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Rihanna is arguably the most commercially successful Caribbean artist in history. She is Barbadian and has been unwavering in publicly articulating her national and regional belongings. Still, there have been varied responses to Rihannas ascendancy, both in the Barbadian public and Caribbean community at large  responses that reveal as much about our own national/regional anxieties as they do about the artist herself. The cutting edge, boundary-transgressing, cultural icon Rihanna is certainly subject to moralistic scrutiny from her global audiences as well; however, the essays in this collection purposely seek to de-centre the dominance of the Euro-American gaze, focusing instead on considerations of the Caribbean artist and her oeuvre from a Caribbean postcolonial corpus of academic inquiry. To this end, Rihanna: Barbados World Gurl in Global Popular Culture brings together U.S. and Caribbean based scholars to discuss issues of class, gender, sexuality, race, culture, and economy.

Using the concept of diasporic citizenship as a central theoretical frame, this book intervenes in current questions of national and transnational circuits of exchange as they pertain to the commoditization and movement of culture, knowledge, values, and identity. The contributors- drawing from literature, history, musicology, sociology, cultural studies, feminist, gender, and queer studies, the creative/cultural industries and political science - approach the subjects of Rihanna, globalization, gender and sexuality, commerce, transnationalism, Caribbean regionalism, and Barbadian national identity and development, from different disciplinary and at times radically divergent perspectives. At the same time, the essays collectively work through the limitations, possibilities and promise of our best Caribbean imaginings.

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Hyacinth Evans' detailed case study of a Jamaican high school, formerly known as a junior secondary high school, breaks new ground. Her research demonstrates the continuing education problem encountered by students and teachers in a two-tiered educational system. The case study is an excellent example of the legacy of colonialism still evident in schooling processes in many of the former British colonies in the south (for example, countries in the Caribbean, Africa and India). Evans provides several solutions for the transformation of schools as places for learning and character development.