The Political Economy of Gender in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean

Development justice, a proposal: Reckoning with disaster, catastrophe, and climate change in the Caribbean

“…Unquestionably, women, on a host of fronts, are suffering, at imbalanced levels, the hardships, adverse outcomes, and slow violence that emerge out of the confluence of anthropogenic climate change, racial patriarchal capitalism, and colonial underdevelopment (Cuomo, 2011; Dunn, 2009). Evidence from across the region with respect to the knock‐on effects of debt‐servicing paints an even grimmer picture for women (Abraham‐Van der Mark, 1983; Barriteau, 2001). For example, given women are not seen as “breadwinners” due to essentialist gender norms, when fiscal contraction slashes jobs in the public sector, women are recurrently the first to be fired (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean [ECLAC], 2009).…”

“…For example, given women are not seen as “breadwinners” due to essentialist gender norms, when fiscal contraction slashes jobs in the public sector, women are recurrently the first to be fired (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean [ECLAC], 2009). Moreover, cuts to public welfare spending (e.g., programmes for education, nursing, counselling, child‐rearing, food provision, services for disabled people) mean unpaid care‐work falls onto the shoulders of women, given rigid gendered divisions of labour (Barriteau, 2001; Federici, 2012).…”

“…The resultant lack of monetary wealth in the region, which for centuries has been seized by exogenous agents who continue to refuse reparation, makes financing risk reduction in the region a “grand challenge,” to put it lightly. This challenge is also operating in conjunction with the proclivities far too many postcolonial capitalist technocrats in national ministries have for neoliberal reason and its concomitant notions of “growth” and “development” (Barriteau, 2001). Consequently, climate change adaptation must contend with austerity measures and the ever‐dwindling public expenditures that do remain (Acevedo, 2014).…”

Agrarian struggle and food system injustice in the Anglo-Caribbean: centering social reproduction by (re)turning to Creft and Fanon

“…Of remark here is our recognition that the institutionalized barriers and burdens embedded within Caribbean food systems adversely affect men, women, and others—undoubtedly so. That said, gender-disaggregated data emerging in the region continues to demonstrate that women are disproportionately impacted, negatively, by a host of structural impediments (Barriteau, 2001; Barry et al, 2020). These impediments include, inter alia, lack of access to land and capital; the inability to acquire collateral toward securing credit; a dearth of support programs and organizations tailored to the specific needs/wants of women agro-producers; negligence on the part of government ministries in relation to providing gender-responsive training; state corruption; and a general nonacknowledgment and devaluing of the work women do socially reproducing households, families, and communities.…”

Review Essay: Intersectional Analysis

“…Mohanty (1988) and Alexander and Mohanty (1997) have become classic sources. The ethnic/racial diversity and colonial heritage of the Commonwealth Caribbean has also impacted on scholarship about that region, revealing implicitly or explicitly the use of intersectional analyses (see, for example, Bailey and Leo-Rhynie, 2004;Barriteau, 2001Barriteau, , 2003Feminist Review, 1998;Leo-Rhynie et al, 1997;Mohammed, 2002aMohammed, , 2002bMohammed and Shepherd, 1988;Reddock, 2004). Reddock (1998: 52) underlines contributions from the Caribbean region 'as a discourse on difference and feminism' that, unlike Northern discussions of difference, 'clearly identifies men of competing ethnicities as very much implicated in .…”