Confronting Power Theorizing

This valuable contribution to the exploration of masculinity as a gender construct and its manifestation in the Caribbean provides a fundamental resource that pays special attention to the interaction of power and sexuality in the creation of masculine identities in the region. Vital reading for policy makers and teachers and students of gender studies.

Annotation. "This anthology of Caribbean-feminist scholarship exposes gender relations as regimes of power and consolidates and advances indigenous feminist theorizing. A section of the collection deconstructs marginality and masculinity in the Caribbean and provides research with policy implications. The major breakthrough is the recognition that this area of research includes both men and women as integral to a more adequate conceptualization of society, polity and economy, thereby enabling scholars to address more fully the realities of social life. The temper of the times suggests that a significant watershed in gender studies has been reached."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

If we're interested in why society changes and develops, and if we want to identify the forces that influence our personal beliefs and choices, then we must have an understanding of the nature and scope of human power. This distinctively clear text critically evaluates how power is defined, conceptualized and theorized. Spanning 500 years of thinking in the field, the book examines ideas from classical and contemporary thinkers, from Machiavelli to Michael Mann. Theories are firmly rooted in their historical context alongside real-life examples to explain their relevance to our lives today. Theorizing Power highlights the significance of power across all areas of social life, including gender, religion, morality and identity. It is the ideal text to stimulate thinking and debate on the subject of power for all students of sociology and politics.

A sophisticated new view of power as a network of social boundaries.

"Including studies of the sexual self and sexual subjectivities, socio-political processes of normativization, and social structures of sexuality and gender in national and transnational contexts, this book offers a view of sexuality as a broad and complex dimension of historically changing social-cultural and human-material reality"--EBL.

A significant focus of the Nita Barrow Unit of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies has been on the centring of power in Caribbean scholarship on gender. This collection explores the theme of power to expose the disruptions and dangers lurking in Caribbean discourses on gender and love when these are approached from interrogating the currencies of power continuously circulating in their operations. Love and Power: Caribbean Discourses on Gender makes several major contributions. The chapters are vibrant and grounded in the complex realities of the contemporary Caribbean even as they challenge canonical thought. The authors simultaneously critique and create knowledge about the lives of women and men within the Caribbean and its diaspora. They employ a range of analytical frameworks to dissect history, international relations, philosophy, intimate partner violence, feminist thought and activism, mothering, masculinities, diasporic migration, international finance, entrepreneurship, erotica, and desire. The book ruptures the feminist silences around love, lust and living in Caribbean societies and discourses. It problematizes the intersections of love and power, love and the power of the erotic, and gender and the love of power. The volume offers a significant contribution to Caribbean thought by documenting the work of scholars who are creating a multidisciplinary language on relations of gender. Co-published with Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.

The research included in this volume examines the competing pressures felt by black women as political agents in the domains of elections, public policy, and social activism. Their challenges and initiatives are explored in public spaces, institutional behaviours, and public policy. The volume features cutting-edge research exploring black women's political engagement. The first group of contributors interrogates the treatment of black women within the discipline of political science. The second group examines the relationship between cultural politics and policymaking. The third and final group outlines the politics of race-gendered identity and black feminist practice. Black Women in Politics includes chapters on black leadership, radical versus moderate politics in New Orleans, and the Shelby vs. Holder Supreme Court decision. The editors introduce a new series highlighting trends in black politics. Finally, the work notes the passing of William (Nick) Nelson and Hanes Walton, Jr., prominent members of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

Matricentric feminism seeks to make motherhood the business of feminism by positioning mothers' needs and concerns as the starting point for a theory and politic on and for the empowerment of women as mothers. Based on the conviction that mothering is a verb, it understands that becoming and being a mother is not limited to biological mothers or cisgender women but rather to anyone who does the work of mothering as a central part of their life. The Mother Wave, the first-ever book on the topic, compellingly explores how mothers need a matricentric mode of feminism organized from and for their particular identity and work as mothers, and because mothers remain disempowered despite sixty years of feminism. The anthology makes visible the power of matricentric feminism as it is theorized, enacted, and represented to realize and achieve the subversive potential of mothers and their contributions to feminist theory and activism. Contributors share the impact and influence of matricentric feminism on families and children, culture, art/literature, education, public policy, social media, and workplace practices through personal reflections, scholarly essays, memoir, creative non-fiction, poetry, and photography. The mother wave of matricentric feminism invites conversations with others and offers a praxis of feminism that aims to coexist, overlap, and intersect with others.

This book amplifies the different voices and experiences of those facing gender-based violence (GBV) in the Global South. It explores the localised ways in which marginalised individuals design modes of coping with and address GBV, including cultural interpretations, and artistic and faith-based expressions. The book examines GBV triggers, prevalence, and societal impacts while referring to community, national, and regional mobilisation to deal with the phenomenon in its various manifestations, including physical, psychological, political, domestic, and public violence. It explores issues related to women’s negotiations with the patriarchal underpinnings of GBV; the role of the law and history in the perpetuation of GBV; the complementary role of culture and faith to legal protection against GBV, and access to justice for women and girls. In doing so, the book exposes understandings and expressions of GBV, as well as methodologies and indigenous initiatives to prevent it through local viable solutions. The book thus challenges the normalisation of GBV in the Global South. Providing concrete and culturally relevant suggestions for challenging ingrained models of gender understandings of violence in the Global South, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Development Studies, Gender Studies, Women’s Studies, Violence and Abuse Studies, Human Rights, Criminal Law, and Socio-Legal Studies.