Labour and the multiracial project in the Caribbean : its history and its promise / Sara Abraham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Abraham, Sara, 1966-

Series:

Caribbean studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Race relations.

Caribbean Area--Race relations.

Caribbean Area.

Guyana--Race relations.

Guyana.

Guyana--Politics and government.

Politics and government.

Trinidad and Tobago--Race relations.

Trinidad and Tobago.

Trinidad and Tobago--Politics and government.

Physical Description:

xv, 242 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2007]

Summary:

Labour and the Multiracial Project in the Caribbean is a detailed case study of emancipatory racial unity in postcolonial politics. Sara Abraham argues that the Caribbean provides a good site for studying unity because the major population groups share equal power bases, unlike metropolitan countries. She offers a rich exploration of the four historical periods of multiracial political unity in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana: the 1930s, 1950s, 1960s-1970s, and the 1980s. In each of these cases, unity was the focus of organized social movements as the countries attempted to break out of colonial legacies of division. Abraham explores several immediate factors that led to social change, including the structural conditions in the political system that allowed movements of unity to gain center stage, the new class formation as the social basis for a new politics, and the moral courage of the activists themselves, which is represented by first-hand accounts from contemporary activists and a Caribbean political elder. Labour and the Multiracial Project in the Caribbean is a comprehensive and accessible work, suitable for sociologists and historians of the Caribbean as well as general readers with an interest in race relations.

Contents:

Introduction: types of multiracialism

Plantations, widespread labour rebellions and "popular multiracialism"

Nationalist multiracial unity, its breakup, and the rise of "party system"

"It was going so good": solidaristic multiracial unity in the 1960s, ̓70s, ̓80s

The 1986 national alliance or "strategic multiracialism"

Tales from the streets and fields

Concluding reflections, ongoing struggles.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-236) and index.

ISBN:

9780739116852

0739116851

9780739116869

073911686X

OCLC:

123912606