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This book brings together contributions from a broad spectrum of authors on the most challenging issue for the Caribbean - against the dominating efforts of European colonizers and their descendants, the long-standing struggle of Caribbean people to fashion a culture and society that would give full space to the African heritage of the majority while accommodating their new and evolving circumstances. The book presents contemporary readings that contestation in the areas of Caribbean religion, education, language, music, race, sexual behavior in a time of the AIDS pandemic, and the economy. It grew out of a conference held in 2006 in honor of the scholarship of internationally acclaimed Professor Alston Barrington Chevannes, professor of social anthropology at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. This book is unique, therefore, in both the breadth of its focus and range of topics as well as the specific issues considered, most essays being useful case studies in particular fields. The geographical span includes Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, indeed the Caribbean as a whole. There is perhaps no other publication with such an aim, range and relevance. The theme of a Caribbean world view makes this book a pioneering contribution to Caribbean studies. The collection also contains an autobiographical essay by Professor Chevannes.

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The Earliest Inhabitants"" aims to promote Jamaican Tainan archaeology and highlight the diverse research conducted on the island's prehistoric sites and artefacts. Of the fourteen papers in this volume, six are reprints of seminal articles that are not widely available and eight are based on recent archaeological research. The chapters are organized by thematic divisions that reflect the most important areas of research: Assessment and Excavations of Taino Sites looks at the various archaeological investigations across the island; Taino Exploitation of the Natural Resources examines how the Tainos took advantage of the natural environment to fulfil their needs; Analysis of Taino Archaeological Data highlights research conducted on various artefacts; and Taino Art Forms focuses specifically on evidence of Taino cave art and its impact on the interpretation of the Jamaican Taino livelihood. In her introduction, Lesley-Gail Atkinson explains, ""Jamaican prehistory is regarded as one of the least studied Caribbean disciplines. That is not necessarily the case; the fact is that published Jamaican archaeological research has not had sufficient international circulation. This has resulted in misconceptions about lack of scope, research activities and information on the Jamaican Tainos."" This volume seeks to redress this lack: invaluable in its own right as a collection of distinguished scholarship, ""The Earliest Inhabitants"" is remarkable, too, for being the first compilation on the Jamaican Tainos since 1897. This collection will appeal to a wide audience of archaeologists, historians, students of archaeology and anyone interested in Jamaica's history and archaeology.

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In this remarkable exploration of the brutal course of Barbadoss history, Hilary McD. Beckles details the systematic barbarism of the British colonial project. Trade in enslaved Africans was not new in the Americas in the seventeenth century  the Portuguese and Spanish had commercialized chattel slavery in Brazil and Cuba in the 1500s  but in Barbados, the practice of slavery reached its apotheosis.

Barbados was the birthplace of British slave society and the most ruthlessly colonized. The geography of Barbados was ideally suited to sugar plantations and there were enormous fortunes to be made for British royalty and ruling elites from sugar produced by an enslaved, disposable workforce, fortunes that secured Britains place as an imperial superpower. The inhumane legacy of plantation society has shaped modern Barbados and this history must be fully understood by the inheritors on both sides of the power dynamic before real change and reparatory justice can take place.

A prequel to Beckless equally compelling Britains Black Debt, The First Black Slave Society: Britains Barbarity Time in Barbados, 16361876 is essential reading for anyone interested in Atlantic history, slavery and the plantation system, and modern race relations.

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This edited collection brings together the work of scholars in the field of Caribbean literary and linguistic study. Its genesis was the University of the West Indies 2011 commemorative conference in honour of recently retired professors Bridget Brereton, Barbara Lalla and Ian Robertson. This volume engages the seminal work done by Lalla and Robertson with focus on their contributions to theoretical constructs, original data collection and analysis, and the formation of a Caribbean-based ethos.

The rich deliberations demanded fuller development and preservation and Reassembling the Fragments answers that call. Part 1, Tributes and Critical Appraisals, engages the ground-breaking work of the eminent professors with a focus on originality, scope and impact on subsequent knowledge creation. Part 2 presents the contributions of scholars whose thought has been influenced by their incisive concepts, paradigms and methodologies.

The collection responds to the ongoing archaeological imperative of unearthing and reassembling fragments of voice and identity. It adds to the multigenerational project of naming and fashioning the diverse island cultures of the Caribbean and offers yet another shard of honour, duty and love.

Contributors: MarÌa Landa Buil, Niala Dwarika-Bhagat, Karen Eccles, Michelle Gill, Barbara Lalla, Nivedita Misra, Paula Morgan, Velma Pollard, Jennifer Rahim, Ian Robertson, Lise Winer, Donald Winford, Marsha Winter, Valerie Youssef

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Beyond Borders"" is a multidisciplinary collection of essays with a focus on contemporary issues in Caribbean cultural studies. Culture and cultural identification are without a doubt highly charged political Goliaths with local and global ramifications. This is one of the reasons for the virtual boom the discipline has enjoyed, and the Caribbean is no exception. As a result, there is a growing demand for information in the field for both research and teaching purposes. The essays in this collection provide such a resource. They explore cross-cultural themes and issues across a range of disciplines that include literature, language, education, history and popular culture. They will interest a broad cross-section of regional and international readers, including a wide range of scholars, professional teachers, students and members of the general public wishing to understand the complex dynamics of Caribbean culture. The issues of cultural survival and negotiation with which most of these essays deal, serve to foreground a history of domination, resistance and marvelous transformations within and beyond the borders of this archipelago. It is no longer possible to pass culture off as simply a matter of commonalities, interests and values, as if politics and power were innocent of influencing what gets defined and consumed as culture. ""Beyond Borders: Cross-culturalism and the Caribbean Canon"" offers a forum for contemporary debates on Caribbean culture in its ongoing process of evolution.

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Jamaican place names range from the commonplace to the bizarre. Densely distributed across the map of the island, they not only intrigue the visitor and the resident but also provide clues to Jamaica's past landscapes and its social and economic history. Written from a historical and geographical perspective by two authors with an intimate knowledge of the island, this book presents an entirely new approach to the study of Jamaican place names. Maps and other sources dating from the earliest years of European contact to the twenty-first century are used to compile a data base of over 20,000 names. Analysis provides clues to the culture and national origins of the dominant planter population who were the major name-givers but also include many names with distinctive Jamaican 'creole' meanings. Today, Kingston, May Pen, Rio Bueno, Me No Sen You No Come, George's Plain Mountain and Content, names derived from a variety of sources, are all equally Jamaican and equally fascinating. ""Jamaican Place Names"" is written for both the scholar and the general reader with an interest in the island's landscapes and history.

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In the introduction to Methods in Caribbean Research, the editors ask, What sets the Caribbean apart and justifies an application of scholarly method to its own needs? What defines the world of Caribbean letters? Why not merely apply established approaches to scholarship that work satisfactorily in Western metropoles?

The chapters in this collection address these pressing questions and make a unique contribution to the available guides for Caribbean scholars and students of Caribbean studies both inside and outside the region.

The authors consider the distinctive needs of research in Caribbean literature, language and culture and focus on honing research methods relevant to Caribbean material and with the insights of the Caribbean experience.

The essays in the first part, Research Methodology, examine conceptual frames, data collection, and application and analysis of research. The second part details the research process, from proposal to proofreading. Throughout, the authors emphasise a Caribbean approach that is engaged with and aware of a range of existing theories but does not uncritically adopt external frameworks that are inadequate for a rounded Caribbean critical practice.

Contributors: Jean Antoine-Dunne, Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick, Merle Hodge, Barbara Lalla, Paula Morgan, Jennifer Rahim, Nicole Roberts, Louis Regis, Jairo Sánchez-Galvis, Geraldine Skeete, Glenroy Taitt, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Valerie Youssef.

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Citizenship Under Pressure: The 1970s in Jamaican Literature and Culture is the first book-length study of the interaction of culture, politics and society in Jamaicas formative postcolonial moment, the years between 1972 and 1980.

Through examining literary and other texts from and about the period, Rachel Mordecai argues that the 1970s were defined by the explosion into the public sphere of a long-simmering dispute over the substance and limits of Jamaican citizenship, in which citizenship claims and counter-claims were advanced and contested via the symbolic deployment and re-configuration of race, class, and gender identities.