Methods in Caribbean Research: Literature, Discourse, Culture

In the introduction to Methods in Caribbean Research, the editors ask, "What sets the Caribbean apart and justifies an application of scholarly method to its own needs? What defines the world of Caribbean letters? Why not merely apply established approaches to scholarship that work satisfactorily in Western metropoles?"

The chapters in this collection address these pressing questions and make a unique contribution to the available guides for Caribbean scholars and students of Caribbean studies both inside and outside the region.

The authors consider the distinctive needs of research in Caribbean literature, language and culture and focus on honing research methods relevant to Caribbean material and with the insights of the Caribbean experience.

The essays in the first part, Research Methodology, examine conceptual frames, data collection, and application and analysis of research. The second part details the research process, from proposal to proofreading. Throughout, the authors emphasize a Caribbean approach that is engaged with and aware of a range of existing theories but does not uncritically adopt external frameworks that are inadequate for a rounded Caribbean critical practice.

Barbara Lalla is Professor Emerita, Language and Literature, the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Her many publications include the novels Grounds for Tenure, Uncle Brother, Cascade, and Arch of Fire, and the scholarly works Postcolonialisms: Caribbean Rereading of Medieval English Discourse, Defining Jamaican Fiction: Marronage and the Discourse of Survival, the companion volumes Language in Exile: Three Hundred Years of Jamaican Creole and Voices in Exile: Jamaican Texts of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (co-authored with Jean D’Costa), and Caribbean Literary Discourse (co-authored with Jean D’Costa and Velma Pollard).

Nicole Roberts is Senior Lecturer, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw is Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone Literatures, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

Valerie Youssef is Professor of Linguistics, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago