Books in the Caribbean Studies series

Claude McKay's Liberating Narrative

In this groundbreaking book, Shireen Lewis gives a comprehensive analysis of the literary and theoretical discourse on race, culture, and identity by Francophone and Caribbean writers beginning in the early part of the twentieth century and continuing into the dawn of the new millennium. Examining the works of Patrick Chamoiseau, Rapha`l Confiant, AimZ CZsaire, LZopold Senghor, LZon Damas, and Paulette Nardal, Lewis traces a move away from the preoccupation with African origins and racial and cultural purity, toward concerns of hybridity and fragmentation in the New World or Diasporic space. In addition to exploring how this shift parallels the larger debate around modernism and postmodernism, Lewis makes a significant contribution by arguing for the inclusion of Martinican intellectual Paulette Nardal, and other women into the canon as significant contributors to the birth of modern black Francophone literature.

Exploring the old and new forms of transnationalism stemming from the Caribbean, Caribbean Transnationalism challenges present concepts about diaspora, brings into perspective new forms of transnationalism, and offers new perspectives on social cohesion in plural societies.

The Haitian Creole Language is the first book that deals broadly with a language that has too long lived in the shadow of French. With chapters contributed by the leading scholars in the study of Creole, it provides information on this language''s history; structure; and use in education, literature, and social interaction. Although spoken by virtually all Haitians, Creole was recognized as the co-official language of Haiti only a little over twenty years ago. The Haitian Creole Language provides essential information for professionals, other service providers, and Creole speakers who are interested in furthering the use of Creole in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. Increased language competencies would greatly promote the education of Creole speakers and their participation in the social and political life of their countries of residence. This book is an indispensable tool for those seeking knowledge about the centrality of language in the affairs of Haiti, its people, and its diaspora.

Exploring the old and new forms of transnationalism stemming from the Caribbean, Caribbean Transnationalism challenges present concepts about diaspora, brings into perspective new forms of transnationalism, and offers new perspectives on social cohesion in plural societies.

Michaeline A. Crichlow extends the contemporary critique of development projects by examining the political and discursive relationship of the state to the land-based working people, or 'smallholders,' in modern Jamaica. The first book of its kind, Negotiating Caribbean Freedom does for Jamaican historiography and sociology what Akhil Gupta's PostColonial Developments did for studies of India. Michaeline A. Crichlow gives us an incredibly nuanced discussion of how development dominates the lives of the subsistance peasantry, not through force, but through the instrumentalization of social relationships that were once ends in themselves. For example, what were once effective agricultural practices-embedded in the every day lives of smallholders all over the island-have, in the interest of serving international captial, been bureaucratized to the point that they are untenable to support the livelihoods of smallholders. Not content to measure the success or failure of development to deliver on its promises, she discloses both the continuities and differences between development projects of very different political regimes and helps to establish why smallholders support development projects even when those projects fail to address their needs.

Labour and The Multiracial Project in the Caribbean covers major twentieth-century political developments in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. It pays particular attention to social movements, class formation, and new emancipatory ideas on liberation from colonial legacies in political structure and racial division.

The Haitian Creole Language is the first book dealing with the central role of Creole in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, especially in the United States. Dispelling myths about Creole, with discussions of Haitian and Haitian Creole history, it provides a foundation for educators, service providers, policy makers, social scientists, and language and literature scholars to understand Creole in its historical, social, political, educational, and economic developmental contexts.

Celebrants of an ever-emerging 'globalization' fly the banner of free trade, the mass marketization of once faltering economies, and rising economic and social standards for all. Many opponents to globalization rightfully point out that borders still exist largely for the purposes of keeping one 'commodity' in its place: the labor commodity or, the more familiar, immigrant. Arguments of this type are often steeped in economic and social discourse. Race and ethnicity are seen as either being subsumed by this discourse or are entirely ignored as incidental to this type of political thought. In Ethnicity, Class and Nationalism: Caribbean and Extra-Caribbean Dimensions specialists writing on the Caribbean form of the nation-state place race and ethnicity-along with class-in its proper context: at the very foundations of the modern nation. Editor Anton L. Allahar has handpicked scholarship that is both contemporary and expert in its consideration of Caribbean geo-politics. Furthermore, essays in this volume include comparative cases from around the globe. In the interest of locating race and ethnicity as sociological and political categories that are inimical to contemporary conceptions of the nation state, Allahar explores spaces other than the Caribbean. The result is a comparative study that is unique in scope and also in its level of scholarly reflection. This book is the first of its kind. It is essential reading for anyone interested in advancing their analysis of political, economic, social, and cultural thought in the Caribbean.

Constructing Vernacular Culture in the Trans-Caribbean traces the contradictory cultural trajectories constructed and re-produced in the fluid diasporic spaces we call the Trans-Caribbean. Particular emphasis is placed on such cultural expressions that reflect or derive from the cultural vernacular and popular culture as it exists in these spaces. Its multidisciplinary approach and focus on different language areas in the Trans-Caribbean are of particular interest to scholars in cultural studies, migration, literary theory, and cultural criticism.