Organized by the CERLAC student caucus and hosted by 91ŃÇÉ« doctoral students Natasha Sofia Martinez and Alex Moldovan.Ěý

is a Jamaican human rights lawyer and founder of Freedom Imaginaries, an organization that uses human rights law to tackle legacies of slavery and colonialism. She holds a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School and a Master of Advanced Studies degree from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. She is qualified to practice law in Guyana and Jamaica.Ěý

, PhD is a Jamaican independent film maker, writer, educator and linguist with over thirty-five years of media productions including television programming, documentaries, educational videos, multimedia and feature film. Her activist film making gives voice to those outside of mainstream media and focuses on the perpetuation of local and indigenous knowledge and cultures, the environment, social injustice, and community empowerment. Figueroa’s films include Jamaica for Sale(2009), Fly Me To The MoonĚý(2019). In 2013, Figueroa was Distinguished Writer in Residence at University of Hawai’i English Department. Her environmental novel Limbo (2014) was a finalist in the 2015 National Indie Excellence Awards for Multi-cultural Fiction.

“When you think of the Caribbean, it is likely that you think of the region as a victim of climate injustice” Dr. Figueroa observes. “Certainly, in their calls for reparations, Caribbean governments stress the innocence of the region. But Caribbean governments promote extractivist models of development, whereby tourism, plantation agriculture and forestry, industrial fisheries, the extraction of hydrocarbons, metals and minerals, car-centric development and urbanized built environments are the engines of their growth economies.” This is in keeping with the role of Caribbean peoples as the early industrial modernizers in and through sugar plantations, leaders within a world system of colonialism and capitalism. In their scale and complexity, the sugar plantations anticipated later industrial developments in Britain and Europe, Dr. Figueroa argues, creating enormous profits for British colonial owners and funding the expansion of British empire, which at one time included a quarter of humanity. In short, through the plantation system, the Caribbean was central to world processes of industrial modernity, empire and global capitalism. 

This matters for the contemporary climate crisis here and now, Dr. Figueroa insists, because the age of European imperialist expansion accelerated what some call the Anthropocene, an era in which human presence has irrevocably transformed the natural world. European imperialisms were marked by the genocide of tens millions of Indigenous peoples, the theft of their lands and waters, and the repurposing of them as natural resources. “A more accurate conceptualization of the Anthropocene is therefore the Plantationocene”, Dr. Figueroa observes, “a patriarchal, colonial, racist capitalist world political economy that began in the late 15^th in the Americas and in the Caribbean, rooted in the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Africans and the profitable destruction of the natural world.” The Caribbean’s history of extractivism continues today in Guyana, as Dr. Figueroa describes:

“Guyana is now positioned to become the largest oil producer in the world transforming from a carbon sink, whereby its immense intact forests hold carbon and supply oxygen, to a carbon bomb, with 10 billion barrels of oil slated to be extracted. It is estimated that burning that oil could release over 4 billion tons of greenhouse gases…And in keeping with the Caribbean’s extractivist tradition, the agreement between the government of Guyana, Exxon and other multinational oil corporations, saddles Guyana with debt and liability while enriching the oil companies. Yet the Guyana government portrays their new role as the largest oil producer as one that will catapult Guyanese society into great wealth and prosperity…”.

Caribbean leaders beholden to billion-dollar corporations and wealthy oligarchs adjust to a violent, racist capitalist world by selling off the last of the Caribbean’s so-called natural resources. “The Caribbean is not innocent,” Dr. Figueroa concludes, “despite its calls for reparations given climate injustice.” What is required is a fundamental transformation beyond the global plantation economy that carries so much violence against human beings, especially Indigenous peoples and the natural world.

“The climate crisis is the logical consequence of a racial capitalist system, which normalizes resource plundering, Indigenous dispossession, and the relegation of former colonies to sacrificial zones of extraction,” Malene Alleyne observes. Communities are becoming uninhabitable due to extreme weather events linked with climate change. In Bahamas, people are still recovering from Hurricane Dorian, which in 2019 caused loss of life and massive displacement, with many living today in what were originally conceived as temporary, emergency housing. In Trinidad and Tobago, wildlife and fishing are threatened by oil spills, while in Jamaica, bauxite mining is contaminating water sources and destroying agricultural lands in Cockpit Country. “What I am describing is a system of global racial inequality,” Alleyne continues, “in which Caribbean nations remain trapped in a cycle of dependency on extraction and climate vulnerability.” Migrants, Indigenous people, and Afro-descendent rural people are marginalized within the Caribbean and, when faced with natural disasters created and exacerbated by climate change, they are most likely to suffer from death and displacement. 

A rights-based decolonial approach to justice demands a transformative approach that shifts power to these communities, Alleyne emphasizes, so that they can defend their way of life and environment against unsustainable development. This human rights-based approach to climate justice includes the following three pillars:

• environmental rights, including the right to clean air and water, as well as procedural environmental rights, such as the right to access climate information, participate in climate decision-making processes, and access remedies in cases of harm; 
• a racial equality framework based on international treaties that prohibit racial discrimination, including with respect to climate change;
• climate reparations, including just economic and social systems enabling a postcolonial future; 

This is much more than a matter of financial reparations. Since a racist world capitalist system engenders climate change, Alleyne argues, challenging climate change requires that we dismantle that system and join together to build a more socially, economically and racially just world.

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Hernández-Carranza won for his essay “Hemispheric Racial Formations: Making Sense of Central and South Americans’ Experience of Race and Ethnicity in Toronto, Canada,” and Flores Montoya for his paper â€śLo fantasmagĂłrico en Pedro Páramo y la metamorfosis en Silver: Una crĂ­tica marxista de la modernidad y del progreso” ["The phantasmagoric in Pedro Páramo and metamorphosis in Silver: A Marxist critique of modernity and progress"].

“Giovanni’s and Enzo’s work really shows the interdisciplinary strength and creativity happening in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at 91ŃÇÉ«,” said Ravi de Costa, associate dean, research and graduate studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

The  was established by the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada. This $500 prize is awarded annually to a graduate and undergraduate student in recognition of an outstanding scholarly essay of relevance to Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the humanities, social science, business, or legal perspective.

The Michael Baptista Essay Prize and  are named in honour of Michael Baptista in recognition of the areas central to his spirit and success: the importance of his Guyanese/Caribbean roots, his dedication to and outstanding achievement at the Royal Bank of Canada, and his continued and unqualified drive for and love of learning.

Essay entries were nominated by 91ŃÇÉ« faculty members and evaluated by CERLAC’s Awards Committee. The prize-winning papers have been made available online as part of . All nominated papers represent high-calibre scholarly work at their authors' respective levels of study and merit recognition as worthy of candidacy for this prize.

91ŃÇÉ« faculty members who wish to nominate a student's essay for this prize, should contact CERLAC at cerlac@yorku.ca or CERLAC’s Coordinator Camila Bonifaz at cbonifaz@yorku.ca.

Courtesy of YFile.

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The event will take place Wednesday, Nov. 7 from 1:30 to 3pm, at 280A 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend the event.

Alex Latta

Latta, who co-edited the collection with Hannah Wittman, will draw on the contributions to the book, as well as related literature and his own research, to explore the ways nature becomes constituted as a resource, an object of knowledge, a target of governance and a focus for political struggle in Latin America.

He will look at how human political subjectivities are simultaneously implied, activated, contested and reinvented in these constitutive moments, spaces and processes. Beyond a concern for the rights and responsibilities of “environmental citizens”, the talk will reach for a conception of citizenship that is fundamentally relational across dynamic assemblages of human and non-human elements.

Latta is a professor in the Department of Global Studies and the Balsillie School of International affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research considers the politics of water, energy and environmental justice in Latin America, with a recent focus on conflicts over hydroelectric development in Chile.

For more information, e-mail cerlac@yorku.ca or visit the CERLAC website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

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The 40-minute film will screen Wednesday, Oct. 19, from 12:30 to 2pm, in the Nat Taylor Cinema, N102 Ross Building, Keele campus.

Right: Tracy Kim Assing

Assing will be on hand to discuss the film and answer questions. The film is a personal exploration of her roots in Arima, Trinidad. Through the film, she examines Trinidad’s indigenous history and the inner workings of the organization which represents these indigenous descendants - The Santa Rosa Carib Community, whose queen, Valentina Medina, is Assing’s great aunt. The community is the only recognized group representing indigenous descendants in Trinidad and Tobago.

The film explores how the story of indigenous people has been recorded, as well as the structure of the Santa Rosa Carib Community, its politics and its beliefs. The future seems uncertain and the Santa Rosa Carib Community may soon have to find a new Queen, but what does it mean to be the Queen? What does it mean to be Carib in Trinidad?

Until now, Amerindian descendants have depended on the stories of their grandparents and great-grandparents for their history, while the indigenous story of survival has been written out of the history books.

Assing’s work on indigenous culture has been published in the Caribbean Review of Books and Caribbean Beat magazine, where she has also served as a contributing editor. She is currently contributing editor for magazine.

The Amerindians premiered at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2010. It is being presented by the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean, Aboriginal/Indigenous Studies, the Department of Humanities, Latin American & Caribbean Studies at 91ŃÇÉ« and the Department of Social Science.

For more information, visit the CERLAC website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The project, Youth and Community Development in Canada and Jamaica: A Transnational Approach to Youth Violence, popularly known as “Project Groundings”, opened with two youth forums in Kingston and St. Mary, Jamaica on July 28 and 31. At both of these events, black youth from Jamaica and Canada confronted the systemic violence that marks their lives and initiated a conversation about how they might interrupt these complex patterns of violence.

Right: 91ŃÇÉ« Professor Andrea Davis addressing a youth forum in Jamaica

Andrea Davis, deputy director of CERLAC and the project’s principal investigator, says, “Many youth lack the language and cultural awareness necessary to respond to their environment in a critical and transformative way, and often end up perpetuating forms of social violence themselves.” By bringing Jamaican youth into a conversation with Canadian youth, Project Groundings “seeks to facilitate critical national and transnational dialogue that can open up avenues of collaboration among youth across their shared cultural boundaries,” says Davis. This transformative dialogue seeks not only to change the behaviour and action of youth, but also to increase public awareness, affect public policy and contribute to the ongoing body of research on youth violence.Ěý

In the project’s opening National Youth Forum in Kingston, Jamaican youth grappled with the unique challenges they face, including sexual violence against women, victimization based on sexual orientation, access to education, unemployment, socio-economic disparities in the administration of justice and the absence of effective platforms from which to voice their concerns.

Above: New researchĚýuses art forms, such as drama, to explore the effects of violence on black youth in Canada and JamaicaĚý

The second youth forum in Woodside, St. Mary, examined the specific concerns faced by rural youth.ĚýHere, youth identified a lack of facilities and resources, including poor roads and inadequate transportation, as their greatest challenges. While they recognized the necessity of agricultural pursuits, they also pointed to the lack of crop diversification and financial compensation as major deterrents leading them off the land.

The question of violence was also central to the Woodside forum, which closed with an impromptu commemoration of the life of Shauna Kaye Shaw, a community youth leader murdered earlier this year. In defiance of the fear brought on by her death, Woodside youth committed to resume youth activities.

Right: Jamaica Youth Theatre performing The Pickney Dem a Dry

As Peter Cumming, coordinator of 91ŃÇɫ’s Children’s Studies Program and president of the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People, says, “The most exciting development in the research team’s first sessions in Jamaica was the moving demonstration of Jamaican youths’ eager and serious engagement with issues of violence through their sharing of their own experiences, their animated discussion about possible solutions for societal violence, and their strategic use of the arts, particularly theatre, to represent and confront the enormous pain caused by violence.”

One example of the use of the arts was Jamaica Youth Theatre’s (YRT) performance of the skit The Pickney Dem a Dry. The skit explores the grief of a mother who learns of the death of her daughter on the streets. While it begins as a personal mourning, it quickly mounts into collective suffering, a disturbing yet inspiring memorial to young people who have died violently. This performance powerfully deployed a poem, a clothesline on which the names of murdered youth were hung and chants based on street graffiti to acknowledge a shared humanity among youth – “We all bleed red”. It also challenged everyone as individuals and nations to “Live up! Live up!”

Left: Toronto youth Ebthihal Nabag (left) and Nabi Shash from Nia Centre for the Arts participate in a youth exchange

“I was humbled by the honesty and courage of these young people,” says Davis. “Being able to see the transformative elements of the research and the way young people from both countries embraced and empowered each other was enormously fulfilling.”

This innovative approach to youth violence is funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and brings together researchers from 91ŃÇÉ«, McMaster University, the universities of Guelph, Ottawa and Waterloo, as well as the University of the West Indies (Mona campus). It also includes three community partners – JYT in Kingston, the Woodside Development Action Group in St. Mary and Nia Centre for the Arts in Toronto,

The project will host a second youth forum, workshop and photo exhibit in Toronto Oct. 28 and 29.

For more information, visit the CERLAC website or e-mail Andrea Davis at aadavis@yorku.ca.

By 91ŃÇÉ« graduate student Jan Anderson

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“Caribbean Religion and Female Esthetic” will take place Thursday, March 10, from 12:30 to 2:30pm in the Conference Centre on the fifth Floor of the 91ŃÇÉ« Research Tower, Keele campus.

In particular, Duncan will look at the religious dress in the Spiritual Baptist faith as a site of meaning-making and identity construction. Drawing on ethnographic research, multiple associations of religious dress, including modesty, leadership and African diasporan religious identities are discussed.

“My research suggests that religious clothing is simultaneously material culture, artistic production and narrative in cloth, linking contemporary life experiences in large urban centres, to which Caribbean people have emigrated, and Caribbean past,” says Duncan.

Left: Carol Duncan

She is the author of This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008) and co-author of Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2007).

The event is co-sponsored by Founders College, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, the Department of Humanities, Vanier College, African Studies, Culture & Expression and Religious Studies.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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At the undergraduate level, international studies student Margaret Bancerz won for her essay “Counter-Hegemony and ALBA: The Answer to the FTAA”, while at the graduate level, Osgoode Hall Law School PhD candidate (IMBA '08)Ěýwon for her paper, “The Convention on Biological Diversity, Indigenous Peoples and Conservation of Biodiversity”.

Evaluators called Bancerz’s paper comparing two economic trade pacts in the Americas today “an excellent example of counter-hegemony”Ěýwith “extensive documentation from a wide variety of sources.” They went on to say, it provides “both an in-depth description (substance, activities and historical narrative) involving the two treaties, drawing on empirical data taken from official sources, as well as a significant critique, based on what seems like a very extensive reading of a wide variety of secondary sources (historical, economic, social and political).”

For Becker’s paper,ĚýevaluatorsĚýsaid it wasĚý“very well argued, very well researched and very thoughtful work on an important issue” and prize-worthy in terms of “quality of writing, level of sophistication of the analysis and coherence.”

The essays were nominated by 91ŃÇÉ« faculty members and each was evaluated byĚýa differentĚýcommittee comprised of Fellows from the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC). Both prize-winning papers are available online as part of CERLAC's Baptista Prize-Winning Essays Series.

The other undergraduate student papers nominated for the 2010 prize were: Jan Anderson's “Searching for Black Canadians: Contestations over Citizenship”; Laura Liberatori's “Handling Venezuela: The Rise and Success of the Hands off Venezuela Campaign"; Nadine Ramharack's “Overcoming Adversity: The Life of Jaffroon Ali, 84 Years and Counting”; and Adrian Reyes' "Corporate Social Responsibility and Due Diligence: The Case for Ex Ante Human Rights Impact Assessments".

Paulo Ravecca was the other graduate-level student nominated for his paper "Political Science and the Politics of Science in Latin America".

The Michael Baptista Essay Prize was established by the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada. This $500 prize is awarded annually to both a graduate and an undergraduate student at 91ŃÇÉ« in recognition of an outstanding scholarly essay of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the humanities, social science, business or legal perspective.

The Michael Baptista Essay PrizeĚý& Lecture are named in honour of Michael Baptista in recognition of the areas central to his spirit and success: the importance of his Guyanese/Caribbean roots, his dedication to and outstanding achievement at the Royal Bank of Canada and his continued and unqualified drive and love of learning.

For more information about the essay prize, visit CERLAC’s Michael Baptista Essay PrizeĚý& Lecture web page.

Republished with files courtesy of YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“Listening to Paintings: Cultural Mythologies of Gender in the Caribbean”, part of the Caribbean Lecture Series, will take place Thursday, Nov. 11, from 12:30 to 2:30pm in the Conference Centre, 519 91ŃÇÉ« Research Tower, Keele campus.

Right: Patricia Mohammed

Mohammed’s research explores the ways Caribbean people’s understanding of class, ethnic and gender identities influences the culturally specific ways in which they produce and live.

Her research interests, which have largely focused on gender and feminist theory, are now amplified through the lens of visuality. She is interested in the reading of the image, whether still or moving, and in understanding what the Caribbean has created as an esthetic as a result of its peculiar New World history.

Mohammed's publications include Imaging the Caribbean: Culture and Visual Translation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought (University of the West Indies Press, 2002), Gender Negotiations Among Indians in Trinidad, 1917-1947 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) and Caribbean Women at the Crossroads (University Press of the West Indies, 2000).

The Caribbean Lecture Series is presented by the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC).

For more information, visit the CERLAC website.

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The first conference attracted over 70 presenters from Canada, the United States, Europe and Latin America, who presented in 20 themed panels over a two-day period. Expert faculty members helped ensure rich debate and provided timely feedback, and selected papers were published in the CERLAC Working Paper series. CERLAC intends to continue the conversations begun in 2008. It is inviting submissions for its second conference to be held March 11 and 12 at 91ŃÇÉ«.

Recognizing the diversity within the region, creative and critical paper, panel and alternative presentation proposals are welcome on any aspect of study of Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole and/or its constituent parts. This conference represents an outstanding opportunity to recognize and explore emergent innovative research by graduate students in all disciplines. This includes, but is not limited to, the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, environmental studies, law and business. CERLAC is also seeking contributors whose work can open fruitful dialogues and exchanges across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

The individual submission application form is available online. This form includes a request for a list of five carefully chosen keywords and a 250-word (maximum) abstract for papers, panels or alternative presentations.

The application form for panel proposals is also available online. CERLAC encourages applicants to submit themed panel proposals as a way to bring colleagues together to discuss current research and advance a particular field.

The deadline for the submission of abstracts and panel proposals is Nov. 15. Those planning to present in alternative formats, for example, film, dance, visual arts or music, they are encouraged to contact CERLAC earlier.

For more information or to submit completed application forms, contact CERLAC at lacsconf@yorku.ca.

Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance by mid-January. Presenters will be asked to submit their papers by March 1.

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If you are lucky enough, you might get a chance to see the dynamic circle dance that the (UNESCO) has called "a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage" – the samba de roda. It is here in Salvador and its surrounding countryside that 91ŃÇÉ« dance Professor Danielle Robinson (right) engages with the music, dance and culture of samba de roda, the history of which is rooted in rural Brazil and its plantation past. Robinson is drawn to the improvisational character of samba de roda "as a way of moving, thinking, adapting and living."

In this practice, "the music and dance are held together by shared syncopated rhythms, a collective history of colonization and an overall ethos of joy," said Robinson. "People switch between dancing, playing, singing and clapping as the spirit moves them.ĚýNo one can just watch, everyone eventually ends up in the circle, which is a powerful, inclusive community space."

¸é´Ç˛úľ±˛Ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô’s -funded research aims to emphasize samba de roda’s improvisational character and the consequent diversity of movements. Throughout her research, Robinson seeks to understand how participants imagine and embody their relationships with the "roots" of samba, how they distinguish themselves from other movement and dance practitioners and how increasing cultural tourism is changing the practice profoundly, thanks to the recognition from UNESCO.

All of the original materials, including music recordings, music scores, interview transcriptions and translations, video documentation and still images, will eventually be held in the Clara Thomas ArchivesĚý& Special CollectionsĚýin order to promote further research. A parallel collection will also be placed at the Federal University of Bahia in the new Brazilian Popular Culture Research Centre (Centro de Estudos das Tradições Orais Brasileiras) that is currently being planned.

Robinson adds that the people she is working with in Salvador da Bahia want to collaborate and contribute, not be treated as passive research subjects. For this reason, the culminating book, with its numerous forms of writing by lifelong sambadores, includes interviews, song lyrics and essays, as well as writings by local Brazilian researchers.

Although ¸é´Ç˛úľ±˛Ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô’s research aims to speak to ethnographers, especially those working in dance and music of the African diaspora, Robinson also hopes "to offer another model of decolonizing research to other scholars working cross-culturally."

Throughout her academic career, Robinson has focused on experiences of identity, industry and appropriation as lived by participants in popular African diasporic dance practices like samba de roda. In particular, she is interested in "community-based dancing and its ability to construct, navigate and contest social divides and stereotypes." Growing up in the southern United States just after segregation ended, she is especially invested in understanding race relations and their manifestations in expressive culture.

Before joining 91ŃÇɫ’s Dance Department in 2005, Robinson taught at the Federal University of BahiaĚý in Salvador, Brazil, as well as at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Texas, Austin. Her articles have been published in Dance Theatre Journal, Dance Research Journal, Dance Chronicle and Dance Research. At 91ŃÇÉ«, she is cross-appointed to the 91ŃÇÉ« & Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture. She is a Fellow of 91ŃÇɫ’s Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean, the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples and Winters College. Her varied research and teaching experiences have led to what she considers one of the high points of her career so far. In 2009, she received the Faculty of Fine Arts Dean’s Junior Teaching Award.

By Jacquelin Chatterpaul, Faculty of Fine Arts research officer aide

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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