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

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. 

, 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 Moon (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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“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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“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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The deadline for nominations for the 2010 Michael Baptista Essay Prize competition is Aug. 29. Nominations are limited to 91ŃÇÉ« students only. Winners receive $500 and essays selected to receive the prize will be considered for publication by the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC) at 91ŃÇÉ«.

The essays may be from a full- or half-course during the 2009-2010 academic year or a summer 2009 course. Major research papers at the graduate level may also be nominated. Submissions should be no longer than 35 pages, including all references, tables, figures and notes. Deadline extensions are available in instances where significant rewriting is required to shorten the work to within that limit.

The papers submitted will be reviewed by two to three faculty readers with research interests in Latin America and the Caribbean. Both the prize winners and the nominating faculty members will be advised of the decision by the end of October 2010.

To make a nomination, request a nomination form by sending an e-mail to cerlac@yorku.ca. The nominated paper and accompanying form should be submitted to CERLAC, 8th Floor, 91ŃÇÉ« Research Tower, no later than Aug. 29. Also send an electronic copy of the paper by e-mail to cerlac@yorku.ca.

Only faculty members can nominate a paper. Students cannot be self-nominated. Students who have received outstanding grades on their papers should bring the existence of this prize to the attention of their instructors, so that they might nominate the paper if they so choose.

The prizes are funded by the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada, where he was a senior vice-president until his untimely death.

For more information, contact the CERLAC office at 416-736-5237 or e-mail cerlac@yorku.ca.

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

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Latin American Artists in Toronto: Immigrants and Artists at Work, the second seminar on issues related to immigrants and the arts, will feature three panellists.

The seminar will take place Tuesday, March 23, from 12:30 to 2pm, in the fifth floor Conference Centre of the 91ŃÇÉ« Research Tower, Keele campus.

91ŃÇÉ« environmental studies Professor Deborah Barndt, co-ordinator of the Community Arts Practice (CAP) Certificate at 91ŃÇÉ«, will moderate the panel discussion along with 91ŃÇÉ« sociology Professor Luin Goldring (right), a Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC) Fellow.

Rodrigo Barreda, secretary of the Latin American Canadian Art Projects Board of Directors; 91ŃÇÉ« fine arts cultural studies Professor Alberto Guevara; and Elia Mayahuel Tecozautla (MA ’09), a 91ŃÇÉ« dance alumna, will be the panellists who reflect on their work as artists in Canada.

Among the topics they will discuss are:

• challenges faced by Latin American artists working in the arts sector
• how artists negotiate their identities in their artistic production processes
• the role of funding bodies and gallery practices in shaping “immigrant art”
• how artists develop an aesthetic in the context of Canadian multicultural policy
• contrasts between artistic production cultures “here” and “there”

The seminar is free and open to everyone. It is presented by CERIS, CAP and 91ŃÇɫ’s Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean.

RSVP to ceris.reception@utoronto.ca or call 416-946-3110.

CERIS - The Ontario Metropolis Centre is a research knowledge creation and transfer network that focuses on the resettlement and integration of immigrants and refugees in Ontario. The centre is a collaboration between 91ŃÇÉ«, the University of Toronto and Ryerson University.

The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) is an interdisciplinary research unit concerned with the economic development, political and social organization, and cultural contributions of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Centre works to build academic and cultural links between these regions and Canada; to inform researchers, policy advisors, and the public on matters concerning the regions; and to assist in the development of research and teaching institutions that directly benefit the peoples of the regions.

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

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