Call for Papers--Gender and Anticolonialism in the Interwar Caribbean

Caribbean Review of Gender Studies

 

Guest Editors: Dr. Natanya Duncan (Lehigh University) and Dr. Reena Goldthree (Dartmouth College) 

Deadline: 1 September 2016 

The decades between the First and Second World Wars witnessed intensified challenges to both European and US imperialism in the Caribbean. Issuing demands for self-determination and full citizenship rights, activists utilized new mass organizations-such as trade unions, political parties, and nationalist associations-as well as older collectives such as mutual aid societies, religious groups, and cultural clubs to contest the legitimacy of foreign rule. The duration, scale, and militancy of anticolonial mobilizations varied widely across the region, as activists employed tactics ranging from formal negotiation with the state to armed guerilla warfare. Yet, as an interdisciplinary literature has demonstrated, the surge in grassroots protest during the interwar years occurred throughout the colonial Caribbean as well as in the formally independent nation-states of Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Thus, the political ferment of the interwar era not only laid the groundwork for post-World War II independence movements, but also created an opening to contest hegemonic constructions of race, gender, and nation.     

 

This special issue of the  Caribbean Review of Gender Studies will examine how gender shaped anticolonial thought and praxis in the interwar Caribbean (1919-39). Studying the global origins of anticolonialism, feminist scholars have deconstructed the "citizen/subject" binary, highlighting the relationship among political exclusion, racial hierarchies, and gender inequality. They have also illuminated how oppositional movements throughout the colonized world reconfigured and reproduced ideas about sexual difference, articulating citizenship claims through gendered ideologies that often affirmed-rather than dislodged-patriarchy.

 

Intervening in this burgeoning literature, Caribbeanist scholars have investigated how local understandings of "womanhood" and "manhood" shaped resistance to colonialism in the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. In addition, they have documented women's myriad roles in struggles against colonial rule, excavating the forgotten connections between anticolonial and feminist movements. Disrupting the longstanding focus on the "fathers" of Caribbean nationalism, groundbreaking biographical accounts of female activists have revealed women's crucial contributions as intellectuals, organizers, and foot soldiers during the interwar years. Building on these foundational works, an important body of scholarship has also begun to interrogate "the sexual inheritances of nationalism" and the "heterosexual imperative of citizenship" in the postcolonial era (Alexander 1994: 11, 6).

 

For this special issue, we invite submissions that deepen the literature on gender and anticolonialism in the interwar Caribbean (including the global Caribbean diaspora). We hope to include essays based on specific case studies as well as theoretical works that grapple with the gendered implications of anticolonialism in a region forged through centuries of colonial incursions. Possible topics for exploration include (but are not limited to):

We welcome essays that address the special issue theme from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. In addition to scholarly articles, we would be pleased to consider proposals for review essays and critical reflections on sources and methodology. We will not consider essays that have been published previously or that are currently under review by another journal.

 

For full consideration, potential contributors should submit a 500-word article abstract no later than1 September 2016. Full article manuscripts of no more than 7000 words must be submitted to the editors by 5 January 2017 for peer review. The special issue will be published in 2018.

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