Caribbean Womanism: decolonial theorizing of Caribbean women’s oppression, survival, and resistance

ABSTRACT

We propose Caribbean womanism as an integrated decolonial, Caribbeanist, and womanist framework that re-imagines the intellectual and community engagement of the Caribbean diaspora toward region-facing consciousness, research, pedagogy, and activism that centres Caribbean women and the specificity of the Caribbean context. We review Caribbean sociological scholarship as a means of expanding the U.S. sociological canon that Caribbean diasporic graduate students are likely to encounter in their training. We centralize the specificity of Caribbean peoples’ historical and contemporary experience with European colonialism and U.S. recolonization, and how these necessarily shapes Caribbean understandings and experiences of race, class, gender, patriarchy, and sexuality. We highlight how these combine to inform Caribbean women’s articulations of and struggles against oppression. We draw on decades of work by Caribbean scholars across the region and the diaspora who have been clearing space for transnational, decolonial scholarships, pedagogies, and activism on Caribbean women and the Caribbean region.

KEYWORDS:

• Caribbean
• womanism
• feminism
• decolonial
• diaspora
• consciousness

Acknowledgement

When I invited Tannuja Rozario on this project, my aim was to cultivate a nurturing mentoring relationship with a graduate student. Since we are both from the Caribbean, this project was also an opportunity for both of us to embark on what we often discussed as a necessary intellectual “return” to the Caribbean region. This project is the culmination of an ongoing dialogue that developed over Monday, one-hour long, video chats over several months. Tannuja’s sharp intellectual insights were significant in helping to shape this paper. Additionally, Tannuja’s phenomenal research and notetaking skills moved our intellectual exchange of ideas forward quickly and seamlessly. Her absolute brilliance as a scholar needs to be recognized and applauded! We would also like to extend our sincere gratitude to the editors and anonymous reviewers who have helped make the paper so much more engaging than earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).