SOC 102:  Social Problems

SOC 300:  Gender, Race, and Class in the Caribbean 

SOC 406:  Sociological Theory

SOC/WGS 433:  Race, Class, and Gender

SOC 880: Globalization and Postcolonialism

I do comparative-historical work on race/class/gender/sexuality in the English-speaking Caribbean, as well as more theoretically cast work on the political economy of globalization and postcolonialism, particularly in the Caribbean. I have been doing research on aspects of the “new Chinese presence in the (Eastern) Caribbean” since 2012, in collaboration with graduate student, Yan Liu, who is currently writing a doctoral dissertation on a related topic under my supervision. An ongoing historical sociological project explores the race/class/gender implications of the penal system in Barbados during the 1875-1930 period, especially regarding the impact on working class women and boys.

Disciplining ‘Bajans’: Gender, Labor and the Penal System in Barbados, 1875-1930

Caribbean Intersectionalities: Race, Class, and Gender in Anglophone Caribbean History

The New Chinese Presence in the (Eastern) Caribbean

Sovereignty and Labor Rights in an Age of Globalization

2017. Appleby-Mosher Fund, Syracuse University. Project: “An In-Depth Analysis of the One Hill District CBA in Pittsburgh: What are the Benefits to the Community?” (Research Assistant: Athena Last), $1,200

2012. Maxwell Dean’s Summer Assistantship for “The New Chinese Presence in the Caribbean.” $1,500 for Graduate Assistant (Yan Liu, Caribbean field trip)

2010. Appleby-Mosher Fund, Syracuse University. Project: “The North Carolina International Worker Justice Campaign: A Unique Chapter in the Struggle for Labor Rights in the U.S.” $1,200

2003. Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS, University of Pittsburgh) Faculty Research Grant, 2002-2003 (used in 2004), for historical archival research in Jamaica and Barbados. $4,500

2001-2002. Henry Charles Chapman Research Fellowship, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, School of Advanced Study (4 months)

 2000-2001 NEH-Schomburg Scholars-in-Residence Fellowship, Schomburg Center For Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library (NYPL) (6 months)

 1991-1992. Center for Afroamerican and African Studies-Ford Foundation Project Award (University of Michigan). Project “Afro-Caribbean Family and Gender Roles” $1,000

1986-1988. CUSO (formerly Canadian University Services Overseas) research grant to conduct “Caribbean Women Workers in Industry Project -- Phase I;” nine months of field work and participatory research workshops; three months of write-up; one year of follow-up activities. Cdn$60,000 for Year 1; follow-up meetings and workshops centrally funded.

Peer-reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

2017. “A ‘Transnational Middleman Minority’ in the Eastern Caribbean? Constructing a Historical and Contemporary Framework of Analysis” (co- authored with Yan Liu). Social and Economic Studies, 66 (3 & 4): 153-183.

2017. “A Historical and Comparative Survey of the Chinese Presence in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, with a focus on the Anglophone Caribbean.” Journal of Chinese Overseas, 13 (2): 205-242.

2016. “The 1938-39 Moyne Commission in Barbados: Investigating the Status of Children.” In Atlantic Childhoods in Global Contexts, ed. by Audra A. Diptee and David V. Trotman (Routledge). Reprint.

2015. “The New Chinese Presence in the Caribbean: Towards a Global Understanding.” In Beyond Free Trade: Alternative Approaches to Trade, Politics, and Power, ed. by Kate Ervine and Gavin Fridell (Palgrave Macmillan Publishers), 97-115.

2014. “The 1938-39 Moyne Commission in Barbados: Investigating the Status of Children.” Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, 11 (4): 515-535.

2012-2014. “Outbound China and the Global South: New Entrepreneurial Immigrants in the Eastern Caribbean.” IDEAZ journal, Special Issue: From Unipolar to Multipolar: The Remaking of Global Hegemony, Vols. 10-12, 24-44.

2013. “‘To the Scandal of the Public’: Sexual Misconduct and Clashing Patriarchies in 1930s Dominica, British West Indies.” Journal of Caribbean History, 47 (1): 73-109.

2012. “Local Geographies of Crime and Punishment in a Plantation Colony: Gender and Incarceration in Barbados, 1878-1928.” New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, 86 (3 & 4): 263-290.

2011. “‘The Abandoned Lower Class of Females’: Class, Gender and Penal Discipline in Barbados, 1875-1929.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 53 (1): 144-179.

2010. “Disciplining Boys: Labor, Gender, Generation and the Penal System in Barbados, 1880-1930.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 3 (3): 366-390.

2007. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Mercantilism and Free Trade.” Race & Class, 49 (2): 41-56.

2007. “‘A Civil Inconvenience’? The Vexed Question of Slave Marriage in the British West Indies.” Law and History Review, 25 (1): 1-59.

2007. “Unspeakable Worlds and Muffled Voices: Thomas Thistlewood as Agent and Medium of Eighteenth-Century Jamaican Society.” In Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: The Thought of Stuart Hall, ed. by Brian Meeks (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle; London: Lawrence & Wishart): 151-184.

2006. “Between Respectability and Self-Respect: Framing Afro-Caribbean Women’s Labor History,” Social and Economic Studies, 55 (3): 1-31.

2006. “Hierarchies of Whiteness in the Geographies of Empire: Thomas Thistlewood and the Barretts of Jamaica.” New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, 80 (1 & 2): 5-43.

2001. “Caribbean Dependency Theory of the 1970s Revisited: A Historical-Materialist-Feminist Revision.” In New Caribbean Thought: A Reader, ed. by Brian Meeks and Folke Lindahl (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press), 40-72.

1999. “A Recalcitrant Plantation Colony: Dominica, 1880-1946.” New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, 73 (3 & 4): 43-71.

1998. “The Asian Connection: The U.S.-Caribbean Apparel Circuit and the Evolution of a New Model of Industrial Relations.” Latin American Research Review, 33 (3): 7-47. 

1996. “At the Junction of the Global and the Local: Transnational Industry and Women Workers in the Caribbean.” In Human Rights, Labor Rights, and International Trade, ed. by Lance Compa and Stephen Diamond (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 118-140.

1995. “Gender, Race and Class in the Social Economy of the English-Speaking Caribbean.” Social and Economic Studies, 44 (2 & 3): 65-102.

1995. “Export-processing Industry and the New Peripheralization of the Commonwealth Caribbean.” 21st Century Policy Review, 2 (4): 51-91.

1994. “Historical and Contemporary Restructuring and Women in Production in the Caribbean.” In The Caribbean in the Global Political Economy, ed. by Hilbourne A. Watson (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers), 149-171.

1993. “Advanced Capitalist Hegemony and the Significance of Gramsci’s Insights: A Restatement.” Social and Economic Studies, 42 (2 & 3): 175-207.

1989. “Towards a ‘Weapon of Theory’ for Black and Working Class Women’s Liberation -- Angela Davis’ Women, Race, and Class.” In The Issue Is 'Ism: Women of Colour Speak Out, ed. by Nila Gupta and Makeda Silvera (Toronto: Sister Vision Press). Reprint.

1986. “Marxist-Feminism and Third World Liberation,” in Fireworks: The Best of Fireweed, ed. by Makeda Silvera (Toronto: The Women’s Press). Reprint.

Monographs

1990. The World Market Factory: A Study of Enclave Industrialization in the Eastern Caribbean and its Impact on Women Workers (St. Vincent & the Grenadines:  CARIPEDA, 1990). NGO research publication.

Book Reviews

Review of Global Environmental Governance and Small States: Architectures and agency in the Caribbean by Michelle Scobie (Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2019). Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. Online First: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-019-00567-8.

Review of Pathways of Desire: The Sexual Migration of Mexican Gay Men, by Héctor Carrillo (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2017). American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 125, No. 2 (September 2019).

Review of The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age, by Valerie Francisco-Menchavez (Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2018). Gender and Society, Vol. 33, No. 3 (June 2019), 494-496.

Review of Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom, by Mimi Sheller (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2012). Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 3 (May 2015), 418-420.

Review of The Children of Africa in the Colonies: Free People of Color in Barbados in the Age of Emancipation, by Melanie J. Newton (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008). Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 60, Nos. 3 & 4 (Sept/Dec 2011), 215-221.

Review of The Black Woman Cross-Culturally, ed. by Filomina Chioma Steady, in Resources for Feminist Research, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Nov. 1982), 326-328.

“Reflections on The State and Revolution in Eastern Africa -- John S. Saul.” Two-Thirds: A Journal of Underdevelopment Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1979/80), 36-40.

Review of World Accumulation, 1492-1789, by Andre Gunder Frank, in Two-Thirds: A Journal of Underdevelopment Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter 1978/79), 48-49.

“Thomas’ Dependence and Transformation -- A Review.” Two-Thirds:  A Journal of Underdevelopment Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Fall 1978), 71-74.

Articles in Non-refereed Journals (selected)

2018. “Marx’s Presence in my Intellectual World: Historical Subjects Lost & Found.” Against The Current, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Sept./Oct. 2018): 14-16.

1997. “Historical Roots of Modern Caribbean Politics: Rebellion in the 1930s,” Against The Current, 12 (4): 34-38.

1992-1993. “Gender and Re/production in British West Indian Slave Societies,” Against The Current, VII (4): 31-38 (part 1); VII (5): 26-31 (part 2); VII (6): 29-36 (part 3).

1991. “Trade Unions and Women Workers in the Eastern Caribbean,” Voices of the African Diaspora (CAAS Research Review), 7 (2): 30-34. (Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan).

1985. “Marxist-Feminism and Third World Liberation,” Fireweed, Issue 20, 55-68.

1983. “Towards a ‘Weapon of Theory’ for Black and Working Class Women’s Liberation -- Angela Davis’ Women, Race, and Class,” Fireweed: A Feminist Quarterly of Writing, Politics, Art & Culture, Issue 16, 21-31. [Review article]

Working Papers and Research Reports

1988. “The New Enclave Industries and Women Workers in the Eastern Caribbean.”  Research Report, Caribbean Women Workers in Industry Project, Phase 1, 1988.  Joint Project of Caribbean People’s Development Agency (St. Vincent) and The Centre for Caribbean Dialogue (Toronto), co-sponsored and funded by CUSO (formerly Canadian University Service Overseas).

1980. Toward a Political Economy of Adult Education in the Third World (co-authored with Glen C. Filson). Political Economy of Adult Education Working Papers, International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), Toronto, 1980.

Associate Professor, Syracuse University, Sociology, 2008-Present

Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Sociology, 2000-2008

Assistant Professor, Bowling Green State University, Ethnic Studies, 1998-2000

Lecturer, University of Michigan, Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, 1997-98

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Michigan, Residential College (Social Science Program) and the Women’s Studies Program, 1995-97

Visiting Assistant Professor and Director, Study Abroad to Jamaica Program (six weeks), Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, Spring 1995

King-Chavez-Parks Visiting Assistant Professor, Wayne State University, Department of Africana Studies and the Women’s Studies Program, 1994-95

Visiting Assistant Professor and Director, Study Abroad to Jamaica Program (six weeks), Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, Summer 1994

Lecturer (tenure-track), Eastern Michigan University, Department of African American Studies, 1993-94

Adjunct Lecturer, University of Michigan, Residential College, Social Science Program, 1989-92 (yearly contract), additional courses regularly taught at the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies and the Women’s Studies Program