Caribbean Feminist Action Network
Institute of Gender and Development Studies Dame Nita Barrow Unit
Society, Ecology and Economics (SEE) in the Caribbean – How do we organize to live?
11 Week Online Course
10 February-16th April, 2020
Dedicated to the memory of Andaiye
Overview
In March 2018 some 55 feminists and social justice advocates from 9 countries across the region met to consider “Politics for Social and Environmental Justice and Equality in the Caribbean”. We did this against the background of awareness of the socioeconomic, cultural and environmental crises facing our region (and indeed the world) and with a conviction that a politics shaped by feminism (which includes an affirmation of our Caribbean people’s histories and struggle for gender, class, ethnicity and sexuality equality and justice), offers a progressive way forward.
Following this meeting, an informal alliance of persons and organisations engaged in information sharing, knowledge building and solidarity emerged: Caribbean Feminist Action Network (CFAN). One of CFAN’s objectives is to promote inter-connectedness of Caribbean social justice and gender equality activists so that we can better engage in solidarity for human rights, equality, development, environmental justice and peace. We define feminism as an understanding of how social. political, cultural and economic relations are shaped by and contribute to gender inequality and a political commitment to ending gender and other inequalities in public and private spheres.
Working in partnership with the Institute of Gender and Development Studies, Nita Barrow Unit, University of the west Indies, CFAN offers the course “Society, ecology and economics in the Caribbean – How do we organize to live?” as a contribution towards deepening the understanding of Caribbean political economies and ecology as a basis for generating solidarity for actions that advance gender, social, economic and environmental justice.
Objectives
To provide a forum for collective learning and reflection on the main trends in Caribbean economic development and ecology
To build critical understanding of the policy choices being made by Caribbean governments in addressing debt, growth and development within the framework of ecological crisis
To support advocacy and activism for macroeconomic and environmental policies that confront unequal power relations in the generation and distribution of resources for development
Course structure
This course is comprised of 11 modules each comprising a set of resource materials (including readings, videos and audiotapes) and 1 ½ hour moderated online discussion framed by a set of questions.
Access: The course will be held on the Zoom Platform. Please download the app: https://zoom.us/.
Click here for how to videos and the course schedule with links.
Module 1: Introductions
February 11th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time (9-10:30 am ET).
See Recorded Video Here
Moderator: Roberta Clarke is a human rights and social justice practitioner. She is currently the Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Commission of Jurists and the President of the Coalition against Domestic Violence in Trinidad and Tobago. She has led UN Women Offices for Libya, Asia Pacific region and Caribbean. She is a lawyer with post graduate qualifications in sociology and international human rights law and has written on violence against women; family law; and gender planning.
Peggy Antrobus, Course Director will introduce the course, its background and the context.
Participant introductions.
Expectations and Rules of Engagement.
Module 2: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Cosmovisions.
February 13th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time (9-10:30 ET).
See Recorded Video Here
Moderator: Rosina Wiltshire (PhD) has an extensive career in International Development and Gender Equality, is an experienced facilitator in transformational leadership development and has mentored leaders and monitored and evaluated numerous programmes. She was the first CARICOM Advocate for Gender Justice. She led the OAS Electoral Observer Mission to Antigua and Barbuda in 2014 and St Lucia in 2011. From November 2001 she served as UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. She also represented the UN Secretary General as Resident Coordinator of the UN system agencies, funds and programmes in Barbados.
Key question: What alternative ways of being human are contained in Indigenous cosmovisions and knowledge systems?
Required Readings and Resources
Calypso : The price of progress is high
Peggy Antrobus: Sustaining Life in the 21st century : The Quality of Everyday Living » Ecodecision Sept 1993 pp 47-50 (PDF to be provided)
Additional Readings and Resources
Rosina Wiltshire : If Half our Leaders Were Women » Guest Editorial Ecodecision Sept 1993 pp 39-42 (PDF to be provided)
Ethan Roland : 8 Forms of Capital (video linked, website article link)
Module 3: Gender, Social Reproduction and the Economy.
February 20th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time (9-10:30 ET).
Recorded Video Here
Moderator: Tonya Haynes (PhD) is a lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit, University of the West Indies. Her research on Caribbean feminist thought and gender-based violence is published in Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, sx:archipelagos, Global Public Health and Social and Economic Studies.
Key question: What do we mean by gender relations? How might contemporary unequal relations of gender be best understood? How are gender and sexuality related to the economy?
Required Readings and Resources
Cecelia Green. “The Abandoned Lower Class of Females”: Class, Gender, and Penal Discipline in Barbados, 1875–1929,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 2011;53(1):144–179. (pdf provided)
Harrison, Faye V. The Gendered Politics and Violence of Structural Adjustment : A View from Jamaica. Gender and Women’s Studies in Canada: Critical Terrain. editor Margaret Hobbs ; Carla Rice. Toronto : Women’s Press, 2013 [1997]. pp. 561-568 (pdf provided)
Additional Readings and Resources
Cecelia Green. “GREEN DISCIPLINING BOYS: LABOR, GENDER, GENERATION, AND THE PENAL SYSTEM IN BARBADOS, 1880–1930,” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 2010; 3 (3): 366-390. (pdf provided)
Cecilia A. Green. “BETWEEN RESPECTABILITY AND SELF-RESPECT: FRAMING AFRO-CARIBBEAN WOMEN'S LABOUR HISTORY,” Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 55, No. 3 (September 2006), pp. 1-31 (pdf provided)
Alissa Trotz. 2013. The constitutional challenge to the cross-dressing law https://www.stabroeknews.com/2013/09/23/features/in-the-diaspora/the-constitutional-challenge-to-the-cross-dressing-law/
Robinson, Tracy. “Valuing Caring Work,”Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies. Dec 2017, Vol. 42 Issue 3, p59-79. (pdf provided)
Module 4: What is development? A Caribbean Historical Perspective.
February 27th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time.
See Recorded Video Here
Moderators: Peggy Antrobus (PhD) is a feminist activist, author, and scholar from the Caribbean. She is a founder member of several feminist organisations, including the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), the global South feminist network Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), and the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN). She is the author of The Global Women's Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies (Zed Books, 2004).
Key questions
How have Caribbean thinkers understood Caribbean development?
What is the dominant framework that currently directs economic policy?
How have feminists critiqued that framework?
Required readings and resources:
Song: Bob Marley “I shot the sherif” https://youtu.be/GLUNu9zOLfM
Video: Norman Girvan: “Critical Reflections in a Time of Uncertainty”- https://youtu.be/92Qupw1vypw
Peggy Antrobus: “Notes on Historical perspective to present policy framework.”
Peggy Antrobus. 1993. “Structural Adjustment: Cure or Curse? Implications for Caribbean Development. Focus on Gender”. (Vol. 1, No. 3, [Macroeconomic Policy and Gender Relations; Income Generation Projects and Empowerment] (Oct., 1993), pp. 13-18. Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4030261?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Module 5: Case studies: Structural Adjustment Policies in Jamaica and St. Vincent.
March 5th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time
See Recorded Video Here
Moderators: Judith Wedderburn is the retired Director of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, (FES) Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean, and for over 30 years, has been an advocate in the field of gender and development in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. Her main research areas and related publications include, impact of the globalization process on the foreign policy of Jamaica; globalization and governance, social reproduction and unpaid work, gender and the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA); gender, trade liberalization and the CARICOM Single Market and Economy; gender and governance; gender and trade union development in the Anglophone Caribbean; and climate change, gender and persons with disabilities in small island developing states (SIDS).
Peggy Antrobus (PhD) is a feminist activist, author, and scholar from the Caribbean. She is a founder member of several feminist organisations, including the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), the global South feminist network Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), and the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN). She is the author of The Global Women's Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies (Zed Books, 2004).
Key questions
For Jamaica
What was Michael Manley’s approach to socioeconomic development in Jamaica in the 1970s?
What were the impacts of structural adjustment policies in the 1980s, particularly on poor women?
For St. Vincent and the Grenadines
How did the adoption of structural adjustment as the framework for development in 1984 affect social services, agriculture and manufacturing?
Were there similar policicies in other countries in the region? Can participants give examples of these?
To what extent can micro/community based projects mitigate the impact of this policy framework?
Required Readings and Resources for Jamaica Case Study
Video : Conversation between Dr. Michael Witter and Judith Wedderburn : Link for the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s5Jw6ja7m0
Film: Life and Debt, A film by Stephanie Black, a feature length documentary which addresses the impact of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank on current globalization policies on a developing country such as Jamaica. www.documentarytube.com/videos/life-and-debt-jamaica
Michael Witter. Economic Primer: Notes on the Economy and the IMF for Young Leaders, August 2013. (PDF to be provided)
Michael Witter. Lessons from the IMF Experiences, SALISES, July 2, 2012 (PDF to be provided)
Joan French. In Mortgaging Women’s Lives, Ed. Pamela Starr
Joan French. Redefining Labour: A Feminist Perspective, Chapter 5, Challenges in Caribbean Development, Interventions of Non-Government Organizations, CARICOM Regional Economic Conference, February 1991. Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) 1992
Required Readings and Resources for St. Vincent and Grenadines Case Study
James Mitchell . The role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Statement at the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting, St. Lucia, September 1986 . (PDF provided]
Peggy Antrobus. Approaches to Development: SVG before and after SAPs (1984-1994[DM2] ). See ppt link.
Module 6: Barbados: Social Justice in a time of macroeconomic adjustment
March 12th, 2020. 10:30-11:00 am Eastern Caribbean Time.
See Recorded Video Here
Speaker: Minister Marsha Caddle, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment, Barbados
Moderator: Alexander Girvan
Key questions:
Can social justice be advanced in times of IMF supported austerity programmes?
Can social justice be an engine of growth and development?
Module 7: The Climate Crisis in the Caribbean
March 19th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time.
https://zoom.us/j/773321885
Moderator: Mariama Williams (PhD) is a Senior Programme Office, Global Governance for Development Programme, the South Centre, Geneva, Switzerland. She is also a director of the Institute of Law and Economics (ILE), Jamaica. She is the author of Climate Change Finance—Coming out of the Margins (Routledge, 2015); Trading Stories: Experiences with Gender and Trade (co-edited with Marilyn Carr, Commonwealth Secretariat, 2010), co-author, Gender and Trade Action Guide: A Training Resource (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2007), and author, Gender Issues in the Multilateral Trading System (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2003). Her current research areas are the debt & financial crisis, climate change & climate change financing, and gender trade and development. Williams has extensive experience in the areas of sovereign debt crises, international trade policy and macroeconomics and economic development.
Key Questions
What is the nature of the ecological and related political ecology facing the Caribbean?
How is the inter-relationship with the climate crisis?
What have been the responses of government and present proposals for addressing these issues in the context of sustainable development? (How has gender and other social dimension been incorporated in these approaches, frameworks and implementation plans? How well suited for this missions are institutions, both national and regional for accomplishing these proposals?)
Can and to what extent, feminist political ecology informs policy discussions on climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Caribbean in the context of sustainable development?
How are climate issues impacting budgeting, investment and planning in the region, at individuals, household, business, community, local and national levels?
By completing this module, you will be able to understand:
What is feminist political ecology and how can it relates to the climate challenge and crisis in the region?
Understand linkages between climate change and sustainable development and in the Caribbean.
Describe ways in which Caribbean governments, institutions and communities are addressing the climate crisis and related issues?
Critically assess how these responses are promoting resilience and sustainability in the short and long
Understand challenges and limitations and the opportunities for integrating gender and women’s empowerment issues into policies and decision-making both in terms of climate and climate financing policies
Required Readings/Viewings (***** are must read. Other wise participants are free to read or view from the list below)
General on climate change and the Caribbean
1. Climate Change in the Caribbean - A Simple Introduction (5.40) *****
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8a2jOtjOTM
2. Climate Change in the Caribbean #Film4Climate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uVN4Nu4XCY (4.58 mins)
3. Costs of climate change in the region *****
https://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Awareness_tourism_agri_high_res_print_updated280417.pdf
4. H. and Kahwa, I. (2015) The CARICOM countries. A Caribbean strategy to cope with climate_In: UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 ******
5. Things You Should Know About Climate Change in the Caribbean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkJQM8Ihad4 (4.15 mins) discusses climate actions underway in the Caribbean and the three foundational documents for these actions.
6. 3 minutes, 3 messages : Climate Change and Sustainable Development (2.54 mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwbIdrNqosg
7. Climate Change in the Caribbean, the case for action *****
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioWuEJZ77Mk
Recommended for this section
1. The Ecology of Climate Change (8mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjR3mdwqVUM
2. Benjamin, L. (2010). Climate change and Caribbean small island states: The state of play. The International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 16, 78-91.Retrieved from http://researchjournal.cob.edu.bs
Gender
1. Climate change is a gender issues (10.18 minutes) https://pressroom.oecs.org/cop24-climate-change-is-a-gender-issue-caribbean-video-released *****
2. Climate Change Is a Gender Issue - Women's Resilience" *****
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpea3Zobw
Climate Finance:
CARICOM Countries - Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change (20 mins). Gives history of Caribbean recognition of climate change and development since 1996-7 to the present
Adaptation Strategies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTC11TeW4bU
Climate Change literacy series: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMwTEoo9p2__bg9hXkbwGvw
INTERVIEW: Getting climate finance ready – insights from Jamaica (Part 1)
AF Direct Access Spotlight: PIOJ, Jamaica (4 mins) *****
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT_lVIy0ofU&feature=youtu.be
Optional I: Long reads and viewings for deeper consideration
Gender Responsive Climate finance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmvdiXlDFI&feature=youtu.be
Climate finance in the Eastern Caribbean SIDS Stockholm Environment Institute Published on 20 Sep 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB29FU-jbRs&feature=youtu.be
Module 8: How are Caribbean people responding?
March 26th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time.
https://zoom.us/j/614684501
Moderator: Beverley Mullings (PhD) is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, Queen’s University, Canada. She is currently engaged in three major research projects, including the examination of the relationship between emerging forms of neoliberal governmentality, the emergence of state-enabled diaspora formations and their impact on the ways that development is imagined and practiced in Jamaica; and another which examines the political and economic implications of the growing orientation of development policy and practice towards the middle-class.
Key questions?
What is buen vivir and what might we learn from it in the Caribbean?
What other approaches to the economy might provide alternative ways of thinking of Caribbean futures?
Required Readings and Resources:
Salazar, Juan Francisco 2015. Buen Vivir: South America’s rethinking of the future we want July 23, 2015 https://theconversation.com/buen-vivir-south-americas-rethinking-of-the-future-we-want-44507
Gibson-Graham, J. K., et al. (2013). Take Back the Economy An Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities, University of Minnesota Press. Xiii-15 http://precaritypilot.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/j-k-gibsongraham-take-back-the-economy-an-ethical-guide-for-transforming-our-communities_intro-Ch1.pdf
Boyce Davies, C. (2015). From Masquerade to Maskarade: Caribbean Cultural Resistance and the Rehumanizing Project. Sylvia Wynter on being Human as Praxis. K. McKittrick. Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Press: 203-225. ( PDF to be provided)
Girvan, Norman Caribbean Dependency Thought Revisited http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.372.7861&rep=rep1&type=pdf ( PDF to be provided)
Bauxite vs. the Cockpit Country https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBtwY2lp_cM
Module 9: How are Caribbean people responding to Climate Change and COVID-19?
April 2nd, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time.
See Recording Here
Click here for Full Syllabus.
Moderator: Maya Trotz works with diverse communities in Tampa, Belize, and Barbados, on addressing sustainability and educational challenges, especially related to water quality protection for human and ecological health. She currently directs STRONG Coasts, a collaborative National Science Foundation (NSF) National Research Traineeship program with the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to foster food, energy, and water solutions for coastal communities. She is an environmental engineering professor at the University of South Florida, Tampa.
Key Questions:
What does climate change have to do with women?
What does it mean to centre grassroots women and communities as knowledge producers and knowledge keepers?
In relation to funding initiatives that specify a gender component, how might we draw on these knowledges to challenge mainstream and exclusionary development models?
Required Readings and Resources
Gender Action Plan. FP060: Water Sector Resilience Nexus for Sustainability in Barbados (WSRN S-Barbados) Barbados | CCCCC | GCF/B.19/22/Rev.02 30 April 2018. (7 pages) https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/737049/Gender_action_plan_-_FP060_-_CCCCC_-_Barbados.pdf/db35165d-fff4-8f92-7dcc-3fe662669b69
Gender Assessment. FP101: Resilient Rural Belize (Be-Resilient). Belize | IFAD | B.22/07, 3 May 2019. (13 pages) https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/737046/Gender_Assessment_-_FP101_IFAD_Belize.pdf/2b601fa6-9aad-61c8-1876-a590eaefa81f
Gender Action Plan. FP101: Resilient Rural Belize (Be-Resilient). Belize | IFAD | B.22/07, 3 May 2019. (5 pages) https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/737049/Gender_action_and_plan_-_FP101_IFAD_Belize.pdf/34ddb448-42db-9698-527f-9e82911d4911
Additional Readings and Resources
Women & Water - CIGAD 2015 with Maya Trotz (11 minute video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RXbUfn15H8
Gender Assessment. FP060: Water Sector Resilience Nexus for Sustainability in Barbados (WSRN S-Barbados) Barbados| CCCCC | GCF/B.19/22/Rev.02 30 April 2018. (31 pages) https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/737046/Gender_assessment_-_FP060_-_CCCCC_-_Barbados.pdf/263785cc-c37a-8323-7af7-aa8eed9a89a5
Cigad 2017. Women and Water. Perspectives from Antigua and Barbuda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wl4eeENqT8
Gender Assessment. FP059: Climate-Resilient Water Sector in Grenada (G-CREWS) Grenada | GIZ | GCF/B.19/22/Rev.02 30 April 2018. (30 pages) https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/737046/Gender_assessment_-_FP059_-_GIZ_-_Grenada.pdf/becb3df0-be25-f31b-9b68-1d9e759b2847
Module 10: What can social justice advocates and activists do to further an agenda of social justice and environmental sustainability?
April 9th, 2020. 10-11:30 am Eastern Caribbean Time
See Recording Here
Moderator: Alissa Trotz (PhD) is a Professor of Women and Gender Studies, and Caribbean Studies at New College, University of Toronto. She is also Associate Faculty at the Dame Nita Barrow Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the Cave Hill Campus of The University of the West Indies. She has published numerous essays on the gendered politics of neoliberalism, social reproduction and women's activism; gender, coloniality and violence; women and transnational migration; and the state and the diaspora option in the Caribbean. For the past five and a half years, Alissa has edited a weekly newspaper column, In the Diaspora, in the Stabroek News, a Guyanese independent newspaper, and is a member of Red Thread Women's Organization in Guyana.
Key questions:
What is the significance of the following statement: “Unwaged housework is the heart of every economic sector?” (Selma James, Global Women’s Strike)?
How might it become the basis of social justice work based on caring, sustainability and the transformation of human relations across the Caribbean?
How will we organize to live?
Required Readings and Resources
Andaiye: Valuing unwaged work—a preparatory brief for CARICOM Ministers responsible for Women’s Affairs attending the 4th World Conference on Women From The Point is To Change the World. By Andaiye (Edited by D. Alissa Trotz). London: Pluto Press (Black Critique Series) forthcoming April 2020. (PDF to be provided)
Organising for Survival: Grassroots Women of the Flood: Demands and Video Transcript (PDF to be provided)
Organising for Survival: Grassroots Women of the Flood, Part II (Red Thread, Guyana, 2005) Part 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uUQrPxWWJ4
Organising for Survival: Grassroots Women of the Flood, Part II (Red Thread, Guyana, 2005) Part 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjGzCNWZgQA&t=826s
Organising for Survival: Grassroots Women of the Flood, Part II (Red Thread, Guyana, 2005) Part 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEaOd-gTgKA&t=9s
Moderator: Peggy Antrobus