Caribbean Languages and Societies Commons^™

A Música Na Tradição Indígena Wai Wai, Roque Yaxikma Wai Wai, Ruben Caixeta De Queiroz

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Este trabalho trata da história da música na tradição do povo indígena wai wai, um grupo de língua caribe da região guianense. A pesquisa se passa entre os Wai Wai do rio Mapuera (norte do Pará), tendo como foco os conhecimentos de anciãos e as músicas antigas que eles conhecem. Aqui tratamos da definição do que é música e instrumento musical para os Wai Wai, quem pode e quem não pode tocar e/ou ouvir música. Descrevemos as histórias dos lugares antigos de habitação dos Wai Wai, onde moravam outrora, no rio Baracuxi (Kikwo), os nomes das aldeias e os nomes …

Food, Memory, And Cuban Society: Unraveling Trauma, Traditions, And Future Imaginaries In Havana, Mallory Cerkleski

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper delves into the intricate interplay of food scarcity and memory in contemporary Havana, Cuba, drawing on a period of immersive fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2022. Situating itself amidst the lived experiences of diverse Cubans, the study examines the enduring impact of historical challenges, particularly the Special Period, on present-day perceptions and experiences. Employing an oral history methodology rooted in collective memory theory, the research explores how food serves as a potent medium for encapsulating past experiences and shaping future imaginaries. Through oral narratives spanning from 1941 to 2022, the paper uncovers diverse memories and emotions associated …

Bittersweet Spirits: Transnational Food Memory And The Persistent Production Of Non-Mainstream Alcohol In Trinidad, Shrinagar Indra Francis

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Whether we perceive the process of food leaving its mark on our culture as a function of genetic or collective memory, or a combination, informs the ways we interrogate the continued existence of these foods and their practices across time and landscapes. Within the postcolonial context, the process of re-embodiment is an inherently bittersweet one in that it comes as a consequence of loss and rupture and is motivated by a desire to be remade. Prior to colonialism, the production of alcohol was a profound aspect of the lives of the many peoples of West and West-Central Africa. Descendants of …

Interviews In Global Catholicism: Dr. Petra Kuivala, Petra Kuivala

Journal of Global Catholicism

Interview with Dr. Petra Kuivala, University of Eastern Finland

Lo Afrocubano: Exploring Afro-Cuban Culture In Music, Literature, & Art, Pre- & Post-Cuban Revolution, Grace Maffucci

Foreign Language Student Scholarship

Grace Maffucci ’22
Majors: Music Performance and Spanish
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Monica Simal, Foreign Language Studies

After the abolition of slavery in Cuba in 1886, Black Cubans struggled for equality and a place in a White-dominated society. The twentieth century brought about a deeper exploration of Afro-Cuban culture and identity through several forms of art. Despite the promise of racial equality guaranteed by Fidel Castro at the dawn of the Cuban Revolution, conversations about racial identity were silenced. This study delves into the music, literature, and art of twentieth century Afro-Cuban artists, notably poet Nicolás Guillén, painter Wilfredo Lam, and …

2022 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2022 IGGAD Conference: Who Owns This? Communities, Heritage, and Preservation.

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Disrupted Identities And Forced Nomads: A Post-Disaster Legacy Of Neocolonialism In The Island Of Barbuda, Lesser Antilles, Sophia Perdikaris, Rebecca Boger, Edith Gonzalez, Emira Ibrahimpašić, Jennifer D. Adams

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of the forced evacuation of the island of Barbuda due to Hurricane Irma, the Barbudan people have experienced an exile and return to a ‘new’ geographical, political, and economic context, albeit on the same island. With the specter of climate change and the potential impacts on island communities and nations, we use Barbuda, sister island of Antigua in the Lesser Antilles, to examine the trajectory of nomadic identities as they navigate changes that threaten contemporary land relationships and culture. Since its first permanent settlement in the 17th Century, the island geography of Barbuda has been fundamental to …

2020 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2020 IGGAD Conference: Without Borders: Tracing the Cultural, Archival, and Political African Diaspora.

Acoso Visual: Staring Back At The State And Gender Conformity, Juan Luna

Honors Theses

A semi-autoethnographic piece that uses a radical transfeminist lens to interrogate hegemonic systems of gender and race in the Dominican Republic through the violence that Trans and Gender Nonconforming people face. While focusing on trans violence, this thesis explicitly turns its gaze away from Trans/Gender Nonconforming people and interrogates the state, cisnormativity, and gender conformity. This thesis explores how acoso visual (visual accosting) is a historically informed process that works to border trans/gender nonconformity out of the idea of Dominicanidad. Ultimately, this text reminds Trans/Gender Nonconforming individuals that they are not the reason for the transphobia that they experience, and …

Cultural Heritage And Local Ecological Knowledge Under Threat: Two Caribbean Examples From Barbuda And Puerto Rico, Rebecca Boger, Sophia Perdikaris, Isabel Rivero-Collazo

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

While the impacts to the infrastructures in Barbuda and Puerto Rico by Hurricanes Irma and Maria have received attention in the news media, less has been reported about the impacts of these catastrophic events on the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of these Caribbean islands. This report provides an assessment of the impacts on the cultural heritage by these storms; tangible heritage includes historic buildings, museums, monuments, documents and other artifacts and intangible heritage includes traditional artistry, festivities, and more frequent activities such as religious services and laundering. While the physical destruction was massive, the social contexts in which these …

Seduction, Promises And Disneyfication Of Barbuda Post Irma, Sophia Perdikaris, Rebecca Boger, Emira Ibrahimpašić

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Under the guise of post-hurricane development, the national government of Antigua and Barbuda exploited the disasterscape of post Hurricane Irma Barbuda to usher in a new wave of economic development that has left Barbudans separated from their unique culture and identity. In this article we explore what are inhabited vs. uninhabited spaces, the effects of Colonial Christian ideas on cultivated vs. uncultivated lands and the effects of capitalist seduction to traditional landscapes and seascapes. We argue that this neocolonial approach to traditional lifeways increases vulnerability of both people and environment. By wiping out diversity and culture in order to replace …

Cultural Heritage Preservation In The Context Of Climate Change Adaptation Or Relocation: Barbuda As A Case Study, Martha B. Lerski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This case study introduces an arts camp methodology of engaging communities in identifying their key cultural heritage features, thus serving as a meta study. It presents original research based on field studies on the climate-vulnerable Caribbean island of Barbuda during 2017 and 2018. Its Valued Cultural Elements survey, enabling precise identification of key tangible and intangible art forms and biocultural practices, may serve as a basis for further studies. Such approaches may facilitate future research or planning as climate-vulnerable communities harness Local or Indigenous Knowledge for purposes of biocultural heritage preservation, or towards adaptation or relocation. I report on findings …

2019 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2019 IGGAD Conference: Tracing the African Diaspora: Places of Suffering, Resilience, and Reinvention.

Climate Change, Colonialism, And Second-Class Citizenry: A Case Study Of The Impacts Of Hurricane María In Puerto Rico, Aislyne Calianos

Senior Honors Projects

The hurricane season of 2017 was a historic one, with mammoth storms making landfall one after another, in what seemed like an unrelenting assault on our coastal cities and communities. Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston, Irma plowed through Florida, and Maria devastated Puerto Rico, but one of these storms was unlike the others. Why is it that the American citizens of our southern states were able to recover so much more quickly than our citizens in Puerto Rico? In the era of climate change, we will be forced to reckon with the modern legacy of colonialism, as vulnerable communities must face …

Memory And History In South Eleuthera: A Report To The People Of South Eleuthera, Elena Sesma

Archaeological Project Reports

Over the past 5 years, archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have made several short-term trips to South Eleuthera to research the history of this portion of the island. Our main interests have been in understanding how the landscape has changed over the past 150 years, and especially in the past few decades as tourism has fallen off in the south. Through a combination of ethnographic research and pedestrian survey of the South Eleuthera landscape, we have gained a clearer understanding of the history of this region, and of contemporary life today. This report offers a summary of findings …

On Making A Difference: How Photography And Narrative Produce The Short-Term Missions Experience, Joshua Kerby Jennings

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Short-term missions participants encounter difference in purportedly captivating ways. Current research, however, indicates the practice does not lead to long-lasting, positive change. Brian M. Howell (2012) argues the short-term missions experience is confined to the limitations of the short-term missions narrative. People who engage in short-term missions build assumptions, seek experiences, understand difference, and convey meaning, as a result of this narrative. The process of telling and retelling travel stories is integral to the short-term missions experience. Drawing upon literature on tourism, narrative, development, and photography, this study intends to evaluate the inefficacy of short-term missions through the stories which …

The Socio-Political And Economic Causes Of Natural Disasters, Nicole Southard

CMC Senior Theses

To effectively prevent and mitigate the outbreak of natural disasters is a more pressing issue in the twenty-first century than ever before. The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rising globally, most especially in developing countries where the most severe effects of climate change are felt. However, while climate change is indeed a strong force impacting the severity of contemporary catastrophes, it is not directly responsible for the exorbitant cost of the damage and suffering incurred from natural disasters -- both financially and in terms of human life. Rather, the true root causes of natural disasters lie within the …

Spiritual Journeys: A Study Of Ifá /Òrìṣà Practitioners In The United States Initiated In Nigeria, Tony Van Der Meer

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand the culture of one of the newest branches of traditional Yorùbá Ifá/Òrìṣà practice in the United States from practitioners born in the United States that were initiated in Nigeria, West Africa.The epistemology of the Ifá/Òrìṣà belief system in the United States has been based on the history and influence of Regla de Ocha or Santeria that developed out of Cuban innovation and practice.This is an ethnographic and auto-ethnographic study that pulls from participant observation, field notes, interviews, and photos as data.The central question of this dissertation is what are the challenges and …

A National Bilingual Education Policy For The Economic And Academic Empowerment Of Youth In St. Lucia, West Indies, Gabriella Bellegarde

Capstone Collection

This campaign portfolio argues the case for a national bilingual education policy on the island of St. Lucia, where youth speak both St Lucian Creole and St. Lucian standard English. The portfolio consists of a policy paper and brief, an advocacy plan, a communications plan, monitoring and evaluation plan. The Bilingual Education Taskforce (BET), made up of teachers, parents and principals, is an advocacy organization that discovered the need for a bilingual education intervention when they observed, assessed and analyzed the written work of struggling readers at their school, the Anse la Raye Infant School on the west coast of …

Archéologie Du Cachot, Lydie Moudileno

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This essay examines the relationship between writing, memory and prison, as it is deployed in Patrick Chamoiseau’s tenth novel Un dimanche au cachot (2007). In this text, the inscription of the writer within the space of a small prison located on a Martinican plantation, serves Chamoiseau’s larger project to survey the Caribbean territory in order to unveil memorial traces. As it exhumes the ruins of an old disciplinary prison cell, this archeological move triggers a series of crucial transformations: in Un dimanche au cachot, prison writing reclaims a new glissantian “Lieu”, while making room for a therapeutic way of dealing …

"A Medley Of Contradictions": The Jewish Diaspora In St Eustatius And Barbados, Derek Robert Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

During the 17th and 18th century a number of Jews settled on the English island of Barbados and the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. The Jews on both islands erected synagogues and a number of key structures essential for a practicing religious community. Although they had strong connections that spanned across geo-political boundaries, the synagogue compounds on each island became key places for the creation and maintenance of a Jewish community. I argue that these synagogue compounds represented diasporic places that must be understood through a tri-partite model that explores the relationships between the Jewish community and its hostland, other …

Ontological Blackness: A N Investigation Of 18th Century Burial Practices Among Captive Africans On The Island Of Barbados, Brittany Leigh Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Résonances Politiques Du Cahier D’Un Retour Au Pays Natal, Entre Hier, Aujourd’Hui Et Demain, Jérôme Roger

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The article shows that the Return to my Native Land by Aimé Césaire, facing the French literary standards, is a poem by the strangeness that rout and bother to any form of falsification of history, in any situation of ideological mystification, as well as any attempt at annexation heritage. Misunderstanding of reception in France among the most famous poets in the 1950s are a particularly significant example and invite you to reread the poem of Césaire as the tragedy of a timeless voice, open to our common future.

La Martinique D’Aimé Césaire : Une Terre De Pèlerinage Pour Le Monde Noir, André Ntonfo

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The paper is an account of a trip to Aimé Césaire’s country, Martinique which, after he passed away, is bound, for so many reasons, to become a land of pilgrimage. First of all, one discovers with emotion, his grave in a popular graveyard in a suburb where he chose to repose. Then, full of admiration, one moves about downtown Fort-de-France, a town on which Aimé Césaire left so many indelible marks in his capacity as spokesman for the people. In the same vein, the people sprinkled the town with so many marks acknowledging the achievements of the hero. Lastly, the …

GarifunaduáÜ : Cultural Continuity, Change And Resistance In The Garifuna Diaspora, Boyd Malcolm Servio-Mariano

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The Garifuna are a diasporic community that positions Yurumein (St. Vincent) at the center of its collective memory, and whose populations primarily reside in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and, more recently, in urban centers in the United States. This multi-sited, historio-ethnographic study traces the group's socio-political struggles over time and space against cultural dislocation, ethnic oppression, and culturally destructive forces. It highlights how this population's core principles and forms, Garifunaduáü ("Garifunaness," or the "Garifuna way"), and particularly its central tenet of reciprocity "Aü bu, amürü nu" (roughly translated as "me for you and you for me"), functions on multiple levels …

Breaking The Mold: Sugar Ceramics And The Political Economy Of 18th Century St Eustatius, Derek Robert Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Hospitality, Civility, And Sociability: Taking Tea In Colonial Barbados, Meredith Ashley Holaday Mahoney

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Town Planning And Architecture On Eighteenth Century St Eustatius, Dana Elizabeth Triplett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

The Cemeteries Of St Eustatius, N.A: Status In A Caribbean Community, Laurie J. Paonessa

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.