By: Staff Writer
June 15, 2021
A noted Caribbean scholar and president of the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) says that Caribbean societies are stuck on the colonial modus operandi and the glass ceiling for women in leadership is slowly cracking but there is still a lot of work to be done in the region.
Dr. Tavis D. Jules, associate professor of cultural and educational policy at Loyola University Chicago and also the president of the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), spoke to Caribbean Magazine Plus about the recently held annual conference on May 31 to June 4 and said: “The Conference is very important for two reasons. First, it is the 45th Conference of the CSA, and it allowed us to reflect on the legacy and contributions of CSA and its members to Caribbean societies.
“Second, Caribbean states are no strangers to external threats. Having a conference during the COVID-19 pandemic was a way to talk about the impact of the pandemic and other external threats upon Caribbean societies and assess how Caribbean societies are responding to the pandemic. Much of the research presented focused on how Caribbean societies are responding to challenging times.”
This year’s conference was extremely difficult to pull off because, “From the minute we decided to have a virtual conference, we needed to plan for a new Conference,” said Dr Jules. He added: “The virtual platform did not operate in the ways in which we thought it would, and on the first day of the Conference, we faced several technological challenges. Perhaps the main challenge we faced was people not following instructions and understanding the platform.
“Moreover, we found that people did not utilize the full extent of the virtual platform. Despite these challenges, we had a great virtual conference, and our members have told us that they had a good time. We wanted to create a space to bring our members together after we could not meet last year.”
Despite the technological challenges and minor setbacks, Dr Jules was still high on the key takeaways of the conference where he said, “The most important takeaway for this year’s Conference is that Caribbean societies are still experiencing turbulence, and there is a need for academic research.
“Secondly, Caribbean societies are still stuck in a colonial modus operandi that is hampering their development. Moreover, while the glass ceiling is slowly cracking and letting women into leadership roles across the region, the region has a long way to go in achieving gender parity. There is still a lot of work to be done in the region, and national educational systems are not preparing their human resource development in a way to take advantage of the global marketplace. Aspects of the Conference highlighted some of Guyana’s constraints as it seeks to move toward developed status with its newly found oil wealth.”
The CSA gave away 1,1100 scholarships to students, teachers and non-governmental organisations from across the Caribbean this year with over 2,000 participants at this year’s conference. Dr Jules was “surprised” at the amount of people that applied for the scholarship to attend the conference. He noted, however, “But it was disappointing that they were not more active during the Conference. CSA’s conferences do not generate lots of sponsors, and it is mainly for the local sponsors in the host country.
“While we did have sponsorship from the University of Guyana, US Embassy of Guyana, and the ministry of tourism of Guyana, these were sufficient to allow us to have a great conference.”
Dr Jules also said: “During the past two years, because of the pandemic, we chose to focus less on outreach and more on rebuilding and reorganizing CSA. To this extent, this year, we launched the CSA Journal – Caribbean Conjunctures: The Caribbean Studies Association Journal. This is CSA’s first journal in its 45-year history, and we hope to use this as a way to engage with the diaspora.”
He continued, “We had several amazing panels, by the Women and Leadership panel (with the incoming secretary-general of CARICOM designate, Dr Carla Natalie Barnett, the US Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch, and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Dr Paloma Mohamed Martin, Lady Avril Joseph; and Dr Sonia Noel) was thought provoking.
“In a similar manner, the Reparations panel featuring David Lammy, Eric Phillips, and Dr Verene Shepherd left us with lots to think about. There were two noteworthy plenaries, ‘Cougars Will Rise: Re-collecting Resilience in the Caribbean’ by Dr Paloma Mohamed Martin and ‘If I plant you, you will grow: The Spiritual and Ecological Re-emergence of Watermamma’ by Dr Michelle Asantewa. Professor Patricia Mohammed, Emeritus Professor at the University of West Indies, is a key thinker in Caribbean feminist theory received the CSA lifetime Achievement Award.
The Cultural Show put on by the University of Guyana was spectacular.”