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Dr. Rhoda Reddock is full professor and head of the Centre
for Gender and Development Studies at the University of
the West Indies, St. Augustine campus. She is a former lecturer
in sociology at the UWI St. Augustine and associate lecturer
in the Women and Development programme at the Institute
of Social Studies, The Hague. She is an activist in the
Caribbean Women's movement and founding member of the Caribbean
Association or Feminist Research and Action.
A former chair of Research Committee-32 of the International
Sociological Association (1994-1998), she has numerous publications
including Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago:
A History, Zed Books, 1994 which was named a CHOICE Outstanding
Academic Book for 1995. Dr. Reddock has developed and taught
courses in industrial sociology, sociology of development,
women's studies, masculinity studies, gender and development
and feminist theory. Her research interests include, women's
history, Caribbean feminist thought, masculinity studies
and gender, ethnicity and identity.
Dr. Reddock, a graduate of the University of the West Indies,
The Institute of Social Studies, The Hague and the University
of Amsterdam, is the recipient of many awards. These include
a Rockefeller Residency Fellowship in 1992-1992; The UWI
Vice - Chancellors Award for Excellence in Teaching and
Administration, Research and Public Service in 2001. In
July 2002 she was recipient of the Seventh CARICOM Triennial
Award for Women, at the Heads of Government Meeting of the
Caribbean Community in Guyana.
Selected Publications:
Rhoda Reddock and Shobhita Jain, Plantation Women: International
Experiences, Berg, Oxford, 1998
Rhoda Reddock and Christine Barrow, Caribbean Sociology:
Introductory Readings, Ian Randle Kingston, and Marcus
Weiner, Princeton, 2000.
Rhoda Reddock "Feminist Theory and Critical Reconceptualization
in Sociology: The Challenge of the 1900s" The International
Handbook of Sociology, Stella Quah and Arnaud Sales
(eds), in association with the International Sociological
Association, Sage Publications, 2000.
Rhoda Reddock and Alice Colon, "Cambios in la Situación
de las Mujeres en El Caribe a Través del Siglo XX"in
OP.CIT. Revista des Centro de Investigaciones Históricas,
Núm. 14, 2002.
Rhoda Reddock(ed.) Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities:
Theoretical and Empirical Analyses, The UWI Press, Kingston,
2004.
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Competing Victimhoods: Feminist Analyses of Diversity
and Difference in the Caribbean (with special reference
to Trinidad and Tobago)
This study aims to provide a conceptual and analytical
framework for understanding the gender dimensions of inter-ethnic
conflict, tensions, contestations and intersections in post-colonial
multi-ethnic Caribbean societies. It seeks to examine the
intersection of gender with ethnicity, or the differential
racialised and gendered experience of women and men, with
special reference to Trinidad and Tobago.
More specifically the study would aim: to add a feminist
and gender analysis to ongoing discourses on race/ethnicity,
class and nation in the Caribbean and in a comparative context;
to explore notions of citizenship and its interface with
gender, ethnicity and class; to provide a basis for understanding
the complexities of inter-ethnic relations in the Caribbean
which could be useful for activists, educators, policy-makers
and a general readership; to provide course materials for
university and college courses on these subjects in the
Caribbean, the Caribbean diaspora and internationally and
to contribute toward the development of informed public
opinion on issues of gender and inter-ethnic relations in
the Caribbean.
During the 20th Century inter-ethnic tensions were the
cause of major conflicts in numerous parts of the world
including Guyana in the Caribbean in 1960s. Inter-ethnic
conflicts have specific impacts on women who are perceived
as the bearers of culture and the protectors of the 'purity'
of the race. Attacks on women such as rape or forced pregnancy,
are ways through which conflicts among men take place through
the violation of women and their bodies.
Inter- ethnic conflict is also sometimes reflected through
religious divisions and religious fundamentalisms. These
conflicts have specific impacts on women which become even
more marked in contexts of inter-ethnic tension. In these
situations, issues of women's human rights become paramount.
This program would allow for a cross-cultural examination
of this phenomenon, which should enrich the national and
regional level research and policy interventions.
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Head
and Professor, Centre for Gender and Development Studies
