Jamaica, Covid-19 and Black freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 092137402110143
Author(s):  
Maziki Thame

This essay is concerned with the conditions of Black life in the 21st century and the continued need to imagine Black freedom as projects of self-sovereignty, in the current moment of global protests centered on the socio-economic inequities that people especially those of color face, deepened by the devastating effects of Covid-19. The essay’s focus is on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. I highlight the articulation of race and class that springs from a world history of anti-blackness, historicized through plantation slavery. The essay addresses the enduring violence manifest in physical assaults and political projects of Development, that lead to widespread deprivation for lower-income Jamaicans. Yet the essay suggests that it is these very sordid conditions that generate alternative imaginaries for a sustainable re-ordering of life.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68
Author(s):  
Jolynna Sinanan

Abstract Social media is often assumed to espouse ego-centred networking. Yet by comparing posts to Facebook and Instagram, it becomes apparent that the experience and aspirations of the individual are often embedded in structures of family and other institutions that have been historically determined. This article locates images posted by women to two social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, within the Caribbean island of Trinidad’s wider history of the significance of visibility and visuality. What individuals choose to make visible and its consequences form a visual language in which Trinidadians are entirely fluent. By extension, images are used to communicate forms of differentiated identity that are made visible through social media. The material gathered was based on 15 months of ethnographic research in a semi-urban town in Trinidad where, generally, uses of social media are expressive of a place-based sense of identity. The town is simultaneously a place that urban dwellers look down on and villagers look up to. Visual content posted to Facebook and Instagram reveal that while individuals seek to craft and shape images and aesthetics according to their own tastes, this must be done in a socially acceptable way; that is, placing emphasis on group conformity is far more of a social value than expressing individual distinction. Social media in this context communicates the imagination of oppositional futures and a divergence of lifestyles for young women: those who identify with being locally-oriented and those who identify with being globally-oriented.


2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 657-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Ragouc-Sengler ◽  
A Tracqui ◽  
A Chavonnet ◽  
J B Daijardin ◽  
M Simonetti ◽  
...  

Aldicarb (2 ethyl-2 (methylthio) propanal o-[(methlamino)-carbonyl] oxime) is a pesticide manufactured since 1965. This carbamate ester is sold under the tradename, Temiks, and is used as insecticide and nematicide. The Environmental Protection Agency has classified aldicarb in the highest toxicity category and has defined a strict control for its delivery and use. In Brazil and the Caribbean island, aldicarb is illegally used as a household rodenticide with a widespread risk of poisoning. Our study presents the first review of aldicarb poisoning circumstances associated with cliical and analytical findings. Moreover, the oxime treament is discussed. Eighteen patients with cholinergic symptoms admitted to the Emergency Unit and two deceased with a history of aldicarb poisoning were included in the study. As agricultural workers, only two of them could legally use Temikg. Seventy percent of the patients was managed by the Emergency Mobil Unit. Serum cholinesterase activity was always lower than 30% of the normal range and aldicarb was identified by UV spectra and retention time after liquid chromatogrphy separation. The most common muscarinic effect was diarrhea, the main nicotinic sign fasciculation and almost half of the poisoned patients had central nervous system (CNS) depression (Glasgow Coma Score lower than 8). Four patients had serious conduction abnoralities and two of them died. These results suggest that aldicarb intoxication is always severe. Oxime treatment did not produce side effects and should be recommended whenever the pesticide involved is unknown. Effective measures should be implemented to stamp out the illicit use of aldicarb.


Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Evans

The headstones and epitaphs marking the death of English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish settlers on the Caribbean island of Barbados provide one of the earliest and most complete examples of British death culture overseas. Whilst the island was dominated by plantation slavery during the period in question, the surviving memorials from this period reveal little trace of the chattel slavery that made the island of great geopolitical importance to the British Empire. Instead the memorials examined here demonstrate a deep attachment to the ‘English’ identities of those who died in diaspora. The chapter compares such death culture with that of Jewish settlement on the island, a stream of evidence that demonstrates the island was a sanctuary for Jewish men, women and children from numerous countries during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.


Author(s):  
Kathleen Susan Murphy

In 1695, James Petiver concluded the first ‘century’ of his Musei Petiveriani by observing that he had received the specimens described within it from his ‘ Kind Friends from divers parts of the World’ and ‘ Curious Persons … Abroad’. This essay examines Petiver's network of such ‘Kind Friends’ and ‘Curious Persons’ in the Atlantic World. The composition of Petiver's network reflected many of the broader patterns of English commerce in the Atlantic at the turn of the eighteenth century. Moreover, England's growing overseas empire and its expanding commercial activity required a parallel expansion in maritime labour. Mariners were correspondingly central to Petiver's work as a naturalist and collector in the region. The importance of slavery and the slave trade to Atlantic economic and social structures meant that the naturalist relied on the institutions, infrastructures and individuals of the slave trade and plantation slavery. A social history of Petiver's Atlantic network reveals how the naturalist utilized the routes of commerce and colonialism to collect specimens, as well as to collect the correspondents who might provide them from West Africa, Spanish America, the Caribbean and mainland North America. It demonstrates the entangled histories of commerce, colonialism, collecting and the production of natural knowledge.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. iii-vi
Author(s):  
Magidimisha Chipungu H ◽  
◽  
Lovemore Chipungu ◽  

The discourse on inclusion and exclusion in contemporary cities goes beyond the mere physical manifestation of the various dimensions of inclusivity and exclusivity. While it is acknowledged that this discourse has been raging for years in the history of cities, its conceptual and physical manifestation has also been changing in line with societal dynamics. It is an undeniable fact that forces at work in contemporary cities are driven by power, race and class (among other factors) which in turn provide a platform for calculated and coordinated practices that contribute towards inclusion and exclusion. There is therefore need to consistently and progressively interrogate this phenomenon in order to create a dialogue that is responsive to contemporary cities in the 21st century. While conceptual, theoretical and epistemological frameworks might not provide instant solutions to challenges under consideration, their articulation of contemporary issues provide deeper insight and understanding which contributes towards achieving sustainable solutions. Would it be fair to interrogate the manifestation of inclusionary and exclusionary practices in contemporary cities without taking a nip from the past? The reality of the matter is that there are underlying perculiarities which provide continuous meanings – thereby offering comparative gazes for diagnosis, understanding, elaboration and which allow for subverting inclusionary tendencies, attitudes and practices. Therefore, those historical “moments” of action can be instrumentalised into plans of action for the new agenda in the creation of inclusive cities. However, contemporary cities are made up of a multiplicity of activities – therefore, it is this diversity which equally impact on inclusivity and exclusivity.


Classics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Van Nuffelen

Orosius was a Spanish priest, attested in the years 414–419. He is best known as the author of the Histories against the pagans (416–417), a world history that was conceived as a companion piece to the first ten books of Augustine’s City of God. The Histories would become the most-read history of the Middle Ages and be translated in Old English and Arabic in the 9th to the 10th centuries. Orosius also plays a secondary role in other controversies of the period. He wrote a tract against Priscillianism, and an Apology to defend himself from accusations of heresy coming from partisans of Pelagius. Finally, bringing relics of St Stephen to Spain, he landed in Minorca, sparking one of the most-discussed episodes of conversion of the Jews. If Orosius is, all in all, a minor figure in late antique history, his Histories have been treated as proof of some strongly held opinions about late antique historiography and early Christianity. The Histories, relying mainly on earlier sources, have been seen to exemplify the essentially derivative nature of late antique historiography, while its apologetic tendency has been taken as proof that Christians were not interested in historical events and subordinated everything to theological views on the course of history. Scholarship also tends to stress the gulf between Augustine’s apparent rejection of the alliance between empire and Church and Orosius’s apparent espousal of it. More recent scholarship has shed doubt on these long-held views, which are, in fact, shaped by modern theological responses to enthusiasm for dictatorial regimes found in some Christian circles in the 1930s. Scholarship on Orosius is very international, with numerous publications in Spanish, Italian, French, and German. Only starting in the early 21st century has scholarship in English picked up.


2021 ◽  
pp. 671 (756)-676 (760)
Author(s):  
G.N. Ginzburg

In the world history of art, various graphic techniques for making and printing works of art have had their own names: etching, woodcut, linocut, lithography, etc. The new definitions of the 21st century sound quite reasonable: “Flowinggraphics” and “Fluid Fusion”, based on technological and chemical discoveries work with acrylic paints. The purpose of my article is to acquaint the art community with new techniques and terms. English version of the article on pp. 756-760 is available at URL: https://panor.ru/articles/fluid-fusion-and-flowing-graphics-new-stylistic-descoveries-in-the-works-of-the-duet-of-artists-alexey-and-irina-polyakov/70067.html


Freedom Roots ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 53-92
Author(s):  
Laurent Dubois ◽  
Richard Lee Turits

By first retracing the long history of slavery in Europe, this chapter explores the rise of plantation slavery in the Caribbean as a key moment in global history. It shows how economic, cultural, and social forces converged in the creation of this new order based on racial slavery. It also emphasizes the complex contradictions of plantation society, notably through an exploration of the plantation gardens and provision grounds that enslaved people cultivated and sought to turn to their own ends, and which lay the foundation for agricultural autonomy in the post-emancipation period.


Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania López-Marrero ◽  
Tamara Heartsill-Scalley ◽  
Carlos F. Rivera-López ◽  
Isabel A. Escalera-García ◽  
Mariangelí Echevarría-Ramos

Hurricanes shape ecosystems. A broad range of forested ecosystems is particularly affected by hurricanes, thus creating the need for studies addressing the effects of these disturbances. There is a long history of hurricane and forest research on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. In this study, we present results from a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles regarding ecological research conducted in Puerto Rico on the topic of hurricanes and forests published from 1900 through 2017. We present a summary of cyclonic activity on the island during the study period and the results from the systematic literature review within this cyclonic context. We discuss findings in terms of aspects of forests studied, geographical distribution of study areas, and time scales at which research was conducted. These findings allow us to determine what was studied about hurricanes and forests, identify gaps in the information, and suggest possible areas of research and production of new knowledge that recent and future storms can bring. We conclude with recommendations identifying research needs and propose additional approaches to complement existing information. Our goal is to generate future knowledge from hurricane and forest research with the broadest applications possible.


1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-162
Author(s):  
John Edward Philips

Slavery and its effects will probably long remain among the most contentious of topics. Outlawed universally only recently, the institution is one of humanity’s oldest and most widespread forms of domination. It still exists, despite laws to the contrary, in some societies around the world. Social disabilities suffered by former slaves and their descendants are important legacies. And the lessons which the history of slavery can teach us have still not been fully elucidated or absorbed. It thus remains a topic of importance to teachers and researchers in every branch of humanities and social science.The literature on slavery has been dominated by the study of plantation slavery in the Western world, especially the Caribbean, Brazil and the United States. Studies of slavery in other areas and times have often been colored by biases and preconceptions based on American chattel slavery. Even when the intent of a scholar has been to contrast slavery in other societies with that in the Americas, the questions posed and the methods used have too often been shaped by the questions and methods of scholars working in the Americas. This has vitiated attempts at comparison.


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