Anton L. Allahar

Generation on hold : coming of age in the late twentieth century

Young adults in the modern era face a completely differently set of challenges from previous generations. Tracing historical constructions of adolescence and their role in maintaining social order, James E. Cote and Anton L. Allahar persuasively argue that young people today constitute one of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in society. Today, for the first time, teenagers and young adults in the United states, Canada, Japan, Scandinavia and Western Europe can expect to have a lower standard of living than their parents. Youth are conditioned to stay young linger and have, as a result, become socially and economically marginalized. Many young people amass credentials regardless of employment prospects and continue to live at home, often dependent on their parents, into their thirties. With fewer jobs available, young people are ironically targeted increasingly as consumers, rather than as producers. As new technologies continually reduce the work force and alter the social fabric, an entire generation of young people has struggled to keep up. What then does it mean to come of age in an advanced industrial or post-industrial society?

When Black First Became Worth Less

The ideas developed around the question of race can and have, indeed, assumed a life of their own, divorced from the original context in which they arose. Throughout history they have been applied in different ways to serve diverse ends and interests. Thus, whether or not the ancient Egyptians were racist towards the Ethiopians, or the colour symbolisms of the Old Testament were meant literally, they served to inform the later practices of slavery and colonialism, and to justify to the slave owners and colonizers their historic actions. And even after the disappearance of the original roots of racism, racism itself did not disappear. Rather, new racist ideas evolved, utilizing the images of medieval thought and the colour symbolisms of Christianity to inform discriminatory practices right into the modern period. For although races are socially imagined and not biologically real categories, human beings continue to act as if they were real; and as long as they do so, race becomes real in its consequences.

Primordialism and ethnic political mobilisation in modern society

Abstract This article will focus on class and ethnicity as factors influencing political mobilisation in modern, liberal‐democratic societies. My aim is to treat political mobilisation as a dependent variable and to compare the conditions under which (a) class consciousness and affiliation and (b) ethnic consciousness and affiliation are able to predict such mobilisation. The concept of primordialism, which holds that group attachment and identity, especially in pre‐modern or traditional societies, are natural, perhaps even biological, will serve as the point of departure. After reviewing the relevant literature and identifying the main, divergent claims, I will seek to provide a reconciliation and synthesis of the two which shows how a modified understanding of ethnic primordialism can be fruitfully combined with considerations of economic or class interests to explain political mobilisation in modern society.

The Evolution of the Latin American Bourgeoisie: An Historical-Comparative Study

In the struggle between the landowning lumpenbourgeoisie and the industrialists in 19th century Latin America victory tended to favour the former in most cases. In the principal countries of the region (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Mexico), the broader social, economic and political base of the landowners generally proved to be decisive. Through its alliances with the imperialist bourgeoisie, the local, export-oriented comprador bourgeoisie was able to triumph over its pro-industrial counterpart, and managed to condition the development of underdevelopment in the region as a whole.

Framing of Political Culture in the English-Speaking Caribbean: Cuban Socialism Versus US Imperialism

Abstract In this essay it is my contention that, as anachronistic as a revived political interest in Marxism and socialism in the Caribbean may appear today, it is nevertheless likely to stem form the unintended consequences of United States’ aggressive leadership of the “Free World,” which includes the Caribbean. The backdrop to this study of the political culture of the Caribbean is the region’s class-based and racialized history, whose roots are firmly planted in colonialism and slavery and latterly in neocolonialism and global capitalism. Since the end of the Second World War, however, with the decline of the British Empire and the decolonization of Africa, India and the British Caribbean, major changes have been registered in the political cultures of the countries concerned. In the Caribbean particularly, those changes have been increasingly tied to the fortunes of the Cuban revolution and the heavy-handed treatment meted out by the United States. This has conditioned the growth of a curious political climate in the Caribbean, which sees a blend of socialist, anti-American posturing by some political leaders, part of which includes a brand of racial politics imported from the American civil rights activists of the 1960s.

The Grenada Revolution in the Caribbean Present: Operation Urgent Memory

what otherwise appears as a world in ruins. Martin claims it also provides us with a language for valuing/evaluating political mobilizations that do not take traditional forms. It is with this optimistic note – that we should not give up on the possibilities of mobilization and the creative potential of human beings to remake our world, down to our kinesthetic practices – that Randy Martin has left us.

Looking Back and Moving Forward – Reflections on Latin American and Caribbean Studies: An interview with Bridget Brereton

BB: First, of course, there is the question of definition: what was/is “The Caribbean”? In the anglophone world, the Caribbean has been conceptualized by most historians and social scientists as all the islands (including the Bahamas, which strictly speaking are outside the Caribbean Sea) plus the continental “enclaves” so closely linked to the islands: the three Guianas and Belize. This is the definition adopted by Eric Williams, for example, and by the six-volume UNESCO General History of the Caribbean. Most francophone writers also opt for this definition. A few scholars have preferred to exclude the continental countries, such as B.W. Higman in his recent general history of the Caribbean. Some writers from the Spanishspeaking Caribbean, such as Juan Bosch, and a few others, such as the francophone Oruna Lara, prefer a “Greater Caribbean” definition, which takes in the mainland littoral all the way from Florida to Guyane. Then there is the Caribbean diaspora, mainly but not exclusively concentrated in North America and Western Europe; it’s difficult to conceive of a discipline called Caribbean Studies (CS) that fails to include diaspora Caribbean history and culture in its remit. Every aspect of the history and culture, in its broadest sense, of the Caribbean (as defined above) should be part of the remit of CS. Of course, traditionally the social sciences and the humanities (together constituting what the French call les sciences humaines) have dominated the field. In particular, CS has had a focus on literature, the performing and festival arts, social and political structures, and linguistic and religious creativity. But the

Situating Oliver Cromwell Cox (1901–1974)

The volume does not attempt to establish a hagiography of Oliver Cox. There are certain aspects of his work that we find very impressive and still relevant today, but there are contradictions here that cannot be ignored and we make no attempt to dissimulate these lapses. Moreover, there are controversies surrounding Cox’s use of Marxist categories, and whether or not he should be so labeled. There are some who define Cox as functionalist and linear in his thinking. These are issues which we have deliberately left unresolved in the interest of plurality of perspectives on Cox as the subject of the issue. There is no attempt to homogenize these thoughts into a coherent narrative. Our aim is largely to locate Cox as a powerful twentieth-century intellectual. This volume seeks to resurrect the life and work of a black Caribbean sociologist who suffered the ignominy of intellectual neglect in the Caribbean and marginalization in the United States, where he made his academic contribution. Oliver C. Cox was born about 114 years ago in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and spent the first 18 years of his life there, before immigrating to the United States, where he died in 1974 at the age of 73. Not much is known of his years in Trinidad and for all practical purposes it seems he did not identify much personally or intellectually with his country of birth. His father, William Cox, was characterized by Herbert Hunter as “strict and no-nonsense in the treatment of his business affairs and the raising of his family” (1983, 250), and the young Oliver would no doubt have agreed with Hunter’s assessment. Oliver was particularly fond of his uncle, Reginald Vidale, who was mayor of Port of Spain for a while, and who was also headmaster of a Catholic primary school. Both his father and uncle were known for their stern, disciplinarian ways and some commentators have seen his very strict upbringing as impacting the development of Cox’s own character as well as shading into his later academic and personal life. Commenting on the latter, Pierre Saint-Arnaud describes Cox somewhat unfairly as “vindictive by nature” (2009, 202), but, as we will see, he was not alone in this assessment. Oliver never married.

Marxist or not? Oliver Cromwell Cox on capitalism and class versus “race”

In Marx’s overall theory of social change he reasoned that the social segment most negatively affected by capitalism was the working class. He felt that it was in the interest of the working class to abolish the system that alienated, exploited, and oppressed them; to overthrow the class that benefitted from their alienation, exploitation, and oppression. Marx’s was thus a class theory of change and this is clearly announced in the opening line of The Communist Manifesto, in which he and Engels affirmed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle”. More recently, scholars and analysts working in the critical tradition have challenged what they call the class reductionism of Marxism. Known generally as critical race theorists, these scholars criticize Marx and orthodox Marxists for neglecting the central issue of “race”, some even claiming that their theory is incapable of accommodating the question of “race” as a possible rallying cry in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. For these thinkers, “race” is not a mere epiphenomenon and race consciousness is not false consciousness. The two questions I will pursue in this essay are: Can one embrace the notion of race consciousness and still be a Marxist? And, where does Oliver Cromwell Cox stand?