This book brings together contributions from a broad spectrum of authors on the
most challenging issue for the Caribbean: resisting the dominating efforts of
European colonizers and their descendants and understanding the long-standing
struggle of Caribbean people to fashion a culture and society that would give full
space to the African heritage of the majority while accommodating their new and
evolving circumstances.
The book presents contemporary readings of Caribbean religion, education,
language, music, race, sexual behaviour in a time of the AIDS pandemic, and the
economy. It grew out of a conference held in 2006 in honour of the scholarship of
internationally acclaimed Professor Alston Barrington Chevannes, professor of
social anthropology at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. This collection
is unique, therefore, in both the breadth of its focus and range of topics as well as
the specific issues considered, most essays being useful case studies in particular
fields. The geographical span includes Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago,
Guyana, indeed the Caribbean as a whole. There is perhaps no other publication
with such an aim, range and relevance. The theme of a Caribbean worldview
makes this book a pioneering contribution to Caribbean studies. The collection
also contains an autobiographical essay by Barry Chevannes.
Contributors: Diane Austin-Broos, Jean Besson, Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick, Barry
Chevannes, Christine Chivallon, J. Peter Figueroa, Kim Johnson, Horace Levy,
Herbie Miller, Jahlani Niaah, Sonjah Stanley Niaah, Annie Paul, Anna Kasafi
Perkins, Khitanya Petgrave, Don Robotham, Veront M. Satchell
Horace Levy is Research Fellow in the Centre for Public Safety and Justice at the
University of the West Indies, Jamaica. He has published on community violence
and compiled They Cry “Respect”: Urban Violence and Poverty in Jamaica.
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The African-Caribbean Worldview and the Making of Caribbean Society
