Hello all,
As one of the 'silent' academics reading this mail list, I just want to thank
Alicia and Haidee for breaking the silence about what the purpose of this
medium is. I know some of you are very busy with examinations at the moment, so
please read no further if you haven't the time.
I don't think I properly introduced myself when I joined the list, so let me do
that first. I am from Philadelphia and am currently a lecturer in sociology at
Lancaster University. I am interested in questions of freedom, democracy,
gender, race and power in the Caribbean (and the wider Atlantic world), issues
which I have approached through the history of post-slavery societies. I did my
Ph.D. at the New School for Social Research, in New York, and the thesis will
soon be published under the title 'Democracy After Slavery: Black Publics and
Peasant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica' (Macmillan, in press for Sept. 2000).
I am now working on a new project called 'Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks
to Zombies', which will be about the relations between Europe and North America
and the Caribbean region over the last 500 or so years, in terms of the
consumption of tropical food, land, and landscapes, but more importantly the
consumption of people's bodies, labor, and cultures -- and how this has been
resisted.
So, what I really wanted to talk about was passing and privilege. We just held
a very interesting conference here at Lancaster, called
'Uprootings/Re-groundings: questions of home and migration', and these very
questions were raised by some of our speakers (who came originally from
Trinidad, Haiti, Nigeria, South Africa and Israel via various other places in
Europe and North America, while those of us who organized the conference came
to England from the US, Canada and Australia, but have family roots in various
other places). I feel compelled to respond to Haidee's comments on this list in
part because the conference compelled me to think about the unequal power
relations involved in sitting back as an 'academic' and listening to others (in
this case Black women) do all the hard work of dealing with the lived
experience, theoretical questions, and political praxis of 'passing' in an
academic world which has been set up by and for a white male power structure.
We all have an obligation to disrupt those proceedings wherever possible, and
if making us stop and think about the purpose of this mail-list is one way of
doing it, then let's take up the challenge. How does 'Caribbean Studies' fit
into the larger academic and political scene? How is it produced and how is it
consumed? For whom and for what purposes? How do academics studying the
Caribbean, whether they are from the region or from elsewhere, engage with
other kinds of people 'interested' (in the widest sense of the term) in the
Caribbean?
Those are some of my thoughts today...I hope to hear back from some of you who
have taken the time to read this far. As you may have gathered by now, part of
my interest in these questions relates to the book I am working on which will
in part consider how 'Caribbean Studies' is consumed in locations of power
elsewhere.
With respect,
Mimi Sheller
Mimi Sheller
Department of Sociology
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YL
England
tel: +44-1524-65201 ext. 93442
email: [log in to unmask]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 6:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Intorduction
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
> About three weeks ago Alicia Carson introduced herself to us
> through this medium. In her introduction she told us that
> she has a "passion for issues related to the Caribbean."
> She went on to elaborate that her interests lie in current
> events, educational issues and relations between the
> Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba and the USA. I was struck by how
> she is so eager to interact, as a matter of fact she said she
> feels she has come across a good resource.
>
> As a result, it made me realise how lax we are regarding the
> purpose of this mailbase. We have not really discussed
> Caribbean issues (past or present), and have turned the
> mailbase solely into a message board. Please do not
> think that I am excluding myself for I am just as
> guilty.
>
> Suppose I said that to pass into a forced whiteness begs
> amnesia, how would you answer? What if I were to say
> that Sir James Mitchell of St. Vincent needs to step down?
> Or Dr. Eric Williams spoilt his people like an over-indulgent
> parent? How about God bless Michael Manley?
>
> Walk good,
> Haidee.
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