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Examining creative solutions to employment insecurities in Trinidad and Tobago through the use of “community media projects”
No full textTrinidad and Tobago are the leading oil and gas production economy in the Caribbean. Countless reports prove the significant contribution oil production makes to this nation's economy. This twin island is also one of the foremost global exporters of methanol and ammonia to the U.S market (IHS Chemical, World Methanol Analysis 2013; FERTECON Ammonia Outlook 2014). However, some may argue that this resource-rich country remains heavily reliant on revenues generated by gas production. Although Trinidad and Tobago have succeeded, to a limited extent, in diversifying the economy from energy to manufacturing, services and eco-tourism, it currently faces a major economic insecurity. More recently, several local economists including Hosein (2016) have issued statements warning the Trinidad and Tobago Government that failure to reform the economy particularly in areas of economic diversification can result in a repeat of the 1989 IMF Structural Adjustment Loan fiasco. Hosein (2016) and others argue that economic diversification will reduce risk and ensure long-term industrial development. In this vein, I use my presentation to examine the concept and importance of economic diversification in light the brief situation analysis outlined above.
There have been continuous debates about the industrial value of creativity and culture in societies (see the works of Eleonora Belfiore). The basic idea is that wealth and income-generating opportunities can be obtained through individual creativity skills, talent and local culture. In this vein, I present some of the findings from my impact case study of the Shoot To Live project, a community media project in Trinidad and Tobago, which explores creative and social entrepreneurial outlets as one of the solutions to Trinidad and Tobago's economic insecurity
Towards a general theory of the stock market
No full textAlthough there are many stock market anomalies which the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) finds difficult to explain, it also has its strengths, and so far no alternative hypothesis has been developed which can explain what the EMH explains but which can also do a better job in explaining the phenomena with which it struggles. It is argued that the way forward is to postulate that the stock market can be in one of three states: a fundamental state, in which share prices are determined as in the EMH, a bubble or bull market state, in which share prices are above their fundamental levels but continue to rise because asset holders expect to sell the shares at even higher prices in the future, and a bear market state, in which shares are held exclusively by 'irrational' agents and rational agents cannot exploit the overvaluation because of short-selling constraints. It is also argued that heterogeneous rational expectations may help explain some features of stock market behaviour
An Assessment Of The Environmental Literacy Of Pre-Service Teachers In Colleges Of Education In Ghana
No full textGhana has lost about 93 percent of its forest reserves in 68 years and its rich biodiversity is gradually being depleted due to poaching, habitat loss, pollution of water bodies and deforestation (Buamah, Petrusevski and Schippers, 2008; Tamakloe, 2010; Tom-Dery, Dagben and Cobbina, 2012). The cost of environmental degradation to Ghana’s economy is estimated to be within the range of 1-10% of the country’s annual GDP ($12 billion GDP) (GNA, 2007; UNEP, 2013).
Environmental science education in the basic school curriculum is aimed at educating Ghanaians on the environment. Tuncer et al. (2009) argue that teachers will produce students who are environmentally literate when they themselves are environmentally knowledgeable, have positive attitudes towards the environment and show concern for environmental problems. This study assesses the environmental literacy of pre- service teachers in colleges of education in Ghana and their preparedness to teach environmental science at the basic school level
Smiles And Challenges: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives Of Thai Post-Graduate Students In The UK
No full textThe stereotypic image of smiling, passive Thai students masks the hidden depths of cultural conflict and academic challenges encountered while studying in the West. Researchers in Australia and North America investigated problems experienced by International students at Western universities but there is a sparsity of research into the experiences of Thai students.
Academically gifted Thai students reported various problems while studying in the UK which raised serious concerns and initiated this research project. The research of others, interviews with students and their teachers, questionnaires, classroom observations, reflective journals and group discussions provided a wealth of data which challenged Hofstede’s arguably superficial portrayal of Thai nationals. A picture emerged of complex individuals from a diverse nation never colonised by a Western power. Pedagogical and cultural background influenced the academic and social adaptation of the participants to the challenges and pressures of studying for a one year Masters degree at three UK universities.
International students provide a major financial income for UK universities and with this benefit comes responsibility to provide the highest quality education. This study challenges pre-conceptions of stereotypic generalities. It highlights the importance of recognising the individuality of international students and assumptions of national identities. It aims to augment existing research thereby providing a source of valuable pedagogic and cultural information for teachers and their Thai students to their mutual benefit
Autoguider repairs at Mount Wilson in 2016 April
Get PDFThe 60-foot tower services were restarted for the summer. The mechanical actuator for the east/west axis on the second flat had almost seized, and so this was disassembled and cleaned. Some diagnostic work was performed on the guider module which indicated a fault due to loose interface cards, particularly the guider level threshold cards for both axes. No attempt has yet been made to secure the cards and improve their reliability
Eight images of Caribbean women: Exploring issues of representation and ontological in/security through visual art
No full textThis presentation features eight artistic representations of black Caribbean and diasporan women, paired together to explore different compositional, social and technological modalities. The visual analysis commences with an art-historical critique of ways that black women have been portrayed in classical figurative painting, and then compares different styles of photographic portraiture, before concluding with a review of recent installations by contemporary Caribbean artists. Each selection provides opportunities to consider the role of artworks as archives of social history, artists as documentarians, and exhibition spaces as sites for critical engagement with the politics of black portraiture as an issue of ontological in/security.
The works in focus are:
• Two oil paintings showing aspects of Haitian history depicted through black female corporeality: Portrait of a Haitian woman (1786) by François Malépart de Beaucourt; and Mama Legba (2011) by Elizabeth Colomba
• Performance-themed artworks that feature coded styles of dress and movement: Dancing scene in the West Indies (c. 1764-96) by Agostino Brunias; and “Whip it Good!” (2015) by Jeanette Ehlers
• Contrasting examples of colonial photography and contemporary photographic self-portraiture: “Woman selling Jack Fruit, Trinidad” (1908-9) by Harry Hamilton Johnston; and Redcoat, from the series Queen Nanny of the Maroons (2004) by Renée Cox
• Twenty-first century mixed-media installations that question and challenge racialized gender stereotypes: “Brown Girl in the Ring” (2015) by Jodi Minnis and Edrin Symonette; and Post j'ouvert self-portrait (2013) by Brianna McCarthy.
Drawing on the work of art historians Charmaine Nelson and Samantha Noel, as well as black feminist scholarship from other subject disciplines, artists’ and curators’ reflexive commentaries on their own practice are aligned to wider discourses about the unmasking and counter-narration of “controlling images” (Collins 2000: 69-72), the de-centering of the “mythical norm” (Lorde 2007 [1984]: 116), and the importance of self-representation for “talking back” (hooks 1989: 9) and “restablilis[ing] the integrity of the black female self” (Henderson 2010: 6)
Caribbean Maritime Labour and the Politicisation of In/security
No full textIn his essay ‘The Politics of Power and Violence: Rethinking the political in the Caribbean’ Anthony Bogues contends that thinking of ‘power as a field of force’ which ‘exists in other ways than in conventional state forms’ can be productive in understanding ‘geographical spaces of violence and death’ and ‘re-mapping sovereignty’ (Bogues, 2007: 198-199). He argues that doing so forces the rethinking of ‘the relationship between violence and power’, cracks ‘open homogeneous conceptions about subaltern counter-hegemonic practices’ and allows us ‘to interrogate the nation state in its postcolony iteration while thinking differently about the meaning of the political and sovereignty’.
This working paper contributes to these debates about the relations between the political and questions of in/security with a particular focus on the spaces through which subaltern counter-hegemonic practices have been shaped and articulated. It develops these problematics through discussion of struggles over the terms on which maritime labour organisers from the Caribbean contested the ‘white labourism’ of the National Union of Seamen in British ports in the 1930s
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