PROGRAMME for the IGDS REGIONAL GRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM 2022

IGDS INAUGURAL REGIONAL GRADUATE RESEARCH Inaugural SYMPOSIUM 2022 Thursday 26 May 2022 ZOOM

RCO - REGIONAL COORDINATING OFFICE MU - MONA UNIT, JAMAICA NBU - NITA BARROW UNIT, CAVE HILL, BARBADOS SAU - ST AUGUSTINE UNIT TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

Institute for Gender and Development Studies Regional Coordinating Office Mona Unit, Jamaica Nita Barrow Unit, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados and St Augustine Unit, Trinidad and Tobago

hosts the

IGDS INAUGURAL REGIONAL GRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM 2022 Programme Hosts Tonya Haynes Lecturer and Graduate Coordinator, NBU & Chair, Graduate Sub-Committee

Dalea Bean Lecturer and Graduate Coordinator, RCO

Angelique Nixon Lecturer and Graduate Coordinator, SAU

Thursday 26 May 2022 EST 9:00 AM–1:30 PM | AST 10:00 AM–2:30 PM Jamaica | Trinidad/Barbados

ZOOM

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WELCOME FROM

GRADUATE COORDINATORS Welcome to the Inaugural Regional Graduate Research Symposium of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS). As a regional teaching institute, the IGDS has embarked on close to 30 years of cutting edge pedagogical innovations in the broad area of gender and development studies. For the IGDS, knowledge production for Caribbean development is not only done through the research and publication of staff members, but through the keen work of graduate students. It is important for such graduate work to be showcased to a regional audience in order to highlight the important work being done by our students, and also to give them the most robust feedback to improve their work and ensure successful completion of their degrees.

The planning of this event has been led by the Institute’s Regional Graduate Sub-Committee, which has been working consistently to ensure that the IGDS functions as a harmonised space. This work includes harnessing our regional strengths for the improvement of our graduate programmes. This Regional Graduate Research Symposium is yet another step in that direction and we look forward to an engaging and meaningful experience for our graduate students as they showcase their rich and diverse research.

We look forward to meaningful exchange and encouraging feedback for our graduate students during the symposium.

Tonya, Angelique, Dalea

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AGENDA ——————— MORNING ———————

Welcome Professor Paula Morgan University Director, IGDS

Introduction Dr Tonya Haynes Lecturer, NBU

——————— EST 9:15–10:15 AM | AST 10:15–11:15 AM ———————

Panel One Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities Presenters: Ceresa Springer-Barnett . MSc student . NBU Alessandra Hereman . MPhil Student . SAU Chair: Jaevion Nelson . MPhil Student . RCO Discussant: Dr. Sue Ann Barratt . Lecturer and Head . SAU

—————— EST 10:15 –11:30 AM | AST 11:15 AM–12:30 PM ——————

Panel Two Race . Gender . Body . Media Presenters: Anusha J. Ragbir . PhD student . SAU Alia Wedderburn . MPhil Student . RCO Alicia Haynes . MPhil Student . NBU Chair: Tivia Collins . PhD student, SAU Discussants: Dr. Halimah DeShong . Head and Senior Lecturer . NBU Dr. Daniele Bobb . Lecturer . NBU

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AGENDA 30 minute break ——————— AFTERNOON ———————

——————— EST 12:00–1:15 PM | AST 1:00–2:15 PM ———————

Panel Three Love, Leadership & Gender Justice Presenters: Tameka Hill . PhD student . RCO Petronetta Pierre-Robertson . PhD student . SAU Carol Watson Williams . PhD student . RCO Chair: Marlene Johnson, PhD student, NBU Discussant: Dr. Maziki Thame, Senior Lecturer, RCO

Closing Remarks & Vote of Thanks Dr Angelique Nixon Lecturer, SAU

& Dr Dalea Bean Lecturer, RCO

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PANEL ONE

PANEL ONE

Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities Chair: Jaevion Nelson MPhil Student . RCO Discussant: Dr. Sue Ann Barratt Lecturer & Head . SAU

Presentations

Contemporary Masculinities: Representations and Performance of Masculinity in Barbados Ceresa Springer-Barnett MSc Student . NBU

Investigating Gender Nonconformity (GNC): Resistance, Dreams, and Subversive Potential of People Assigned Female at Birth Alessandra Hereman MPhil Student . SAU

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PANEL ONE Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities

Ceresa Springer-Barnett MSc Student Nita Barrow Unit

Ceresa Springer-Barnett is an MSc student at the IGDS: NBU with specific interest in Masculinity, inclusion, and exclusion. She holds an Associate Degree in Law and Economics from the Barbados Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology with Criminology with upper second-class honors from The University of the West Indies. In addition to this, she also received an international certification in Sustainable Public Procurement, along with the Certified Associate in Project Management designation. Ceresa’s current research focuses on performance, representation and affect, in relation to masculinities in Barbados. Her hobbies include baking, gardening and most recently painting and resin craft.

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Contemporary Masculinities: Representations and Performance of Masculinity in Barbados Ceresa Springer-Barnett Abstract

Caribbean feminists have theorized the issues behind the growing concerns plaguing men in the region, stemming from the construction of masculinity against dominant notions of ‘man’ embedded during colonialism and the emergence of ‘toxic’ masculinity. Studies have shown that men are challenged with holding onto historic notions that may no longer be relevant in the changing global context, with economic and societal pressures destabilising how masculinity is constructed. This research explores traditional concepts of the construction of masculinity from colonialism to the present global space, its perceptions as a category of gender that’s affected by various intersections, and male affect in the retention of masculine norms by combining feminist post-colonial methodology and social construction to examine the masculinity as it relates to hegemonic masculinity, sexuality, and representation in Barbados. I seek to answer the following questions: How have Barbadian men construct masculinity in accordance to various intersections? Has the representation and performance of masculinity changed/adjusted or destabilised in recent years and to what extent? And what is the affect of masculine norms that have remained constant? Driven by two focus group interviews of both men and women followed by in-depth in person interviews of two members of the LGBTQ+ community, I hope to demonstrate masculinity as a system of interwoven cultural norms, historical concepts, and contemporary views that shapes and regulates other ways of ‘being’, reinforced by neoliberal ideologies that contribute to the exclusionary measures that reaffirms power, privilege and patriarchy.

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PANEL ONE Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities

Alessandra Hereman IGDS MPhil Student St Augustine Unit

Alessandra Hereman is a Guyanese trans woman and a social justice activist. She has considerable experience working with the local LGBT community and has conducted several community-based research. Alessandra has a passion for improving the health and well-being of members of the LGBT community, having worked in the public health response to HIV and gender-based violence for the past 6 years. The core of her activism focuses on creating a gender-just world for all.

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Investigating Gender Nonconformity (GNC): Resistance, Dreams, and Subversive Potential of People Assigned Female at Birth Alessandra Hereman Abstract

In the Caribbean, substantial attention to issues relating to men and masculinity has only begun in the 1990s. Publications such as Errol Miller’s Men at Risk (1991) and his proposed male marginalisation thesis have sparked debates about the status of Caribbean men and became appealing to people who are anti-feminist and who are suspicious that the feminist agenda is about the domination of men by women. It was against this backdrop that the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at the St. Augustine Campus convened a symposium in 1996. This symposium was titled “The Construction of Caribbean Masculinity: Towards a Research Agenda” (Reddock 2004). Despite the significant contributions made to men and masculinity scholarship since the 1990s, a persistent trend in the body of knowledge about Caribbean men and masculinities is that men and masculinities continue to be conceptualised and theorised within a binary framework. The research agenda focuses on issues affecting cisgender, heterosexual men, and masculinities are seen as social and cultural norms deployed by the cis male bodies. This trend has resulted in a gap in the scholarship about Caribbean masculinities excluding people who were assigned female at birth (AFAB) who are masculine-presenting and or identifying queer/lesbian/gender-nonconforming women/ trans masc people.

This exclusion creates invisibility and marginalisation of people with diverse masculinities, and obscure issues affecting these communities. Thus, the purpose of this exploratory qualitative research is to interrogate how masculinities are constructed and negotiated among masculine-presenting and or identifying AFAB/transmasculine persons in the Caribbean. Guided by the feminist philosophical assumption of situated knowledge, data will be collected through feminist reflexive interviewing from fourteen masculinepresenting and or identifying AFAB/transmasculine persons. The significance of this study is that it will contribute to a Global South, post-colonial theorizing of trans masculinities, and adds to the body of knowledge on Caribbean men and masculinity studies.

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PANEL TWO

PANEL Two

Race. Gender. Body. Media Chair: Tivia Collins PhD student, SAU Discussants: Dr. Halimah DeShong Head and Senior Lecturer . NBU Dr. Daniele Bobb Lecturer . NBU

Presentations

Shading Indianness: Framing Colour, Identity and Resistance among Indo-Trinidadian Women and Girls in the 21st Century Anusha J. Ragbir PhD student . SAU

Curls & Contours: The TVET Cosmetology Curriculum and its Influence on Beauty/SelfImage among Afro Jamaican Women Alia Wedderburn MPhil student . RCO

Shifting Gender landscapes: Social Media Platforms, Caribbean Feminism and Digital Practices of Caribbean Publics Alicia Haynes MPhil student . NBU

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PANEL TWO Race. Gender. Body. Media

Anusha J. Ragbir IGDS PhD student St Augustine Unit

Anusha J. Ragbir is a PhD student at the UWI St. Augustine. Anusha's first degree was in History while the topic of her MSc was Indo-Trinidadian beauty pageants.

She is a feminist, sex worker advocate and a lover of the writings of Foucault.

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Shading Indianness: Framing Colour, Identity and Resistance among Indo-Trinidadian Women and Girls in the 21st Century Anusha J. Ragbir Abstract

Using the experiences of Indo-Trinidadian women and girls I seek to explore how colour and shade are received, internalised and projected in society in the 21st century. Historically, colonies in the Caribbean have been entrenched in racism which is part and parcel with colonialism for quite some time before Indians arrived. In fact, it has been well documented that during slavery colour and shade among the African slaves went a long way in securing their places in the labour force; lighter-skinned Africans may have been given some sort of privileged positions over the darker slaves.

Thus, even within the system of African slavery, shade and colour became important in accessing privilege, and this is still seen in the world today.

Unlike the United States and its more comparatively simplistic black-white racial divisions, then, the Caribbean boasts a very sophisticated hierarchy of racial classifications, a pigmentocracy that goes beyond colour per se and targets shade. By the time Indians arrived, I will argue that colour was the biggest replacement for caste in the Caribbean diaspora (and beyond). Thus, it would undoubtedly play a part in drawing shaded lines among IndoTrinidadians where a hierarchy based on colour and thus privilege was developed, within an already existing colour and shade hierarchy. Through an in-depth look at skin bleaching, I will examine how the body becomes a site for performing and resisting. I would argue that this concept is also relevant to the unfixed nature of identities and colour amongst IndoTrinidadian women and girls. Finally, I feel that resistance is an important element in this work because so often we intend to tell stories as they are without exploring the potential that these stories are also valuable for resisting the expected norms and prescriptions that exist. In this case, resistance could mean a resistance to creolisation, a resistance to traditional caste values, a resistance in the use of language and as I shall argue, the diasporic body as a site of resistance.

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PANEL TWO Race. Gender. Body. Media

Alia Wedderburn IGDS MPhil student Regional Coordinating Office

Alia Wedderburn is Head of the School of Aesthetics and Cosmetology at the Excelsior Community College; and is a Content Expert and Consultant for the Beauty & Wellness industry. She holds an M.A. in Leadership in TVET and Workforce Development (UWI) and is currently pursuing an MPhil/PhD in Gender & Development Studies (UWI). She has represented Jamaica on TVET platforms in Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In 2022, Alia was awarded the Bureau of Gender Affairs Mary Allison McLean Scholarship.

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Curls & Contours: The TVET Cosmetology Curriculum and its Influence on Beauty/ Self-Image among Afro-Jamaican Women Alia Wedderburn Abstract

This study explores the role of Cosmetology as a factor in the formation of self-image and expressions of empowerment among Afro-Jamaican women.

The Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Cosmetology curriculum, posited as a route to economic and sustainable development, has been selected as a basis in unearthing possible linkages among the theory and practice of beauty and the perceptions of the skin colour, hair texture and facial features of African descendants. While exploring the connections between the development of the curriculum and beauty trends among AfroJamaican women, the study also seeks to examine the influence of the current curriculum on self-image and empowerment. Using a qualitative methodology, data will be collected using content analysis, interviews, and focus groups. Beauty salons and beauty schools will be the route used to access the thoughts of women as cosmetology teachers and students, practitioners and clients; textbooks and curricula are among some of the documents to be analysed. It is anticipated that from this study, the constructive purpose of Cosmetology, and its role in the empowerment of women through practitioners will emerge. In the midst of this dynamic, the findings may highlight opportunities for further development of the curriculum which embraces aesthetic freedom and inclusivity among Jamaican women.

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PANEL TWO Race. Gender. Body. Media

Alicia Haynes IGDS MPhil student Nita Barrow Unit

Alicia Haynes is currently pursuing an MPhil in gender and development studies at the IGDS:NBU. She holds position as Chair of the IGDS Staff/Student Liaison Committee and MPhil/PhD student representative. She is a trained educator, who teaches Literatures in English, Communication Studies, and Drama at CSEC and CAPE. Her educational background is a bachelor's degree in Literatures in English with First Class Honours and a Master's in Sexual Dissidence with merit from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. While living in the UK, Alicia worked briefly as a researcher with the organisation “Not Buying It”, contesting the sexual exploitation of underage girls in sex ads of mainstream newspapers in the UK. She is a creative who enjoys cooking with her 5-year-old daughter, swimming adventures, writing poetry, dancing, and a good laugh.

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Shifting Gender landscapes: Social Media Platforms, Caribbean Feminism and Digital Practices of Caribbean Publics Alicia Haynes abstract

The explosion in popularity of social media apps and platforms has positioned digital, communications technologies and new media in an entangled web with users, and society. Social media is constituted through the differentiated engagement of various agents, that is, users, corporations, and institutions with consideration for how geopolitical locations can shape the usage of digital spaces. Within this public space, relational dynamics will be interrogated within axes of power with regards to the positionalities and experiences that emanate from the various actors within this space. Social media, though a conduit of communication, becomes constructed through autonomous acts, information dissemination, capitalist frameworks, algorithms that reinforce hegemonic bias and societal change. (Boyd 2012, Donath and Boyd 2004, Noble 2018, Zuboff 2010, Wacjman 2010, Sanatan 2017, Bujala 2012) As such it is imperative to consider what it means to be social as operationalised on digital platforms and the extent to which this apparently inclusive space can simultaneously marginalise and deny aspects of people’s humanity. Social practices and human activity become modified in the virtual with implications for how the world can be experienced with immediacy. As social media converges space- time dynamics, and lived reality with the virtual, I wish to foreground the extent to which social media publics shape racialized and gendered offline and online experiences, specifically for Caribbean women who have used digital, social spaces, to document their experiences and find solidarity in assembled communities.

The best practices of corporations are brought into question in the production and dissemination of knowledge but also in the archival of people’s personal data. Sensibilities of community and autonomy become interrupted by commercialisation of social media platforms that thrive on heightened user engagement, thereby complicating personal autonomy in a public domain. As such, engagement with new media complicates the very patterns that take precedence in everyday reality, thereby requiring nuanced approaches to digital communications technology that unpack the private/ public dichotomy but also reimagines women’s positionality in a modern public space.

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PANEL THREE

PANEL THREE

Love, Leadership & Gender Justice Chair: Marlene Johnson PhD student, NBU Discussants: Dr. Maziki Thame Senior Lecturer, MU

Presentations

The Queen Bee: Women’s Struggle to the Top of the Corporate ladder Tameka Hill PhD student . RCO

Pause Between the Sentences: Discourses of Love, Romance, and Intimate Partner Violence in Trinidad Petronetta Pierre–Robertson PhD student . SAU

Securing Women's Economic Rights in Jamaica: Policy vs. Practice Carol Watson Williams PhD student . RCO

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PANEL Three Love, Leadership & Gender Justice

Tameka Hill IGDS PhD student Nita Barrow Unit

Tameka Hill has a unique blend of experience in strategic communications, social development, and project management, and describes herself as internationally networked, innovative, and resourceful. This is proven through the nine years which she has spent in leadership positions either designing, providing technical direction and/or managing communication, as well as social strategies and programmes for a myriad of regional and international stakeholders. Tameka is also adept at communicating with clarity and diplomacy with people of diverse backgrounds.

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The Queen Bee: Women’s Struggle to the Top of the Corporate Ladder Tameka Hill Abstract

In the last two decades, many countries have made progress in the elimination of gender disparity in primary education, the labour force and even within politics. Despite gains in every profession, women remain underrepresented at all levels of leadership, (AAUW, 2016). Several countries have reported that very few women managers have progressed to executive roles, (International Labour Organisation, 2018). This paper explores the ascension of women to leadership roles within Jamaica, and whether the impact of this has been strengthened or inhibited by hiring practices and policies or by those in positions of authority and decision making. This research will use a comparative analysis of two financial organisations- the National Commercial Bank (local) and Nova Scotia bank, (international organisation locally based). It utilises the feminist epistemology and qualitative methodological approach with content analysis of the companies’ Human Resource policies and hiring practices.

A Black and Caribbean Feminist Theoretical framework will be employed to frame and deconstruct the oppression of Jamaican women’s lived realities in the corporate world. Intersectionality theoretical framework is an important contrast as it speaks to particular forms of intersecting oppressions.

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PANEL Three Love, Leadership & Gender Justice

Petronetta Pierre–Robertson PhD student St Augustine Unit

Petronetta Pierre-Robertson is the holder of master’s degrees in library science and literature, and is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD in Gender and Development Studies, Petronetta describes herself as an interdisciplinary third space professional. She is particularly interested in literature as therapy, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), and library user training.

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Pause Between the Sentences: Discourses of Love, Romance, and Intimate Partner Violence in Trinidad Petronetta Pierre–Robertson Abstract

This Practice-based study utilises the craft of novel writing to counter traditional discourses surrounding love and romance and test the reception of the counter discourse among survivors of intimate partner violence in Trinidad. The primary goal is to determine whether romance novels can serve to perpetuate cultural norms that facilitate intimate partner violence, and conversely, also serve to interrogate these norms. The main research question is: ‘Can romance novels serve to perpetuate cultural norms and values that facilitate Intimate Partner Violence (IPV); and conversely can novels in this genre be crafted to interrogate these norms and propel attitudinal changes for IPV Survivors?’ The romance novel will be crafted through feminist lens. A feminist epistemological and methodological approach will show how addressing issues such as patriarchy, the treatment of women as property and second-class citizens, toxic masculinity, and love and power are important in addressing the issue of violence against women. Through purposive sampling, a total of 12 survivors of intimate partner violence will be selected.

Personal responses will be gleaned through interviews and focus group sessions. At every stage, the novel will be utilised to drive the process of discovery. Based on the response of the reader to segments of the novel, it will be rewritten as attitudinal changes are tested. Additionally, through purposive sampling of an additional 6 women who are seasoned readers of romance, the testing of the counter discursive narrative will be done.

Feedback will be gleaned through interviews and focus groups.

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PANEL Three Love, Leadership & Gender Justice

Carol Watson Williams PhD student Regional Coordinating Office

Carol Watson Williams is a gender specialist, social policy analyst and researcher, with special interest in applying rights-based approach to social policy issues.

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Securing Women’s Economic Rights in Jamaica: Policy vs. Practice

Carol Watson Williams Abstract

Gender equality is one of the fundamental pillars of modern development paradigms as it recognises both the intrinsic and instrumental value of women and men to economic growth and social progress. This study is an examination of how women have experienced the laws, policies and programme which Jamaica has implemented to secure women’s economic rights, as defined in the framework of the Convention for the Elimination Against All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

This dissertation aims to contribute to discourse and gender/social policy dialogue around Jamaica’s progress towards fulfilling this obligation over the two decades between the declaration in 2000 and the end of the Millennium Goals period in 2015, and the first five years of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The extent to which these policies and programmes have helped to transform the social structures that support systemic gender inequality, and the effectiveness of these policy interventions is examined through an analysis of secondary data including the social and economic data collected in the Jamaica Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC). Importantly, it goes further to examine how these policies and programmes have affected the lives of women through a qualitative analysis of experiences of women. It is through the voices of the various groups of Jamaican women that we begin to understand the real impact, if any, of these policies on their ability to secure economic rights.

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Regional Coordinating Office Jamaica Professor Paula Morgan University Director Dr Bronty Liverpool-Williams Administrative Officer IGDS Regional Coordinating Office The University of the West Indies Mona, St Andrew Kingston 7, Jamaica Email: igds@uwimona.edu.jm Tel: (876) 927-1913 Tel: (876) 935-8494

RCO Postgraduate Programmes https://uwi.edu/igds/GraduateProgrammeStructure Website | RCO Team | Facebook

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Mona Unit Jamaica Dr Karen Carpenter Head of Department Ms Ingrid Nicely Senior Administrative Officer IGDS Mona Unit The University of the West Indies Mona, St Andrew Kingston 7, Jamaica Email: cgdsmona@uwimona.edu.jm Tel: (876) 977-7365 Fax: (876) 977-9053

MU Postgraduate Programmes https://www.mona.uwi.edu/igds/graduate Website | Staff | Facebook | YouTube

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Nita Barrow Unit Cave Hill . Barbados Dr Halimah DeShong Head of Department Mrs Veronica Jones Administrative Assistant IGDS Nita Barrow Unit The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus P.O. Box 64, Bridgetown BB 11000, Barbados E-mail: gender@cavehill.uwi.edu Tel: (246) 417-4490/1/2/3 Fax: (246) 424-3822 Website | Staff | Facebook

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St Augustine Unit Trinidad and Tobago Dr Sue Ann Barratt Head of Department Whitney Katwaroo Administrative Assistant IGDS St Augustine Unit The University of the West Indies St Augustine Campus Trinidad and Tobago Email: igds@sta.uwi.edu Tel: (868) 662-2002 Ext. 83577 / 83572 / 82533

SAU Postgraduate Programmes https://sta.uwi.edu/igds/postgraduate-studies Website | Academic Staff | Facebook | YouTube

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