“DECOLONIZATION IN ST. LUCIA” & “WOMEN IN CARIBBEAN POLITICS"

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES
CAVE HILL CAMPUS, P.O. BOX 64, BRIDGETOWN BB11000, BARBADOS

PRESS RELEASE

Five years after the release of a book which they co-authored, political scientists Dr. Tennyson Joseph and Cynthia Barrow-Giles are set to launch separate publications in their native St. Lucia this weekend.
The two political science lecturers at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus will both be present for the unveiling of the works which focus on women’s involvement in regional politics and an examination of St. Lucia’s post colonial period. The two texts follow their 2006 joint publication entitled General Elections and Voting in the English Speaking Caribbean 1992-2005.
In Decolonization in St. Lucia: Politics and Global Neo-liberalism, 1945 – 2010, Dr. Joseph examines the issue of how a Caribbean nation may achieve political but not economic independence, building upon current research on the anti-colonial and nationalist experience in the Caribbean. He explores the impact of global transformation upon the independence experience of St. Lucia and argues that the island’s formal decolonization roughly coincided with the period of the rise of global neo-liberal hegemony. Central to the analysis is the tension between the role of the state as a facilitator of domestic aspirations on one hand and a facilitator of global capital on the other.
Joseph examines six critical phases in the St. Lucian experience. The first is 1940 to 1970, when the early nationalist movement gradually occupied state power within a framework of limited self-government. The second period is 1970 to 1982 during which formal independence was attained and during which an attempt at socialist-oriented radical nationalism was pursued by the Saint Lucia Labor Party. The third distinctive period was the period of neoliberal hegemony, 1982-1990. The fourth period (1990-1997) witnessed a heightened process of neoliberal adjustment in global trade which destroyed the banana industry and transformed the domestic political economy. A later period (1997-2006) involved in the SLP’s return to political power, resulting in tensions between an earlier radicalism and a new and contradictory accommodation to global neo-liberalism. The final period (2006 – 2010) coincides with the onset of a crisis in global neo-liberalism during which a series of domestic conflicts reflected the contradictions of the dominant understanding of sovereignty in narrow, materialist terms at the expense of its wider anti-systematic, progressive, and emancipator connotations. Decolonization in St. Lucia presents the only post-1945 political history of that country.
Women in Caribbean Politics, edited by Cynthia Barrow-Giles, traces the history, experiences, challenges and successes of twenty outstanding women, including St. Lucia’s first female legislator Grace Augustin. The women, hailing from twelve Caribbean territories, are portrayed navigating the traditionally male dominated arenas of partisan politics, political leadership, anti-slavery and anti-colonial struggles, radical politics, international relations and diplomacy. The collection is an important and timely addition to an emerging body of scholarship aimed at recovering the often silenced role of women in public politics.
Women in Caribbean Politics has both scholarly and popular appeal. It will function as a valuable resource for students and teachers of history, political science, Caribbean studies, social studies and women’s studies at the post-secondary and university levels. The chapters, though scholarly in their construction and content, are written in styles accessible to a wide cross-section of individuals. The political and social analyses, and the recovery work undertaken by some 19 authors represents an important contribution to knowledge about the lives of these path-breaking Caribbean women.

The joint book launches will take place at the Open Campus, St. Lucia, Morne Fortune, On Friday December 2nd from six pm.