Protecting Victims of Domestic Violence in Caribbean Communities

SUMMARY

A decade after the courts in many English-speaking Caribbean jurisdictions were granted the power to issue restraining orders to victims of domestic violence, battered women have not experienced the full benefits of such policy. Using the experiences of battered women in the English-speaking Caribbean state of Barbados, this study argues that there are significant challenges for victims, caused by cultural, social and economic factors that have not been appropriately addressed by domestic violence legislation. Marginalized by the court and legal system in the English-speaking Caribbean, many battered women seek out alternatives to the legal system for coping with domestic violence. Therefore when they migrate to countries like the United States where more accommodations are made for victims of domestic violence, they are unlikely to engage with the legal system and make their suffering known. Women might also be silenced by fears of violating immigration laws in the United States as well as risking personal loss due to the severe punishment of their partners when indicted by the legal system.     

African-Caribbean women, (post)? Diaspora,and the meaning of home

ABSTRACT

Drawing on bell hooks, Audre Lorde and Carole Boyce-Davies, this paper develops an ethical framework to provide a gendered analysis of relative power inside and outside the home. In doing so, it considers the ways in which our view of home as African-Caribbean women, impacts our understanding of '(post) diaspora' (Dunn, Leith, and Suzanne Scafe. 2019. “African-Caribbean Women: Migration, Diaspora, Post-Diaspora.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 13: 1–16) in the UK. Insofar as home is central to the idea of diaspora, I suggest that home must be conceptualised as an interdependent 'adult's' home rather than a dependent 'child's' home. On this reading, in the context of global power relations, I caution that while offering a useful and necessary point of departure from diaspora, the use of 'post' could be deployed to undermine an unapologetically intersectional black politics. As such, I claim the (Post) Diaspora Network's methodology, rather than the term itself, best demonstrates the liberatory intent and importance of a (post) diaspora subjectivity.     

Confronting the Reality

SUMMARY

The most recent UNAIDS report (December 2003) estimates that approximately 5 million persons became infected with the HIV virus globally in 2003 alone, while 3 million persons died as a result of HIV/AIDS. What do these staggering numbers mean for the Caribbean population? Is the impact of HIV/AIDS the same among Caribbean immigrants in the United States as among the Caribbean population in the countries of origin? If so, what are the factors that promote the spread of HIV/AIDS among this population regardless of their geographic location? Finally, what can be done to reverse the growing infection rate that has made the Caribbean the second largest population to suffer from HIV/AIDS globally? In this paper the authors explore sociocultural, attitudinal and gender-specific factors that place the Caribbean population at risk of the ongoing spread of HIV/AIDS. The authors make recommendations for a community involvement response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that targets the individual, family and community to address the problem of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean population. A community involvement model with its potential to reduce the negative impact of socio-structural factors, and attitudes towards victims of HIV/AIDS is recommended as a meaningful response to HIV/AIDS among the Caribbean population.     

Caribbean Women's Migratory Journey

SUMMARY

For Caribbean women who leave their children behind to migrate to the United States, the decision-making process is filled with pain and fraught with ambivalence. In response to open-ended questions about their migratory journey, immigrant women who migrated to New York City describe the process-from initial thoughts about leaving their home country, through the actual move, to their early days in the United States. This case study examines the painful and difficult experiences of undocumented women as they balance feelings of freedom and exhilaration with the challenges of economic survival, leaving their loved ones behind, parenting children from a distance, loneliness, and adjusting to a new environment while supporting themselves and family members at home. This exploratory study identifies the significant milestones in Caribbean women's migratory journey-points at which they access internal and external resources. Practitioners will understand the process, and resources these women call upon. Both the process and the accompanying resources are vital to future work with immigrant women and their families, as well as those women considering migrating and leaving their children behind.     

Dancing to the beat of the diaspora: musical exchanges between Africa and its diasporas

Abstract

This essay examines the complex ebbs and flows of musical exchanges between Africa and its diasporas. Specifically, it focuses on musical engagements between, on the one hand, the Caribbean and West Africa and, on the other, the United States and Southern Africa. It argues that the influence of diasporan music on modern African music, especially popular music, has been immense. These influences and exchanges have created a complex tapestry of musical Afro-internationalism and Afro-modernism and music has been a critical site, a soundscape, in the construction of new diasporan and African identities. A diasporic perspective in the study of modern African music helps Africa reclaim its rightful place in the history of world music and saves Africans from unnecessary cultural anxieties about losing their musical ‘authenticity’ by borrowing from ‘Western’ music that appears, on closer inspection, to be diasporan African music.     

National and ethnic identifications among the Slovak diaspora in Serbia: stranded between state(s) and ethnicity?

Identity has been treated in relevant literature predominantly as a dynamic, fluid, multidimensional, and ongoing process. Currently, identity is viewed as a process, as something achieved, and as a product of social relations. Scholars have acknowledged that members of minorities and diasporas can have very complex multiple identities, which are both dependent on social context and changeable over time. This article explores the national and ethnic identifications of Slovaks living in Serbia. Its main objective is to examine how the members of the Slovak diaspora identify themselves and what kind of national and ethnic awareness and pride they hold. As well, this paper explores their opinions and attitudes on language and cultural identity. This study used a web-based survey and basic statistics. The results of the explorative study indicate that members of the Slovak diaspora living in Serbia have multiple identities that coexist, do not conflict, and vary in their importance for respondents. Distinct national and ethnic identifications are perceived in different ways and have divergent emotional intensities. This study proposes further research on the importance of civic and ethnic values and on different perceptions of identity, citizenship, length of residency, and minority rights for collective identifications of minorities and/or diasporas.     

Sentiment and cosmopolitanism in Olaudah Equiano's Narrative

Abstract

This essay argues that Olaudah Equiano, author of the famous eighteenth-century slave narrative, displayed an international egalitarianism that was unique at the time. He was an extraordinarily well-travelled and a cosmopolitan man who criss-crossed the Atlantic, visiting every corner of the British Empire and who also endured the horrors and terrors of slavery and even as a freeman, never escaped the indignities of discrimination and racism. As a transnational figure of the African diaspora, Equiano's vision of global trade did not much differ from the tenets of British imperialism and market capitalism, which emphasized the exploitation of natural resources throughout the Empire. At the same time, in the representation of his relationship to Africa Equiano sought to establish more equalized and less exploitative international relations. Using political ideologies drawn from liberalism and republicanism, he extended them into a radical form of cosmopolitanism. Particularly in his depiction of his African childhood, and in the way he describes his participation in the Sierra Leone settlement project, is there a desire to create this new paradigm. The skillful appeal to feeling in both these sections of the narrative plays an important role in promoting this political agenda.     

Kongo–Lisbonne : la dialectique du centre et de la périphérie dans l'Église kimbanguiste

In 2009, as the Pope visited Angola, the Portuguese Kimbanguists prepared themselves to receive Simon Kimbangu Kiangani, the spiritual Chief of the Church (living in the Democratic Republic of Congo). According to Kimbanguists themselves, Lisbon is as marginal to Europe as Bethlehem was to the Roman Empire or N'kamba was to the Belgian Congo when, respectively, Jesus Christ and Simon Kimbangu were born. While they are not active proselytizers and do not use “reverse mission” arguments, Kimbanguists insist that Europe hosts a vast amount of “marginalized” people in need of a fresh spirituality. Analysing the Lisbon event, in this paper the authors discuss the dialectics between “centre” and “periphery” (N'kamba and Portugal) and suggest that the Kimbanguist religion must be simultaneously regarded as a mechanism by which Africans reaffirm a presence in the diaspora as well as being a means to orient efforts aimed at reinforcing their spiritual centre in Africa.     

Dimensions of Child Abuse and Neglect Among Native and Immigrant Caribbean Families

Abstract

This study attempted to replicate a study that examined severity of physical child abuse among Barbados families with a sample of Caribbean families known to the New York City public child welfare agency. Study findings did not support the hypothesis that child abuse in the Caribbean community is linked to cultural child-rearing norms sanctioning the use of physical punishment of children, but were consistent with the largest body of research indicating that child abuse and neglect are driven by the complex interaction of interpersonal, economic, social and environmental factors.     

Newly Arrived West Indian Adolescents

Abstract

This study explores patterns of adjustment among newly arrived West Indian adolescents. In particular, it focuses on the concurrent developmental and cultural transitions of immigration and adolescence. Barriers to adjustment and patterns of identity formation are explored and discussed within the context of a typological developmental model. Findings of this study are based on the responses of 25 newly arrived adolescents from six Caribbean countries regarding their adjustment to New York City schools. The data analysis identifies various structural and immigration-based factors, which challenge the social and psychological adjustment of new immigrant adolescents. It highlights the effect of culture and immigration on attachment to school and society and supports the need for increased social work intervention in mediating between homes and schools of new immigrants.     

Retaking the Middle Passage: glimpses of a modern African diaspora in Brazil

Abstract

Enticed by the various economic, academic and social promises offered by this new ‘metropole’, Africans have begun to form a new diaspora in Brazil, the country with the largest concentration of Afro descendentes outside of Africa. This paper aims to explore, through interviews, the various motivations and experiences of these Africans, as well as to examine the official attitude of the Brazilian authorities and that of the society at large to the new residents of this modern African diaspora.     

The Chinese Nationalists and the Great Rear Area : Wartime Szechwan*

Abstract

Kang Youwei’s successive visits to Canada from 1899 initiated a reformist movement among the worldwide Chinese diaspora for over a decade. But his Canadian experience has long been neglected, and the overseas Chinese movement has often been downplayed as an extension or even regression from the abortive 1898 Reform. The rise and fall of the movement have been ascribed respectively to Kang’s reformist mobilization for monarchist patriotism and to the political challenge of the anti-Qing revolutionaries. This article, however, argues that Kang’s diasporic experience, especially his interactions with the Chinese in Canada, greatly radicalized and expanded his reforms. His new program for reform of both China and the Chinese diaspora enabled his movement to spread from Canada to the global arena. This movement also began to decline from Canada around 1909 because of Kang’s clashes with leaders of Canadian Chinatowns. Nonetheless, it caused unprecedented politicization and integration of overseas Chinese.     

‘Cultures of healing’: spirituality,interdependence and resistance in the African diaspora

ABSTRACT

Concepts of healing and spirituality have remained crucial to generating agency and empowerment for both black women and black men, especially in their diasporic displacement from Africa to the US. Healing has been consistently deployed to fight against the systemic racism and sexism that has pervaded and continues to persist in the lives of African diasporic subjects. Placing the discussion of healing within the current debates about interdependence and spirituality, the paper traces the notion back to its African roots and enslavement times, and attempts to delineate a genealogy of healing up to the present that grounds interdependence and interconnectedness within an ‘ethics of resistance’.