Women & Change in the Caribbean: a Pan-caribbean Perspective

Jacket Description/Back: The book was conceived because of a widely felt need to bring together scattered studies of women in all Caribbean language groups. This book examines the lives of women in the multicultural society of the contemporary Caribbean where one-third of household heads are women. Table of Contents: Preface by Janet H. MomsenContributors1 IntroductionJanet H. MomsenSection OnePrivate & Public Spheres of Women s LivesPart 1 The Domestic Domain & the Community2 Reputation & respectability reconsidered: a new perspective on Afro-Caribbean peasant womenJean Besson3 Marriage & concubinage amoung the Sephardic merchant elite of CuracaoEva Abraham-Van der Mark4 Changing roles in the life cycles of women in traditional West Indian houseyardsLydia Mihelic Pulsipher5 Women s place is every place: merging domains and women s roles in Barbuda & DominicaRiva Berleant-Schiller and William M. MaurerPart 2 The Intersection of Reproduction & Production6 Women in Guadeloupe: the paradoxes of realityHuguette Dagenais7 The development & role of women s political organizations in GuyanaLinda Peake8 Neighbourhood networks & national politics amoung working-class Afro-Surinamese womenRosemary Brana-Shute9 The migration experience: Nevisian women at home & abroadKaren Fog Olwig10 Migration, development & the gender division of labour: Puerto Rico & Margarita Island, Venezuela Janice Monk with the late Charles S. AlexanderSection TwoEconomic Roles of Caribbean WomenPart 1 Rural Employment11 Small farm food production & gender in BarbadosChristine Barrow12 A profile of Grenadian women small farmersJohn S. Brierley13 Women in agriculture in Trinidad: An overviewIndra S. Harry14 Women & Duban smallholder agriculture in transitionJean Stubbs15 Development & gender divisions of labour in the rural Eastern CaribbeanJanet H. MomsenPart 2 Urban Employment16 Tranformation in the needle trades: women in garment & textile production in early twentieth-century TrinidadRhoda Reddock17 Gender & ethnicity at work in a Trinidadian factoryKevin A. Yelvington18 Women s contribution to tourism in Negril, JamaicaLesley McKay19 Gender & new technology in the Caribbean: new work for women?Ruth PearsonIndex"Biographical Note: JANET MOMSEN is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. She is chair of the Society for Caribbean Studies and of the International Geographical Union Study Group on Gender and Geography. She is co-author of A Geography of Brazilian Development, co-editor of Geography and Gender in the Third World and of Land and Development in the Caribbean, and author of Women and Development in the Third World. Publisher Marketing: Recent discussion of postmodern culture describes a movement from center to periphery, privileging cultures that were formerly marginalized. Women and Change in the Caribbean, a study of women marginalized by both gender and race in a region such as the Caribbean itself marginalized in global terms attempts to extract insights relevant both within and beyond geographical confines. This volume offers a feminist interpretation of a multicultural society emerging from colonialism and in the process of change and restructuring. The nineteen chapters include case studies of fifteen different Caribbean territories including Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Grenada, and Guyana. The book is divided into two sections: the first looks at women s status and gender relations in the private and public spheres; the second looks at women s economic activity. Taking a broad pan-Caribbean comparative view contributors discuss territories with American, British, Dutch, Danish, French, and Spanish colonial traditions and current political links. The contributors come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds including agriculture, anthropology, economics, geography, history, sociology, and women s studies."

Contributor Bio:  Momsen, Janet Henshall Momsen has taught and researched Caribbean topics at King's College, London, the Interamerican Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Costa Rica, and the universities of Calgary, Rio de Janeiro.