Racism and the Politics of Culture
How top-down misleading definitions of culture and multiculturalism contribute to racism in T&T… From an anthropological perspective one problem with the outgoing government’s …
Author: Dylan Kerrigan - Opeds
Racism and the Politics of Culture
How top-down misleading definitions of culture and multiculturalism contribute to racism in T&T… From an anthropological perspective one problem with the outgoing government’s …
Fixing Democracy
Looking at Lessing’s movement for political reforms in the US how might such ideas translate to electoral reforms in T&T Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at…
Fixing Democracy
Looking at Lessing’s movement for political reforms in the US how might such ideas translate to electoral reforms in T&T Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at…
Chasing their tails
Unpacking a local cultural meme on political corruption There’s a cultural meme circulating locally about the upcoming election. It’s on the radio and TV, in newspapers, and th…
Chasing their tails
Unpacking a local cultural meme on political corruption There’s a cultural meme circulating locally about the upcoming election. It’s on the radio and TV, in newspapers, and th…
The Price of Freedom
What do the end of slavery and the European financial crisis have in common? Recently, the BBC ran a two-part documentary in the UK on how slave owners…
The Price of Freedom
What do the end of slavery and the European financial crisis have in common? Recently, the BBC ran a two-part documentary in the UK on how slave owners…
Sharing the Road
Comparison between riding culture in Holland and T&T In T&T we do not have an everyday bicycle culture as a part of our transport infrastructure. You don’t see…
Sharing the Road
Comparison between riding culture in Holland and T&T In T&T we do not have an everyday bicycle culture as a part of our transport infrastructure. You don’t see…
When White Privilege Goes Wrong
What is white privilege and how does it operate… Over the last two weeks, the international news cycle has, without hardly ever naming it, been focussed on some…
When White Privilege Goes Wrong
What is white privilege and how does it operate… Over the last two weeks, the international news cycle has, without hardly ever naming it, been focussed on some…
Manufacturing consent
Examples how many of us are complicit in our subordination and domination by neoliberal power… Patricia Hill Collins is a professor of Sociology who many argue has published…
Caribbean military encounters
How the relationship between the Caribbean and foreign military forces in the 20th century had many different incarnations and forms, and left lasting legacies… The Caribbean Studies Ass…
A Ritual of Power
The recent #Caribbeanfutureforum silenced a large volume of voices. Here’s how and why Power has many definitions. One way anthropologists talk about power is the “power matrix,…
The Cult of Oprah
The depoliticisation of the individual and how Oprah’s symbolises a dumbing down of what social change really requires… Now the point isn’t that it’s all Oprah’s fault …
The Corruption Complex
The cultural logics of corruption and how they can be found in T&T Writing about corruption from the petty to the massive in Africa, anthropologist Jean-Pierre Sardan proposed…
Postgraduate research in the Caribbean
Whose side are we on? “Whose side are we on?” is a famous and pertinent question asked of social science research by sociologist Harold Becker in a 1967…
The Happiness Scam
The happiness industry, positive psychology and dead-end jobs. How happiness became a scam to hide social inequality and a global economy on a road to destruction Whether it’s…
A New Politics of Distribution
What is a Basic Income Grant and what might it mean for Trinidad and Tobago… My last two columns asked questions about transforming the status quo, such as…
Fleeting friendships and community for Carnival
The institutionalisation of atomistic individualism over the need and necessity of social groups and relations – seen through Carnival It has become impossible today to describe the …
OJT=UWI’s Cepep
The phenomenon of “Bullshit Jobs” in Trinidad… A common complaint I hear informally from some graduates at the UWI concerns the disconnect between what they know and the…
Privilege, Empathy And Politics
According to anthropologist Barbara King, one alternative to the 2014 Merriam-Webster Dictionary word of the year “culture” is “privilege.” For the political anthropologist, Pr…
Anthropology and the Police
According to Dr Jennie Simpson, an anthropologist of policing in North America, one question to ask in the quest for cultural change within our local police force is,…