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.     

Wages,Wage Inequality,and Education: The Case of a Microstate with a “Free Education for All” Policy

Like many developing states, Barbados has historically used education as a means of economic development. Specifically, for over three decades, the Barbados Government has provided free education from the primary to the tertiary level. This article investigates the benefits associated with higher education. Based on a sample of 400 Barbadians, the authors find that education has a positive impact on income and contributes to lower within-group wage inequality.     

Like Mother,Like Daughters? Campaigns for Tribal Peoples’ Rights in the Commonwealth

Abstract

Intent on stealing land and plundering resources, the British Empire labelled its tribal subjects as ‘backward’ and used the excuse of bringing them ‘civilisation’ to appropriate their land and resources. This study examines the development of campaigns for tribal peoples’ rights in various Commonwealth countries since independence. It shows how methods of campaigning have been largely consistent since the birth of the indigenous rights movements, involving the public in letter-writing, demonstrations and vigils, and using publications and the press to raise awareness of rights violations and abuses. It illustrates how many Commonwealth governments today, like the former imperial rulers, believe in the ‘backwardness’ of their tribal citizens, but today it is ‘development’ not ‘civilisation’ that lies behind the theft of their lands and resources.     

Neo-liberalism, 21st Century Caribbean General Elections and the Post-colonial Development Challenge

A striking feature of elections held in the independent English-speaking Caribbean since 2000 has been the tendency towards the rejection of incumbent governments, with many of them resulting in one-term administrations or weak majorities. This experience represents a sharp break from earlier electoral features of the post-colonial period such as mass loyalty to anti-colonial workers’ parties, regular and consistent alternations of two dominant parties in office, or alternatively the long-term dominance of a single party. This paper argues that the present hegemonic consolidation of neo-liberal globalisation has eroded the structural framework upon which the earlier legitimacy of the parties, leaders, ideologies and approaches to development had been constructed, and advances the notion of the ‘collapse of the post-colonial order’ as an explanation for the dominant electoral feature of anti-incumbency since 2000. While addressing developments in the independent English-speaking Caribbean territories as a whole, the paper concludes by presenting the case of Barbados as a concrete manifestation of these tendencies.     

The (un)making of Bimshire and the Black Englishman: Barbadian nationalism in post-colonial Britain

This paper considers Partha Chatterjee’s [1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press] theory of anti-colonial nationalism – itself a response to Benedict Anderson [(1983) 2006. Imagined Communities. Reprint, London: Verso] – to understand how migrants from Barbados and their children construct their national identities in postcolonial Britain. Using interviews with first-, second- and third-generation Barbadian-Britons, it aims to determine what it means to be Barbadian, fifty years since independence, and how this identity has developed in the long shadow of colonialism and the more recent era of sovereignty. Guided by Chatterjee’s framework of spiritual and material nationalism, the findings locate Barbadian nationalism in the dynamic spiritual domain of family, racial consciousness and culture, unaffected by British aesthetic and institutions that have endured since the island’s occupation. How is this identity constructed within the borders of the former colonial power? This research locates the Caribbean within these competing discourses of nationalism, particularly nationalism as it responds and adapts to migration.     

Negotiating memory: funerary commemoration as social change in emancipation-era Barbados

Anglican church commemoration in Barbados is traditionally viewed as reflecting a wholly white, British history; however, beginning in the late eighteenth century, these spaces were circumvented as places of memory for the freed black community. As abolition and emancipation triggered greater integration of previously racially segregated groups on the island, funerary monuments provided the opportunity to negotiate memory, social structure, and community relationships, subverting dominant power hierarchies and tensions stimulated by race, religion, and marginalization. This paper will reconstruct narratives and counter-narratives in burial practice and monument use against the backdrop of abolition and emancipation to contribute to historical and archaeological understandings of historical processes of colonization and decolonization, relevant to Barbados and other colonies dependent on slave labour.     

Nature and Impact of Criminal Victimization in Barbados

ABSTRACT

This article examines the nature and impact of crime through the survey of victims who reported crimes against them to the Barbados Police Force in 1998. The study shows that the victims reported serious concern about the high level of crime in Barbados. Further, the study found that concern about crime was influenced by many factors including the type of crime, age, gender, and occupation. In addition, the findings of the study pointed to physical injuries, economic cost, and emotional impacts on the victims, even though many victims underestimated the economic cost of their victimization.     

Does Eligibility for Protection Orders Prevent Repeat Abuse of Domestic Abuse Victims in Caribbean States?

The English-speaking Caribbean state of Barbados enacted protection orders legislation in 1992. The goal was to protect household members from domestic abuse inflicted by those with whom they live. To understand the impact of this policy, the study utilized a survival analysis model to test the hypothesis that eligibility for protection orders on Barbados contributed to a significantly lower hazard of repeat abuse for women, compared to women on St. Kitts where protection orders were not available. Data were drawn from police reports that document incidents of domestic abuse reported on Barbados and St. Kitts where high rates of domestic abuse persist. The study found only a negligible difference between the hazard of repeat abuse of women on St. Kitts and women on Barbados.