Linden Lewis

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.

The iconoclasm of Oliver Cromwell Cox and the critique of white supremacy

Oliver Cox was a towering, radical, historical, and economic sociologist. He dared to criticize Robert Park, the doyen of race relations in the American academy of his day, at a time when it was not politic to do so. He was unfazed by the unpopularity of Marxism, claiming a commitment to socialism and a radical orientation at the height of the McCarthy purges of radical intellectuals and communists. These acts of intellectual defiance placed Cox firmly on the margins of American sociology and sealed his fate in the academy as an outsider. The marginalization of Cox was not simply confined to the United States, but extended to his native Trinidad, and for that matter the wider Caribbean. Despite his incredible contribution to the discipline of sociology, he is largely unknown in Caribbean intellectual circles. This article focuses on Cox’s path-breaking work in the area of race relations. The essay ends with a discussion of Cox’s legacy and what Caribbean academics, intellectuals, and students could learn from his contribution.