter of “the purpose of education.” Gift sought to share her study of the teaching of and learning about the Trans-Atlantic Trade in enslaved Africans as part of history lessons in classrooms found in geographic locations critical to the Trade: Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Gift first foregrounded emancipation as “a process,” rather than a distinct event. She observed that some people could argue that we (of the former British Empire) are still in the process of emancipation two hundred years later. She traced the purpose of education. Gift noted that after emancipation, the purpose of education might have been to have dreams of living with dignity realised for the formerly enslaved. Yet, ruling groups designed education to discourage – among black people – aspirations beyond a low social station. Education was also devised to maintain and reinforce strong psychological ties to the former Mother Country.

Sandra Gift looked at some of the legacies of enslavement. She spoke about a “vacant esteem” facing people of the Black Diaspora. She expressed that this lack of self-worth was, according to Professor Patricia Mohammed, “a burden of blackness, slavery and African society” which together “appear synonymous in a vocabulary of [young people’s understanding of themselves].” Gift further quoted Prof. Mohammed who observes that such an understanding of self; such a vocabulary creates “an unhealthy stream of consciousness with which to build the present and the future.” Gift also cited Dr Joy DeGruy-Leary’s theory of Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome – a theory, which suggests that slavery followed by systems of racism and oppression have resulted in the passing on of adaptive behaviours – like residual stress – through generations (I suggest visiting http://www.posttraumaticslavesyndrome.com/drleary.html for more information about DeGruy-Leary and her work).

Gift’s presentation highlighted the affective aspect of teaching and learning about the subject of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in enslaved Africans. She noted that some teachers avoided teaching the subject because it was too uncomfortable. Some European teachers chose to distance themselves from guilt by teaching the subject in a removed way – often including that Africans were involved in acts of slavery and facilitated the Trade. Ghanaian teachers, said Gift, taught forgiveness as part of the Trade content. Some Afro-Caribbean students felt inferior after history classes about the trade of enslaved Africans. In Trinidad, observed Gift, some history classes aroused empathy from Indo-Trinidadian students (Indians came to the Caribbean as indentured labourers) towards Afro-Trinidadian students.

Sandra Gift called for an education system in the Caribbean – in particular, the teaching of history – that transmits positive stories of African ancestors and hopeful legacies of survival. She recommended that stereotypes and racist representations of people be removed from textbooks and she suggested that there be ongoing professional development of teachers’ knowledge of the Trade along with counseling and conflict resolution sessions to address the emotional dimension of the subject.

Gift declared that knowledge of the history of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in enslaved Africans was an essential part of a good education for Caribbean citizens.

* * *

Sandra Gift’s presentation stirred my own reflections: Her use of the word “good” in relation to education naturally suggests that education can be “bad.” Education or knowledge is directly tied to power: empowerment or disempowerment. In a Foucauldian understanding, statements or knowledges about the Trans-Atlantic Trade in enslaved Africans become currency. To whom is the currency offered? How is the passing or exchange of this currency made? Even the labeling of the Trade carries power. I observed that the History Department opted to call the Trade “the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans” rather than the much used “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.” In doing so, the Department reframes history and refashions the discourse (all that is said, written and visualised) about slavery to emphasise forced subjugation through the use of the word “enslave” instead of “slave.” The change also pinpoints and highlights the people adversely affected.

Teachers act as sites of knowledge/power – they can make knowledge visible or invisible. Who provides the currency? What are their biographies and agendas?

The teaching of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in enslaved Africans in countries like Trinidad, where the society is composed of descendants of enslaved peoples (Africans) and indentured workers (including East Indians and Chinese), has to be done with a sensitivity to intersections of history, race and power (social power relations between descendants of the enslaved and descendants of indentured labourers) and how these intersections might play out inside and outside the classroom.

Decolonisation efforts have also appeared in the arena of Caribbean education. The Caribbean has long used the General Certificate of Education (GCE), an internationally recognised certification at the high school level. GCE examinations are set by the University of London International Examinations. In Trinidad and Tobago, the internationally recognised Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) is replacing the GCE.

I found two websites germane to the topics of the Caribbean, Education, Enslavement and Emancipation:

Understanding Slavery is an online teaching resource. The site encourages teachers, educators and young people to examine the history and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade through museum artefacts.
Visit: http://www.understandingslavery.com/

Caribbean Histories Revealed is an online exhibition of documents, photographs and maps dating from the 17th century to the 1920s
Visit: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/caribbeanhistory/

Masculinities, Education and Criminal Justice: One-day Symposium at UWI

On June 15, 2007, a one-day research symposium entitled, “Masculinities, Education and Criminal Justice” was hosted by the Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CDGS) at the University of the West Indies (UWI) St Augustine Campus, Trinidad. The event was supported by bpTT. According to Professor Rhoda Reddock, Head of CGDS, the symposium sought to expand public knowledge; to intervene publicly in issues affecting society. Papers presented were preliminary findings of research in progress. Work shared with those in attendance addressed issues of gender in formal education in the Caribbean with some emphasis on masculinities (“the term masculinities,” said Reddock, “refers to different ways of being a man in its simplest sense) and culturally encoded sexual practice and crime.

Among the presenters were Dr Jeanette Morris and Patricia Worrell who looked at Teachers’ Practices in Schools. Their questions under consideration included: “What are the implications of stereotypes/gender expectations for boys being adequately challenged/held accountable/effectively taught?” and “Do teachers’ classroom practices perpetuate or negate gender stereotypes?”

Dr Morris observed that teachers used gender as a tool to manage the classroom; to encourage rivalry. Morris recommended that there needs to be gender priority in Teacher Education.

Dr June George, Departmental Head of the School of Education at UWI addressed Gender Differentials in Educational Achievement in Trinidad and Tobago using a quantitative approach. The study by Dr Jeniffer Mohammed and Carol Keller considered Students’ Experiences of Schooling. Using long conversational interviews as a method, the researchers shared their findings of types of masculinities and femininities in high schools. They mentioned such masculinities as the “Hard Core” boy who is aloof, takes no responsibility and sees all social interactions as needing to show him respect. Other masculinities were the “Popular Guys,” “Nice Boys” and “Spoiled Boys.” The range of femininities included “the Cream of the Crop,” “the Complete Woman” and “the People Person.” The researchers emphasized that these masculinity and femininity types existed along a continuum. They stressed the point that because gender is performed, boys and girls could perform or be different types at different times: “The titles of femininities and masculinities are not nailed down,” said Dr Mohammed.

David Plummer, Commonwealth/UNESCO Regional Professor of Education (Chair in HIV/AIDS) also presented his paper entitled, “Is Learning Taboo and Risk-Taking Compulsory for Caribbean Boys? Researching the Relationship between Masculinities, Education and HIV.” Plummer noted that boys’ performances have declined relatively to the success of girls in Caribbean schools: “Academic achievement seems to be becoming taboo at least for some Caribbean boys,” he declared. Plummer highlighted peer groups as exceeding the authority of any adult in a boy’s life. Plummer observed that the peer group polices the behaviour of boys, sets and passes on standards of masculinity. Plummer looked at boys’ aspirations “to be bad,” peer group obligations and the rise of what he calls “hard masculinity.”

Performing hard masculinity involves anti-social behaviour, crime, anger and aggression, certain authorized speech, a display of sexual prowess usually measured by the number of female sexual partners, and a staying away from what Plummer identifies as “no-go zones.” Plummer explained that showing tenderness was a no-go zone. Academic education was also a no-go zone. Plummer asked the question: “Is boys’ education a casualty of the rise of hard masculinity?” He offered direction to a possible answer by giving the example that “if being safe is seen as sissy then driving a small car at a safe speed […] impairs a man’s masculine status. Therefore, getting an education is something that a real man would not want to do.”

Plummer called for a need to re-associate masculinity with education and academic prowess. He also saw the need for research to engage more fully with peer groups. Many studies on the encoding of masculinities have focused on family and media influences. The peer group has been underestimated said Plummer. “Research should turn to peer groups to see dynamics between gender and education through to crime and disease patterns,” he added.

From Pleasure Zone to Terror Zone

How does the Caribbean go from being a place that stirs up visions of an innocuous paradise to a place that conjures up panic?

In his article entitled, “Terrorized by ‘War on Terror:’ How a Three-Word Mantra has Undermined America” published March 25, 2007 (washingtonpost.com), Zbigniew Brzezinski observes that the phrase “war on terror” is intrinsically meaningless. On its own, states Brzezinski, the phrase “defines neither geographic context nor [the] presumed enemies” of the United States of America. After all, “terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare,” writes Brzezinski. Zbigniew Brzezinski observes vagueness in the phrase – a lack of specificity.

However, words are always given assignments. They exist in contexts and become charged with power.

When Russell Defreitas – a Guyanese-born American citizen – along with two other Guyanese men and a Trinidadian were arrested in June 2007 for their alleged plot to blow up John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport, the haze cleared; the vagueness of the phrase: “war on terror” dissipated to reveal a clear definition of place – a very precise geographic context.

According to a statement by a federal law enforcement official published in the June 3 article entitled, “Alleged Plot: A Potential Threat seen in America’s Backyard” by Los Angeles Times staff writer Josh Meyer, the war on terror once implied a war against the geographical locations of the Middle East and South Asia. Yet, with the recent alleged plot to blow up JFK, the phrase “war on terror” could now be assigned to everywhere on the globe – everywhere, that is, outside the United States of America. Meyer quotes the official:

“…we need to be looking at areas of the world that have not been viewed by the general public as a terror threat […the alleged plot to blow up JFK] shows that the threat can come from anywhere. It is not just limited to the Middle East or South Asia.”

In the “war on terror” everywhere beyond the United States of America is suspect soil – and by extension every outsider is a potential enemy.

The United States of America seems to be in a relationship with the rest of the world – a relationship in which, for the U.S., the “Other” is hardly significant.

REFERENCES:

“Terrorized by ‘War on Terror:’ How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America”
by Zbigniew Brzezinski

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301613.html

“Alleged Plot: A Potential threat seen in America’s Backyard” by Josh Meyer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jam3jun03,0,1581219.story?coll=la-home-center

Sexual Identity, the Law and all that Jazz

The Plymouth (Tobago) Jazz Festival was held from April 27 – 29, 2007. Sir Elton John was the event’s headlined performer. Yet, while other artistes like Mary J. Blige and Diana Ross were able to enter Trinidad and Tobago without controversy, Sir Elton was given a special permit to allow him entry to the islands. Race was not the issue here, rather, it was Sir Elton’s self-definition: “gay,” that prompted the need for a pass.

The coming of Sir Elton John was a trigger for fire and brimstone from the pulpits of Tobago-based Christian pastors who sought to keep him out of Eden (the Caribbean has been and still is represented as an Edenic paradise) for he had “fallen” in their eyes; he had eaten of the forbidden fruit; Sir Elton had tasted sexual behaviour that went against heteronormative practices.

According to the Trinidad and Tobago Express Newspaper dated May 10, 2007, the group of pastors cited Section 8 (E) of the Prohibition Class of the Immigration Act. As specified by the Act, the following are persons who should not be allowed to enter Trinidad and Tobago:

“…Prostitutes, homosexuals or persons living on the earnings of prostitutes or homosexuals, or persons reasonably suspected as coming to Trinidad and Tobago for these and any other immoral purposes…”

Sir Elton John’s special permit was granted based on a recommendation by Chief Immigration Officer Herman Browne. The permit would overrule the Prohibition Class of the Immigration Act by allowing Sir Elton John entry at a particular time for the purpose of performing at the jazz festival. Although the permit did not make reference to his sexual orientation, Sir Elton implicitly received a “gay pass.”

It seems Trinidad and Tobago has cherubim in the form of Christian pastors coupled with certain legislation that act as a flaming sword, to regulate sexuality:

“He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24 NKJV).

REFERENCES:
“Elton got ‘special permit’ for jazz fest”
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article?id=161143888

The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Thomas Nelson Inc. 1982

“Man” is a homo (-nym): Female-biased morphology in dancehall homophobilect

I am compelled by the title of this piece to quickly dispel any notion that I use the morpheme (the smallest linguistic unit of meaning which cannot be further subdivided into meaningful units) “homo” in a pejorative sense or to display a heterosexual bias. It is not my aim to support and perpetuate any negative stereotypes associated with the word “homosexuality.” Yet, this piece is hinged on the persistent semantic link between the morphemes “man” and “homo.” “Man” has been understood as the generic word for all humans. Man is “homo,” that genus to which all present-day humans belong. “Man” as Homo sapien (knowing man) is Latin in origin. However, “man” has another connotation. In the contemporary Jamaican dancehall arena “man” has become loaded with a different meaning: that of gay men’s experiences or male-male sexual behaviour. The Greek “homos” or “same” is bound up in this understanding of man as homosexual. The word “man” is, therefore, a “homo”nym: a word having the same pronunciation and spelling as another word but differing in meaning and origin. An underscoring of “homo” becomes necessary, not as a truncated, derogatory slang term, but as a way into the following brief look at what I have termed a “homophobilect” and a “supra-masculine identity.”

Gender and gender relations are encoded in linguistic representation. Through language, social identities are created, promoted or negated. Words like “fireman,” “workman,” “freshman,” “chairman,” “manpower” and “mankind” are exclusive. Such words marginalise women and render women invisible in language. Much work has been done by feminists and others to reduce male-bias in the English language; to make the language gender-neutral or gender-inclusive. In an article dated October 10, 2006 from The Jamaica Star Online, entitled “Watch What You Say” (http://www.jamaica-star.com/thestar/20061010/ent/ent1.html accessed October 13, 2006) reporter Teino Evans exposes the transformation of language among Jamaican dancehall artistes. Evans observes that words that are in any way suggestive of a man are altered. Instead of “manager,” the word “galiger” is used. Rather than “Manchester,” the word “gyalbreasta” must be uttered (Evans records that it is wrong to say “gyalchester as the word “chest” implies “man” while the word “breast” is automatically linked to “woman”). What Evans has documented hints at what I call a “homophobilect” – an emerging variety of specialised words used by homophobic Jamaican male dancehall artistes to assert a “supra-masculine identity.” This identity intersects with the axis of desire. The homophobilect is used to construct a subject position for men that gives emphasis and power to male-female desire. Notably, it is a female-biased morphology that is used to advance a masculine identity that is positioned above (hence “supra”) identities that are expressed in male-male desire. Female-biased morphology is used here to decrease gay male visibility.

REFERENCES: Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall. “Theorizing Identity in Language and Sexuality Research.” Language in Society 33:4 (2004) 469-515.

Sims, Andrea D. “Language and Gender.” An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture (2004). Accessed Oct 13, 2006 .

Helios' Place invented

In 2006, I participated in Hype for the second time. Hype is a creative platform funded by Hewlett-Packard for artists and film-makers from around the world. Hype exists as an exhibition set up in a gallery space in a major city. Hype also exists as an online gallery allowing participants to upload their artwork to a website. There is just one rule. The title of each artwork must contain the letters "H" and "P," in that order. The 2006 Hype exhibition was held from October 28 to Nov 18, in Berlin (visit http://www.hypegallery.de/). I submitted my piece entitled "HELIOS' PLACE INVENTED."

This mixed media work is a visual comment about the Caribbean as a constructed place within tourism discourse. The sun is a prominent image in the representation and marketing of the Caribbean as an idyllic, warm, always happy place. However, the reality of everyday life in the region is one that is not always replete with “sunny” experiences. The Caribbean, then, becomes an invented place: Helios’ (the sun god) place. The work incorporates such bits of actual text from travel magazines as: “Come and discover the ultimate escape, someplace where the people are happy, where the sun will embrace you…A paradise;” “sunsational recreation;” “perpetual summer” and “hot island.” The hp logo and Hewlett-Packard’s tagline “invent,” are included in this mixed media work to make my statement.

"Crossroads" comes to the Caribbean

The International Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference will be held in the Caribbean for the first time. The event is the official conference of the Association for Cultural Studies (ACS). In 2008, the 7th conference will take place in Jamaica at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus, from July 3 to 7. Crossroads is hosted by the UWI Cultural Studies Initiative which is headed by the Vice Chancellor Emeritus Professor Rex Nettleford. Conference coordinator is Dr Sonjah Stanley-Niaah.

The International Crossroads conferences were started in 1996. The event occurs every two years. Conferences have been held in Finland, the UK, the USA and Turkey. The word "Crossroads" reflects the nature of Cultural Studies as a meeting place for various disciplines. The theme of the 2008 conference is "Of Sacred Crossroads." Visit http://www.crossroads2008.org for more information.

Sweet Identity

Can a soft drink quench a thirst for who we are? "Soca" is a line of beverages produced by Demerara Distillers Limited of Guyana (http://www.demrum.com/beverages/soca.cfm). The labels read: "Soca...who we are."









Soca is also a type of music created by Afro-Trinidadian artiste Ras Shorty I and Arranger Ed Watson. In the 1970s, Ras Shorty I and Watson used "calypso" – a primarily Afro-Trinidadian music genre – to produce a musical form that reflected East Indian culture. Soca music has a faster tempo, with lyrics that drive party revelers and build the energy of Carnival. In contrast, Calypso – also enjoying an important role in Carnival – emphasises lyrical content and has been a forceful medium for socio-political commentary.

Later, much more "Indianness" was incorporated into the Soca genre with the emergence of the "Chutney-Soca" hybrid – a hybrid that flourished in places like Trinidad and Guyana, where the East Indian population is great. Chutney is a transplanted folk-style music originally performed by Hindu women before weddings to prepare the bride-to-be for her role as wife. The songs were often sung in Bhojpuri. Chutney was later performed outside wedding events and was soon combined with Soca to create a form that featured Hindi and English lyrics as well as Indian musical instruments. Soca and Chutney-Soca competitions are held today.

For Guyana, Demerara Distillers Limited has bottled the sparkle and "excitement" of a genre that has been flavoured in the past with African and Indian elements. Yet, issues of cultural pluralism and representation surface with the mention of the word "soca" in Trinidad and Tobago. In 2006, the Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) football team – called the SOCA WARRIORS – made it to the World Cup for the first time. Now officially on the world stage, the team's name became a topic of debate. The T&T society challenged the football team's moniker with newspaper articles and letters reflecting mixed perspectives: Some people felt that the team needed to be called the "Chutney-Soca" or "Soca-Chutney" Warriors to give visibility to East Indians and promote national unity; others observed that the word "soca" already implied a fusion of genres. One writer also commented that "chutney" was more readily known globally as a condiment rather than a music genre and therefore, to include the word would bring confusion rather than recognition.

Does the word "soca" truly resonate with the notion of a collective?

I cannot speak for Guyana, but in Trinidad and Tobago "soca" may be consumed with all its carbonation – the bubbling mixture of ethnicities/races amd sound styles – while for some members of the society, "soca" is an identity without the fizz.

REFERENCES: Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music From Rumba to Reggae by Peter Manuel with Kenneth Bilby and Michael Largey. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2006.

Chutney already part of Soca. http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-01-16/jacob.html

Add Chutney to Soca Warriors. http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-01-27/letters.html

No Need for Chutney in Name. http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-01-30/letters.html

Chutney only a Sauce to Others. http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-02-03/letters.html

Of Stars and Stripes: The Colours of We

We – in the Caribbean – are making strides in the arenas of marketing, intellectual property rights and the battle against piracy. On February 6, 2007, TriniHits.com (http://media.trinihits.com/) was formally launched in Trinidad. The website, which is recognised by the Copyright Music Organisation of Trinidad and Tobago (COTT), is positioned as “Your #1 Source for Caribbean Music.” It provides sanctioned access to the region’s tunes by allowing you to buy MP3 file formats of your favourite singles. So far, the works of Calypso and Soca stars like Becket of St Vincent, Shurwayne Winchester of Tobago, Machel Montano, Destra and Denise Belfon of Trinidad along with Alison Hinds, Rupee and Edwin Yearwood of Barbados are now available for purchase, one song at a time, in a virtual music store – an enticingly legal alternative to in-store purchases of entire albums. Yet, TriniHits.com draws our attention to more than the issues of copyright and financial returns for creative output. The new website also brings the issue of representation into sharp focus – that is, how we, as Trinidadians, are represented on the one hand and how we, as Caribbean people, are represented on the other.

The site bears three stripes – across the top of its pages – in the colours red, yellow and green.









Why are these colours chosen for a site called “Trini” Hits.com when the colours of the flag of Trinidad and Tobago are red, white and black?














Why have the colours red, yellow and green been used as a banner for a website that promotes “Caribbean” music? To attempt to find answers to these questions, we must delve a little into the details of the land of Ethiopia and the island of Jamaica.

The colours red, yellow and green belong to the national flag of Ethiopia – the only African nation that was not colonised by Europeans (except for a brief occupation by the Italians). The colours, then, together have come to symbolise independence. One version of the Ethiopian flag featured the emblem of a Lion of Judah.



This version of the flag, with the Lion emblem, has flown high over the Rastafari movement (a movement which emerged in Jamaica among an oppressed people) for, in Rastafari, “The Lion of Judah” represents His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, the former and last emperor of Ethiopia; the Jah or Black messiah who would lead his people to emancipation and justice. The Rastafari movement spread throughout the world – its transmission aided by an interest in Reggae music and Jamaican artiste Bob Marley. Indeed, Rastafarianism in particular and Jamaican culture in general, have occupied a conspicuous place on the world stage – Jamaican language, food, music have penetrated socio-cultural spaces around the globe. “Jamaican things” are quickly recognised. The colours red, yellow and green immediately conjur up images of an island paradise, exotic dreadlocks and notions of freedom/of escape from the snares of modern society (or Babylon). “Jamaican things” resonate globally with “all things Caribbean.” Jamaica seems to have become a synecdochal sign for the English-Speaking Caribbean – that is, the island of Jamaica is one part that represents the whole. When I travel outside the Caribbean region and people hear my accent and I tell them I am from Trinidad, I am still asked: “Where in Jamaica is that?”

Should Jamaica speak for Trinidad? Should Jamaica speak for the Caribbean?

Now, let us assume that the red, yellow and green stripes on the TriniHits.com website do not reflect Jamaica as a master signifier of the Caribbean. What, then, could the three colours represent? Red, yellow and green together are also strong symbolic colors of Pan-Africanism. Again, we as Trinidadians; we as Caribbean people are represented in a way that includes some and excludes others. What about the East Indian, Chinese, Syrian and Caucasian peoples found in the society of Trinidad and Tobago? What about the other races/ethnicities to be found in the region? And, what about the politics of representation involved between Trinidad and Tobago. Let us not forget that Trinidad and Tobago are two islands which are regarded as a twin island Republic. Debates about the visibility of Tobago at the level of citizenship has led many to question whether we should be called “Trinis” because we are born in Trinidad, “Tobagonians” if our birth place is Tobago or whether “Trinbagonians” (a term sometimes used) is a more appropriate descriptor. Should TriniHits.com be “TrinbagoHits.com”? This new website makes much visible to the world but it also leaves a lot invisible.

2007 Conferences

1. Obscenity: An Obermann Center Humanities Symposium
The University of Iowa
March 1-4, 2007
Topics for consideration include:
How do definitions of obscenity vary across cultures and historical periods?
What is the relation between verbal and visual instances of obscenity?
To what degree is religion implicated in definitions of obscenity?
Visit: www.uiowa.edu/obermann/obscenity

2. The 26th Annual West Indian Literature Conference
The College of the Bahamas, Oakes Field Campus, Nassau, Bahamas
March 8-10, 2007
Theme: Horizons
This conference asks the question: How are horizons manifested in Caribbean literature, culture and art?
Topics for consideration include: Memory, Trauma & History; Displacement & Disjunctions; Caribbean Mythologies; Gender Legends, Filmic Ventures; Travel & Transculturation
Visit: www.cob.edu.bs/

3. INTER: A European Cultural Studies Conference in Sweden
Hosted by the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden in collaboration with the European branch of the Association for Cultural Studies
June 11-13, 2007
Issues considered include:
Spatial Internationalisation; Temporal Interepochality; Organisational Interdisciplinarity; Intertextuality; Intermediality; Interactivity and Intersectionality

4. Interdisciplinary Conference on Theory Faith Culture
Cardiff Wales
July 3-6, 2007
Topics for consideration include: Theorising Belief; Race & Religion; Fundamentalism; Atheism; Religion & Colonialism; Religion & Sexuality; Religion & Emancipation; Islam in the West

5. Cultural Studies Now: An International Conference
Docklands Campus, University of East London
July 19-22, 2007
This conference asks the questions: "Has Cultural Studies been expanded, relocated and disseminated to the point where it no longer has a coherent identity? Is there a future for Cultural Studies as such?"
Topics for consideration include: Cultural Studies & Its Disciplinary Neighbours; Cultural Studies & Creative Practice; Cultural Studies in the Public Sphere; Cultural Studies & National Contexts.
Keynote speakers include Ien Ang, Horace Ove, Stuart Hall, Dick Hebdige, Mitra Tabrizian, Judith Halberstam and Doreen Massey.
Visit: www.uel.ac.uk/culturalstudiesnow

6. Women, Gender and the Cultural Production of Knowledge
Conference of the International Federation for Research in Women's History
Hosted by the University of Sofia, St Kliment, Bulgaria
August 8-12, 2007
Interests include: How cultural memory operates and the gender of that memory; the social and cultural production of women and gender in history; how gender, race, ethnicity, class and age play roles in the process of cultural production, transmission and consumption of knowledge.
Visit: www.ifrwh-bulgaria2007.org

7. Public Views of the Private; Private Views of the Public
Conference of the International Visual Sociology Association
New York University, New York, USA
August 10-12, 2007
Topics include: Visual media in public and private; Changing borders between the public and private; Social Conflict and Fear; Terrorism as a public catastrophe; Gender and sexuality, Surveillance and invasion of private and public space; Cinematic representations; Built environments; The body in the arts and science.
Visit: www.visualsociology.org/conference.html

8. Beyond the Book: Contemporary Cultures of Reading
A Conference at the University of Birmingham, UK
September 1-2, 2007
Topics for consideration include: Reading as a form of popular culture; Books and reading as cultural events; Reading as a medium of/for social change; Reading and the State; The production of readers and/or reading.
Visit: www.beyondthebookproject.org

9. E/Im/Migration and Culture
Isik University, Sile, Istanbul Turkey
Organised by the Cultural Studies Association (Turkey) and the Department of International Relations of Isik University
September 15-17, 2007
This conference intends to examine issues of migration in Turkey, among the peoples in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, among the Euro-Turks (and Turkish-Americans, Australasian Turks) among the Turcophone peoples in countries and regions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and those Turcophone minorities in such countries as Iran and China. Topics for consideration include: The identity of the “e/im/migrant;” Psychological dimensions of e/im/migration; E/Im/Migration and Memory: Remembering & Forgetting; Deleuze and Guattari’s “nomadology” as applied to the cultures of Turks/Turkey; Art/Literature/Cinema generated by e/im/migration; Immigrant music: arabesk, kanak, rap in Turkey; Turkish citizens & visa regimes; Seasonal e/im/migration; Effects of immigration in the urban space; Assimilation & integration policies of the State; Deportation, termination of citizenship; Flight to the sun: The pull of seaside towns and its effects.

10. What's the Matter? Cultural Studies and The Question of Urgency
Canadian Association of Cultural Studies
National Conference, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
October 25-28, 2007
This conference considers: How do theoretical, political, methodological. pedagogical and ethical insights of cultural studies assist us in facing what is urgent – what presses on us for thinking otherwise? How are such insights productive for thinking about who and what matters (drawing attention to who and what is constituted as not-mattering)? Who speaks "as" cultural studies – making claims on whom, about whom and with what effects? What might be urgent for cultural studies to face?
Visit: www.culturalstudies.ca/english/eng_newsconferences.htm

11. Professionally Speaking: Qualitative Research and the Professions
Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Hosted by the Association for Qualitative Research
November 13-14, 2007
This conference considers: How is qualitative research done by professionals, in and out of the academic context? How has professional practice changed as a result of using qualitative research? How has academic and other qualitative research diverged?
Visit: www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr