Caribbean Spaces

Mad Afro-feminist Phonographies as Dis/abled Worldmakings in Marie-Célie Agnant's The Book of Emma Cae Joseph-Masséna WHAT IF VOICE ISN'T what we think it is? What if madness isn't either?1 By drawing on Haitian vodou epistemology and Afro-diasporic sonic cultures, The Book of Emma,2 Haitian-Canadian author Marie-Célie Agnant's first novel published in 2001, immerses readers into troubling figurations of both madness and voice, thus forcing us to shed comfortable certitudes on both subjects. Critical disability and mad studies scholars have often relied on Eurocentric frameworks to construct their formulations of sanity and madness. As a result, Black Studies scholars such as Sami Schalk and Therí Alyce Pickens3 have taken aim at ableist and sanist orders by encouraging the inclusion of non-Western understandings of the human to be found, for instance, in Afrodiasporic epistemologies such as Haitian vodou. Additionally, voice and sound studies scholars such as Alexander Weheliye have shown that the Eurocentric cultural hegemonies of visuality and logocentrism have often led scholars in the humanities to overlook the importance of voice and sound as critical categories. In The Book of Emma, Agnant provides us with renewed interpretative possibilities, enabling us to go beyond these disciplinary limitations. She does so through her crafting of astonishing figurations where non-binary understandings of both voice and madness are central to the characterizations of her main characters: two women of Haitian descent, Emma and Flore. Flore, the narrator, utters the novel's first words: I met Emma for the first time in the building facing the river. For a long time, the only words she could utter described the intense blue that permanently encircles a strip of abandoned land in the middle of the ocean, the place where her eyes had first opened on the world. (Agnant 9) These sentences are emblematic of two important intertwined dimensions I see occurring in Agnant's novel as a whole: a figuration of madness that is steeped in opacity on the one hand, and the centrality of the figuration of voice as a non-binary, strange, and fraught phenomenon on the other. These lines [End Page 101] produce quite the mysterious atmosphere. This eeriness is due in part to the consistent omission of cartographic references such as the name of a country, city, street or building. Instead of using these modes of designation, locations are suggested through periphrases such as "the building facing the river" or "the place where her eyes had first opened on the world." This affective mode of designation, which we will soon learn corresponds to Emma's mad modes of perception, is a consistent feature of Agnant's novel. Agnant's obfuscation of geographical, national, and linguistic references to Haiti in particular—the words Haiti, Haitian or creole never appear in the text—reveals the use of a Glissantian opacity as a literary strategy against colonial orders that demand legibility.4 Agnant's use of opacity affects not only her geographical description. As the narrative unfolds, we learn that Emma is detained in a Canadian psychiatric ward following her infanticide of Lola, her young daughter. But in Agnant's description, Emma's experience with madness is expressed with the same opacity as the physical locations of the novel from the very beginning of the text. Similarly, in these opening lines, Agnant eschews psychiatrist terminology and introduces Emma's experience with madness by describing her as someone who has long attempted to tell her story by describing the shades of blue surrounding the place she comes from. Flore's description of this poetic yet mad endeavor aligns much more with the standpoint of a person who experiences madness than a psychiatrist's. Agnant maintains this mode of engagement with Emma's madness throughout the novel. I read Agnant's phenomenological portrayal of Emma's Black madness as drawing directly on what La Marr Jurelle Bruce conceptualizes as a mad methodology, an approach that moves away from a rationalist order that automatically pathologizes and "discredits madpersons" and instead "recognizes madpersons as critical theorists and decisive protagonists in struggles for liberation."5 Agnant's mad methodology allows her to...

Current research in regional science and economic geography has been placing increasing emphasis on the role played by the attraction and retention of graduates in shaping patterns of local economic development in Europe and internationally. Within this growing field of study, the patterns of migration of graduates has been explored in detail and its connection with personal benefits for the individual (higher salaries) and regional cumulative outcomes have been examined. Another trend, which has received some, although marginal, attention, is the increase in female participation and achievement in higher education. The scope of this chapter is to consider the interconnection between these two fields in graduate studies: gender and migration patterns. Using data from the 2006/07 cohort longitudinal DLHE survey, migration patterns of graduates are explored, with particular focus on gender dynamics. Graduates are classified according to their sequential migration behaviour first from their pre-university domicile to university, then from university to first job post-graduation, and finally their job 3.5 years after graduation. The chapter further focuses on the potential salary benefits of migration decisions and their difference across the two gender groups. It also explores how these migration patterns and the potential salary benefits of migration vary across different subject groups.

Objectives There is a lack of recent evidence on the association between Welsh language ability and employment outcomes. This paper addresses this gap by simultaneously examining the interplay between Welsh language ability and patterns of migration among recent cohorts of Welsh graduates and how these in turn influence employment outcomes. Methods Based upon Higher Education Statistics Agency data, we examine the university locations of six cohorts of Welsh domiciled Year 11 pupils (covering the period 2013-2018) who choose to enter Higher Education (HE). Using data from the 2011 Census and records related to compulsory and post-compulsory education, the characteristics of HE students who remain in Wales are compared to those who leave. Data from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DHLE) survey is used to examine migratory patterns following HE, how Welsh language influences graduate migration and how these in turn relate to employment outcomes. ResultsThe existence of a ‘brain drain’ of graduate labour from Wales has become a focus of debate. Any region’s ability to generate, retain and attract graduate workers is critically linked to the relative employment opportunities that are available compared to elsewhere. The analysis confirms that those students who speak Welsh are more likely to remain in Wales for the purpose of attending university. In the context of the relatively poor economic performance of Wales, those students who migrate from Wales exhibit improved economic outcomes. Additional analysis will examine whether the ability to speak Welsh has a positive impact upon employment outcomes and whether there is separate and additional effect of receiving tuition through the medium of Welsh among those who choose to study in Wales. ConclusionThe analysis emphasises the link between economic and language policy, as described within the Welsh Government’s national strategy Prosperity for All: Good quality jobs (in) attractive places…to live…(are required) to provide people with a reason to remain or return to work and live in communities where the Welsh language thrives.

High quality teaching involves deep content knowledge, understanding students and their learning processes, and complex skills of teaching and assessment. Students who experience high quality teaching tend to achieve higher annual growth rates. This study used a descriptive, qualitative research model to explore excellence in social studies teaching. Purposive sample was used to select district coordinators (n = 4) and their highest quality social studies teachers (n = 9). The process of phenomenological decontextualizing and recontextualizing produced five structural themes. Excellent social studies teachers have intellectual identities that focus on having deep content knowledge and a commitment to learning. They use their deep content knowledge to help students find relevancy. They view themselves as curriculum designers who find and curate their own resources. They facilitate student-centered learning experiences that engage students, encourage inquiry, and allow for student dialogue. Lastly, excellent social studies teachers design learning experiences to get students to think critically about different perspectives, synthesize multiple sources or viewpoints, and consider the lesser told stories of history. These contextualized, phenomenological structures reflect the teaching demands of common frameworks of social studies pedagogy including ambitious teaching approaches, authentic intellectual work, and the college, career, and civic life (C3) framework.

Puckett takes a new look at the relationship between language, society, and economics, by examining how people talk about work in a rural Appalachian community. Through careful analysis of conversations in casual yet commercial contexts, she finds that the construction and maintenance of this discourse is essential to the community's socio-economic relationships. The volume will appeal to linguists, anthropologists, and scholars in communications and Appalachian studies.

Puckett takes a new look at the relationship between language, society, and economics by examining how people talk about work in a rural Appalachian community. Through careful analysis of conversations in casual yet commercial contexts, she finds that the construction and maintenance of this discourse is essential to the community's socioeconomic relationships. The volume will appeal to linguists, anthropologists, and scholars in communications and Appalachian studies.

The rasa (emotive aesthetics), one of the major theories of Sanskrit literary criticism, has been expounded and evaluated in many scholarly studies by Indian and other Sanskritists. Some of them maintain that since the rasa deals with the universalized human emotions, it has validity not only for Indian but for other literatures as well. The rasa can be applied to any kind of emotive poetry such as lyric, epic, drama and satire. However, in Thai literature an emotive definition of poetry encompasses a great variety of works. A question is then raised in this paper about whether the rasa can be applied to a Thai poem of didactic nature. Phra Chaisuriya, a versified tale by Sunthon Phu, is selected as an example of study.

In this book, two well-known scholars of critical educational studies provide a compelling introduction to the thoughts of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and German critical theorist Jurgen Habermas. While there are many other books about these influential thinkers, this is the first to compare their theories in-depth and situate their thinking in relation to other social theories and philosophies of education. The authors demonstrate that, despite their differences, these philosophers share crucial views on science, society, critical social psychology, and educational praxis that are mutually illuminating and offer a new point of departure for a critical theory of education. The book is organized around the following themes: (a) Freire and Habermas' philosophies of the social sciences as a form of critical social theory; (b) their theories of society; (c) the critical social psychology that underlies their conception of the dialogical and developmental subject; and (d) the implications of their overall perspective for educational practice.

Ann Romines.1997. Constructing Little House: Gender, Culture, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. $55.00 hc. $17.95 sc. xi + 287 pp. It takes a certain kind of courage for an adult literary scholar to analyze books she loved as a child. It can be sobering to revisit a childhood favorite, only to realize it is badly written, or sexist, or racist, or sentimental, or just plain dull. It can be equally sobering to discover that text one remembers is actually movie version, or cartoon version, or television version, with incidents and characters added or deleted willy-hilly Some books are best left closed. Given this, it is all more remarkable that Ann Romines chose to do a full-length scholarly study of her own favorite books from childhood, Little House series. Clearly this study was in part her personal mission to understand why these books meant so much to her while growing in Licking, Missouri, in late 1940s and 1950s. Romines includes kinds of personal details-her collection of Little House-related memorabilia (a rag doll, a nine-patch quilt, a glass bread plate); her reaction to late novels in series (When I read Silver lake and following volume, The Long Winter [1940], I had exhilarating feeling that I was leaving `baby books' . . . behind to become a grown-up reader [139], her grandmother driving her to a bookstore in Springfield, Missouri, to obtain 85-year-old Laura Ingalls Wilder's autograph--that rarely appear in scholarly books. But in this study they seem right at home, even necessary; for as Romines knows well, her intense personal reaction to Little House books is not unique to her. Rather, hers is part of a continuing communal response to texts that explore issues of gender and personal identity. The Little House books have enjoyed extraordinary popularity among several generations ofAmerican girls, from Depression era (when to buy a book was a major expense) to present (when youngsters supposedly have an aversion to printed page). Even more, these books tend to be read and re-read, with Little House fans maintaining their passion into adulthood and actively recruiting their (female) children and grandchildren to share in experience. It is nature of Little House books' continuing personal and national appeal that intrigues Romines; and she brings to bear on that question her impressive knowledge of literary history, feminist criticism, popular culture, and literary theory. She also makes generous use of her gift for astute formalist readings and her sensitivity to nuances of both creative process and internecine strife. The result is a complex and provocative scholarly study Romines's sensitivity to creativity and to mother/daughter relationships is an essential element of her study's success.William Holtz's fine 1993 book, The Ghost in Little House, made a convincing case that Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, was ghost of Little House series, a scenario that renders problematic one's response to Wilder as author. But Romines declares early on that she regards series as the work of a composite author (47)-and much of impact of Constructing Little House comes from her analysis of written exchanges between mother and daughter as they collaborated on texts. Both women were strong-willed, and daughter Rose-globetrotting, independent, market-minded-argued often and hard with her mother. But if Rose was aggressive, Laura was stubborn; and written record of their battles makes it clear that Laura, though not a professional writer like her daughter, nevertheless understood instinctively when to downplay or omit characters (she wrote Rose in regard to characters Lena and Docia, stress them, don't play them up [157)), how to use physical objects (a china shepherdess, a fiddle, a rag doll) as motifs to unite books in Little House series, and how to arrange plots in such a way that Pa's many failures were simultaneously acknowledged but repressed in reader's consciousness. …

This open access edited volume addresses the multi-layered relations between migration, transnational flows, and the contested meanings of race in Asia. It tries to answer the following questions: how do migration and transnational flows from the Western world impact racial knowledge formation in Asian societies? To what extent do they challenge, perpetuate, and reshape unequal power relations based on the intersection of race, gender, class, nationality, citizenship, and migration status in Asia? How are dominant Western racial categories such as race, whiteness, and blackness redefined and reconstructed in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, when transnational mobility became both heavily restricted and stigmatized ? The book is divided into three parts: Race, Language and Migration status, Covid-19 and the Dynamics of Racialization, Gender and Interracial Encounters. This book positions itself in the nexus of race, migration and pandemic research and will make a significant contribution to critical race studies, whiteness studies, globalization, multiculturalism, and social transformation in Asia. This book is aimed at students and scholars in race and migration studies in Asia and beyond. This is an open access book.

We are our own subjects. How our subjectivity becomes entangled in the lives of others is and has always been our topic. (Denzin 27)This article reflects on the process of disclosing the ethnographic self, particularly in relation to the use of e-mails and social networking sites, such as Facebook. Previous work has examined virtual ethnography as the main research method or its place within a mixed method approach (Orgad; Hine, Virtual Ethnography; Fay; Greschke). My focus lies on the voluntary and involuntary intertwining of physical ethnographic work (i.e. going to a specific location to immerse oneself in a culture) and the virtual relations formed with informants in the course of such fieldwork. Connecting with informants on Facebook has brought a new dimension to the active approach of impression management that is encouraged in traditional texts on ethnography and participant observation (Hammersley and Atkinson; Taylor and Bogdan; Ellen). Examples are drawn from my experience of three phases of geographically located fieldwork for my thesis on Spanish- and English-language media and the Cuban-American community in Miami, Florida, and from online “repercussions” of my physical presence in the field.In an ideal (research) world, the process of immersing oneself in a culture, studying and understanding its values, dynamics and symbolism is paired with professional and personal distance and reflexivity. Most of the time, the reality of fieldwork does not adhere to this ideal (Kleinman and Copp). Data collection does not take place in a void. On the contrary, it is a personal, emotional, embodied and challenging experience in which the researcher’s persona is highly involved: “If informants are people and have rights that affect ethical practice, ethnographers are also human and have identities that affect research practice” (Brewer 99).The researcher’s identity has a strong influence on the research process, but the same holds true the other way around. Ethnographic encounters have an effect on the ethnographer’s sense of identity or sense of self. The researcher’s identity, just like the informant’s, is ever-changing and in a constant process of negotiation that continues throughout the ethnographic experience. As Sarah Pink (47) points out, individuals not only position themselves and their identity in relation to others, but also in relation to objects and discourses (see also: Miller).Therefore the process of relating to the field does not end with physically removing oneself from it (Coffey). Dealing, relating and “coming to terms” with the field and those we encounter is much more complex. The assumption made that the researcher would not be influenced by this, meaning that the field has no impact whatsoever on the one collecting data, has been challenged severely, often by feminist scholars among others, over the past decades (Hey; Roberts; Berger).Establishing and positioning oneself and one’s role in the field can be a daunting process (Lindner). It can be informed by fears of acceptance, uncertainties about conventions not (fully) understood yet and the underlying dynamics one still hopes to uncover. The process of role(s) and identity negotiation of the researcher in the field goes on when writing the field, going through field notes and making sense of what we have experienced (Okely). So even though strict temporal and spatial boundaries might never have existed to the extent ethnography textbooks would have us believe, the use of e-mails and social networking sites have brought the field even closer to home. I have structured the following reflections on disclosing the ethnographic self in face-to-face conversations, that is, exposures made while being physically present in the field, and those taking place online. However, it is worth remembering that this is an artificial distinction as they are clearly interlinked and can overlap in time. Disclosure in Face-to-Face ConversationsWith establishing and negotiating one’s identity in the field and fieldwork relations comes the question of how much to disclose of oneself. How much should informants know about me? There are obvious ethical requirements: Every researcher should be clear about scope and aim of the research project, institutional affiliations, the way data will be stored and used (Mauthner et al.). But beyond that, how much of myself do I have to expose? What stands in the way of a straight-forward answer is the undefined nature of relationships of those we meet in the field: “Fieldwork relationships are at once professional and personal, yet not necessarily readily characterized as either”(Coffey 39).Arguably, there is not one right way to proceed, as it depends on the kind of field the researcher is finding herself in, her personality, role, identity and the type of relationship she wishes to establish with informants. The process of relationship-building to the field as a whole as constructed in the ethnographer’s mind and to individuals in the field is of course ongoing and very likely to evolve and change over time. This applies not only to the relationships built but also to the researcher’s sense of self and how he or she relates to those encountered in the field. It is partly in and through these encounters that the researcher’s understanding of self is influenced, shaped and negotiated on a continual basis. During three phases of fieldwork in 2006, 2007 and 2008 I interviewed over 40 Hispanic journalists, media executives and active members of the Cuban-American community in Miami, Florida. How much was I willing to disclose of myself during these encounters and subsequent e-mail exchanges? Should I correct informants when they wrongly assumed I was British because I was based at a British institution? Do they need to know why I have chosen to research this particular topic and them as a group, why I was based at a Scottish university and what brought me to the U.K. in the first place? The answers were no secrets, but neither was I comfortable to share them with all informants I met in the field. Gender and age-related dynamics came into play here with the majority of interviewees being male and significantly older than me (Easterday). At times, I was uneasy when it came to talking about myself. While I defined the majority of my initial relations as mostly, though not entirely, professional, some interviewees did have a different take on this. In particular, I felt that one interviewee who after the interview started asking me personal questions about my move to Scotland, clearly overstepped an invisible line, although it would have been perfectly alright from my perspective to ask him questions similar, though different in tone, within the context of an interview. A further aspect of disclosure within the context of ethnographic work is the open discussion of the research process with informants. Although this can be very fruitful, it can also be source of scorn and end in closed doors, especially in the highly polarised field I was researching: Once interviews were finished, some interviewees would ask whom I had interviewed previously—maybe just out of interest, maybe to go on and suggest future interviewees. I had never considered in detail what kind of reactions interviewees might have by my naming of previous contacts because for one, reactions had so far been positive and secondly, all interviewees had some understanding of what research entails and that I would naturally want to speak to as many people and as many “sides” as possible. In one particular case, though, the interviewee showed clear disapproval of my talking to a journalist at a well-known Miami-based newspaper. At the time, I did not take this minor condemnation very seriously, but in retrospect it turned out that this interviewee could have been a valuable source for further information and contacts. It taught me that it is wise to hold my cards closer to my chest in such a sensitive environment. This does not mean, however, that secrecy and constant striving towards a neutral position is always the best way to proceed, nor a believable position to hold as Kloos (511) found out: “One of the clergymen in Eastern Flevoland asked me once: ‘Do you have any opinions of your own?’”Virtual Exposure and DisclosurePrevious studies underlined that relationships forged and maintained online mirror offline everyday-life contacts, interests, concerns and vice versa. (Castells; Miller and Slater) For ethnographers whose informants have ready Internet access, this can bring significant advantages as well as challenges. Contacting informants whom I had heard about but not yet met in person by e-mail proved an extremely useful approach. An e-mail allowed me to say a few words about myself and introduce my research project. If there was no response to the e-mail, I was much more comfortable to call the person at this stage—rather than before an e-mail had been sent. E-mails proved a very successful way in contacting informants, thanking people after the interview and exchanging further information that had been touched upon in conversation. What surprised me, however, was that e-mails were also used by interviewees to contact me months after I had been in touch with them and had physically left the field. On a couple of occasions, interviewees sent me information that they thought was essential for my research or, in fact, asked me to fill out a questionnaire and comment on matters relating to my research topic. My role in the field and my relation to informants had turned from researcher to research participant, or interviewee in this case.While e-mails offer a rather controlled environment when approaching informants, other information about the researcher might be more unpredictable and harder to control or manage. I sometimes found myself wondering what information about me informants would find when they Googled my name. How would they combine and make

It is commonplace nowadays to speak of "transnational public spheres," "diasporic public spheres," "Islamic public spheres," and even an emerging "global public sphere." And such talk has a clear point. A growing body of media studies literature is documenting the existence of discursive arenas that overflow the bounds of both nations and states. Numerous scholars in cultural studies are ingeniously mapping the contours of such arenas and the flows of images and signs in and through them. The idea of a "transnational public sphere" is intuitively plausible, then, and seems to have purchase on social reality.

Werner Herzog (b. 1942) is perhaps the most famous living German filmmaker, but his films have never been read in the context of German cultural history. And while there is a surfeit of film reviews,interviews, and scholarly articles on Herzog and his work, there are very few books devoted to his films, and none addressing his entire career to date. Until now.<BR> <I>Forgotten Dreams</I> offersnot only an analytical study of Herzog's films but also a new reading of Romanticism's impact beyond the nineteenth century. It argues that his films re-envision and help us better understand a critical stream in Romanticism, and places the films in conversation with other filmmakers, authors, and philosophers in order to illuminate that critical stream. The result is a lively reconnection with Romantic themes and convictions that have been partly forgotten in the midst of Germany's postwar rejection of much of Romantic thought, yet are still operative in German culture today. The film analyses will interest scholars of film, German Studies, and Romanticism as well as a broader public interested in Herzog's films and contemporary German cultural debates. The book will also appeal to thoseinterested in the ongoing renegotiation - by Western and other cultures - of relationships between reason and passion, civilization and wild nature, knowledge and belief.<BR><BR> Laurie Ruth Johnson is Associate Professor of German, Comparative and World Literature, and Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.<BR><BR>

Offers not only an analytical study of the films of Herzog, perhaps the most famous living German filmmaker, but also a new reading of Romanticism's impact beyond the nineteenth century and in the present. Werner Herzog (b. 1942) is perhaps the most famous living German filmmaker, but his films have never been read in the context of German cultural history. And while there is a surfeit of film reviews, interviews, and scholarly articles on Herzog and his work, there are very few books devoted to his films, and none addressing his entire career to date. Until now. Forgotten Dreams offers not only an analytical study of Herzog's films but also a new reading of Romanticism's impact beyond the nineteenth century. It argues that his films re-envision and help us better understand a critical stream in Romanticism, and places the films in conversation with other filmmakers, authors, and philosophers in order to illuminate that critical stream. The result is a lively reconnection with Romantic themes and convictions that have been partly forgotten in the midst of Germany's postwar rejection of much of Romantic thought, yet are still operative in German culture today. The film analyses will interest scholars of film, German Studies, and Romanticism as well as a broader public interested in Herzog's films and contemporary German cultural debates. The book will also appeal to those interested in the ongoing renegotiation - by Western and other cultures - of relationships between reason and passion, civilization and wild nature, knowledge and belief. Laurie Ruth Johnson is Professor of German, Comparative and World Literature, and Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Reflecting on the relationship between critical theory and politics, Stuart Hall, the former Director of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, has commented on a number of occasions about the influence of May ’68 and radical student politics on the intellectual ‘project’ of Cultural Studies. Hall argues that this indebtedness to the politics of 1968 was worked through at the level of what one might call ‘form’ and ‘content’ — the ideas which emerged at this time and the forms of intellectual practice which they engendered. Thus, ‘new kinds of questions about the “politics of culture” ’ emerged in the wake of the ‘cultural revolution of May ’68’ (Hall 1997, p. 9) and the influence of radical currents of thought, especially Marxism, was marked. At the same time, there was the attempt to develop both an interdisciplinary approach to research and a more collective approach to the garnering of knowledge which would expressly oppose the ‘competitive individualism’ of traditional modes of intellectual enquiry. Consequently, as Colin MacCabe notes in a recent interview with Hall, ‘1968 transformed the Centre so that it became a national focus for politically committed students who wanted to pursue intellectual work’ (Hall 2008, p. 9).KeywordsCritical TheoryRadical PoliticsPolitical EngagementVital ArgumentIntellectual LifeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.