Shelene Gomes – författare

This is a book about the power of the imagination to move persons from the Global South as they reinvent themselves. This ethnography focuses on Caribbean Rastafari who have undertaken a spiritual repatriation to Ethiopia over several decades particularly, though not exclusively, from Jamaica. Shelene Gomes traces the formation of a Rastafari community located in the multicultural Jamaica Safar or Jamaica neighbourhood in the Ethiopian city of Shashamane following a twentieth century grant of land from the former Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie I. In presenting narratives of spiritual repatriation, everyday behaviours and ritualised events, Gomes provides an ethnographic account of Caribbean cosmopolitan sensibilities. Situated in the historical conditions of colonial West Indian plantations and the asymmetries of freedom and bondage within modernity, a recognition of global positionalities and local situatedness characterises this case of cosmopolitanism from the Global South.

This book presents contributions from a multidisciplinary team of researchers who analyzed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and prospects for the Caribbean region. This book examines experiences, and responses to the pandemic in the region  as well as some of the lessons that can be leveraged on beyond the pandemic.

The volume is organized into four parts. Part I offers perspectives on the structural factors that influenced the Caribbean''s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. Part II delves into the social and psychological dimensions of the pandemic''s impact in the region, offering specific examples. Part III explores the ramifications of the pandemic on crime and violence. And Part IV is dedicated to analyzing the regional and national responses to the pandemic.

Prospects and Challenges for Caribbean Societies in and beyond COVID-19 will be of interest to researchers in a wide range of disciplines within the Social and Behavioral Sciences interested in studies about the Caribbean. It also aims to serve as a source of information and inspiration for researchers, practitioners and decision makers interested in contributing to the development of the Caribbean region.