Description
In this aptly titled collection of papers, Verene Shepherd shuns the usual role of the cloistered academic to engage readers on a range of issues relevant to Jamaica’s historical past and of contemporary Shepherd’s work over the past ten years in the areas of conquest and colonization, slavery, anti-slavery and abolition, post-slavery society, decolonization and the role of gender. Added to these are contemporary issues such as migration, activism in an age of individualism and the continuing struggle for true mental liberation and respect for Black identity.
Professor Shepherd’s work is grounded in rigorous historical research, teaching and discourse at the academic level internationally; active participation through writing and curriculum and syllabus development for the school system at the regional level; and public service locally as Chairperson of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust Commission.
About the Author
Verene A. Shepherd is Professor of Social History, University of the West Indies, Mona. She is the author and editor of numerous publications including Freedom Won: Caribbean Emancipation, Ethnicities and Nationhood (2005); Busha’s Mistress or Catherine the Fugitive (2003); Questioning Creole: Creolisation Discourses in Caribbean Culture (2002) and Working Slavery, Pricing Freedom (2002).
Contents
Section I: Historiography and Knowledge Production in Jamaican and the Wider Caribbean
- Knowledge Production in the Caribbean: Contemporary Writings, the Construction of ‘Africa(n) and the Task of Reconstruction
- Culture, Creolization and Marronage in the Caribbean: Engaging with the Writings of Rex Nettleford
- ‘Sex in the Tropics’: Women, Gender and Sexuality in the Discourses of Asian Labour Migration to the British-Colonized Caribbean
- The University of the West Indies and the Decolonization Project
Section II: Enslavement and Resistance
- Roots of Routes: Intra-Caribbean Trade Links Since the Fifteenth Century
- ‘Groundings’ with Tacky (Takyi) on History, Heritage and Activism
- Revolution and Post-Revolution: Re-imaging and Rethinking Haiti
- ‘Petticoat Rebellion’ Women and Emancipation in Colonial Jamaica
- ‘Beside Every Successful Man’: The Unsung Activists of the 1831-1832 Emancipation War in Jamaica
Section III: Emancipation and Migration: Negotiating Free Society
- Apprenticeship and Indentureship: Re/Placing Slavery in the British-Colonized Caribbean – Historiographical Trends
- ‘My Feet is (sic) My Only Carriage’: Gender and Labour Mobility in the Post-Slavery Caribbean
- The Politics of Migration: Official Policy Towards Indians in Jamaica, 1845-1945
Section IV: Slavery’s Legacies in Postcolonial Jamaica
- ‘Dear Mrs Seacole’: ‘Groundings’ with Mary Seacole on Slavery, Gender and Citizenship
- ‘Up from Slavery’: The Legacy of Slavery and the Project of Emancipation in the Commonwealth Caribbean
- The Ranking Game: Discourses on Belonging in Jamaican History
Section V: ‘I Want to Disturb My Neighbour’s Activism in an Age of Individualism
- The Emancipation Proclamation and August 1, 1838: Text and Context
- ‘I Want to Disturb My Neighbour’ and ‘The Man at the Door’ in an Age of Individualism
- After the Exhibition is Gone: Public Memory in an Age of Historical Amnesia
- The Case for Reparation: Historical Basis
- Challenging Masculine Myths: Gender, History Education and Development in Jamaica
- From Redemption Song to Remembrance Walls: Establishing War Memorials for Anti-Slavery Rebels
