Description

This interdisciplinary study examines the cultural and historical significance of the Jamaican Anansi folktales.

Anansi the spider is the trickster folk hero West African slaves transported to the Caribbean, who symbolises key aspects of Afro-Caribbean culture and is celebrated as a vital link with an African past. Anansi stories, in which the small spider turns the tables on his powerful enemies through cunning and trickery, are now told and published worldwide.

Anansi survived a cultural metamorphosis and came to symbolise the resistance of the Jamaican people. This original book examines Anansi's roots in Ghana, details the changes Anansi underwent during the Middle Passage and his potential for inspiring tactics of resistance in a plantation context, and analyses Anansi's role in postcolonial Jamaica, illustrating how he is interpreted as a symbol of individualism and celebrated as an emblem of resistance.

With its broad historical sweep, tracing Anansi from Ghana through to his contested position in contemporary Jamaica, this book makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about whether the slave trade transmitted or destroyed the culture of the enslaved.

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The earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010 thrust the nation into the public consciousness as never before. There is now an unprecedented empathy for and interest in Haiti, and a related need for information on Haitian reality, beyond the clichés often associated with the nation. In particular, there is a special interest in the earthquake and the questions of Haitis future development. Haiti Rising responds to this public interest and has three fundamental aims: to raise awareness of Haiti, its people, culture and history; to allow some who were in Haiti during the earthquake a chance to testify.

The book brings together more than twenty essays written by some of the most prominent authorities on Haiti, and offers insights on the political, social and historical contexts, as well as the uniquely rich culture of the nation. The first part features survivor testimonies  moving accounts of the earthquake and its aftermath written by authors and academics, Haitian nationals and foreign visitors. The second part presents essays on economics, politics, society and culture (music, religion, visual art), and the ways in which they are interrelated in history and in contemporary life. The third section focuses on the history of Haiti from colonial times to the present and shows the ways in which history has shaped Haitian society. It shows how colonial class and colour structures have persisted, how the revolution has shaped subsequent political, cultural and social structures, and how the legacy of the Duvalier dictatorship has lingered. The final section features contributors who were not in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, but who have strong ties to Haiti. These authors write about their personal connections to Haiti, their reactions to the earthquake, and their hopes and recommendations for reconstruction.

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If any doubt still remains, the story of Trinidad and Tobago will dispel the last illusion that money and technical assistance alone can launch a new nation in the world community. The Mechanics of Independence probes the interplay of political and social factors on national development with both commitment and detachment. The author, who is President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is also a political scientist whose perceptions have been sharpened by the demands of his office. As a background for economic reforms and a new constitution, the author traces the political development of the colony under Spanish and British imperial rule, discussing the origin and evolution of the idea that led to the rise of nationalism. Valuable and practical information, supported by charts and statistics, explains how Trinidad and Tobago devised measures to cope with a legacy of economic problems, the tax structure, monetary policy, and international trade following its independence from Great Britain in 1962. The text is a compelling portrait of developmental efforts and a case study of the economic, cultural, and political problems that developing nations faced during the twentieth century and provides historical background for those nations who are facing the mounting challenges inherent in globalization. Originally published in 1971 by the Massasuchetss Institute of Technology Press, this seminal work is as timely today as when it was first published.

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Gendered Realities is an interdisciplinary reader that situates the present understanding of Caribbean feminist scholarship after fifteen years of indepth and increasingly sophisticated research. The book provides a space for scholars to put forward new and challenging ideas and attempts to encourage new contributors to intellectual thought in the Caribbean. The essays deal with diverse and rich topics including the role of women in Caribbean art and the visual grammars of gender in early Caribbean painting as well as the development of women's history and gendered history in relation to the historiography of the English-speaking Caribbean. Other essays probe the representation of masculinity in Caribbean feminist thought, gender and adult sexuality, and symbols of masculinity in visual art. Of interest to scholars in gender studies, women's studies, minority studies, and Caribbean history and culture.

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This volume is an account of the development and destruction of slavery in St Thomas, St John and St Croix, the Caribbean islands which today comprise the US Virgin Islands. The book sees slavery as fundamental to the entire fabric of colonial society, and pays particular attention to the social and political life of the whites and freedmen in interaction with the slaves. The Danish West Indian colonies contained a small but significant part of the slave population of the Caribbean. Each of the islands had a distinct history during the period of slavery: St Croix was the scene of a full-blown sugar plantation economy; St Thomas served as a major entrepot, with a small plantation sector and a large role in the transatlantic slave trade; St John developed as a plantation economy, but for various reasons the slaves came to engage in relatively independent economic activity. Resistance to slavery was persistent, with important rebellions occurring in St John and St Croix. Although Denmark was the first European nation to abolish the slave trade, emancipation did not come until 1848, so that the gap between abolition and emancipation was longer than in most territories. Thus, the study of slave society in the Danish West Indies has much to tell about the nature of Caribbean history generally. Based on extensive research in the Copenhagen archives, this book makes an original contribution to the understanding of slave societies throughout the Americas.

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These plenary lectures from the Global Reggae conference convened at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica in 2008 eloquently exemplify the breadth and depth of current scholarship on Jamaican popular music. Radiating from the Jamaican centre, these illuminating essays highlight the glocalization of reggae  its global dispersal and adaptation in diverse local contexts of consumption and transformation.

The languages of Jamaican popular music, both literal and metaphorical, are first imitated in pursuit of an undeniable originality. Over time, as the music is indigenized, the Jamaican model loses its authority to varying degrees. The revolutionary ethos of reggae music is translated into local languages that articulate the particular politics of new cultural contexts. Echoes of the Jamaican source gradually fade. But new hybrid sounds return to their Jamaican origins, engendering polyvocal, cross-cultural dialogue.

From the inter/disciplinary perspectives of historical sociology, musicology, history, media studies, literature, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, the creative/cultural industries and, above all, the metaphorical life sciences, the contributors to this definitive volume lucidly articulate a cultural politics that acknowledges the far-reaching creativity of small-islanders with ancestral memories of continents of origin.

The globalisation of reggae music and its wild child dancehall is, indeed, an affirmation of the unquantifiable potential of the Jamaican people to reclaim identities and establish ties of affiliation that are not circumscribed by the Caribbean Sea: To the world!