Kingston, May 30 2022 -- The 46th Annual Conference of the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA 2022) opened on Monday May 30, 2022 with a difference. The virtual event featured an array of speakers including Jamaica’s Minister of Education and Youth the Honourable Mrs. Fayval Williams and a thought provoking and moving keynote presentation/conversation between Professor Emerita Carolyn Cooper and Dr Claire Nelson, founding president of the Institute of Caribbean Studies in Washington DC.
Professor Cooper and Dr. Nelson had the virtual audience of over 300 participants enthralled, as they shared their thoughts on the theme “Beyond Plantocratic Geographies: Plotting Global Caribbean Futures.”
The two dynamic and passionate academics used their life experiences to demonstrate how slavery and the Plantocracy has influenced Caribbean Culture today. They also discussed how, as women of colour , they used their Caribbean Culture to navigate first world Corporate corridors.
The Jamaican Education Minister said students from our region continue to outperform contemporaries from better-resourced institutions and countries in innovative creations in information technology including robotics. She said this is “Despite policy makers in the Caribbean public education system having to face inadequate human and financial resources to develop our human capital and build capacity to meet the demands of the times.“ Mrs. Williams congratulated the CSA for mounting the conference and wished participants an exciting and rewarding experience.
CSA 2022 is sponsored by the University of the West Indies here in Jamaica is being held under the theme “Reframing Caribbean Influences on Global Spaces: Critically Engaging Perspectives on Human Geography and Risks, Political Economy and Technology.”
Other speakers at the opening ceremony were the Pro Vice Chancellor and Principal of the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies Professor Dale Webber, the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences UWI Mona Professor David Tennant and the Head of the Department of Government also at the UWI Mona, Professor Suzette Haughton.
President of the Caribbean Studies Association Professor Eris Schoburgh, who lectures in the Department of Government on the Mona Campus of the UWI, told the opening ceremony that this virtual event conference will showcase five days of plenaries, workshops and interactive panel discussions. The conference will also display the culture of our region with Film screenings and performances by talented visual and performance artists.
The Caribbean Studies Association is potentially one of the most important vehicles for researching, analysing, and documenting the growing significant presence of populations of Caribbean descent in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It provides the perfect venue for maintaining the intellectual and academic connections needed to study this growing phenomenon. Importantly it makes space for experiencing and evaluating creative expressions. In this respect, CSA is quite unique.
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