Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence
In 2012, Jamaica celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of independence from Britain. In the short period of its life as a nation, Jamaica’s increasingly powerful influence on global culture cannot go unremarked. The growth of Jamaican diasporas beyond Britain to the United States, Canada and West Africa has served to strengthen Jamaica’s global reach, so that today Jamaica’s cultural, economic and political achievements are felt way beyond its national borders. This anthology commemorates Jamaica’s independence by acknowledging the immense and widespread contributions of Jamaica and Jamaicans to Canadian society.
Carl James is the Senior Advisor on Equity and Representation in the Office of the Vice President of Equity, People and Culture at York University. He is also the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora and a professor in the Faculty of Education.
Andrea A. Davis is an associate professor in Black cultures of the Americas in the Department of Humanities at York University and co-editor of the Journal of Canadian Studies.
Other publications from this author include:
- Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women’s Cultural Critiques of Nation (2022)
- “Celebrating Austin Clarke: The Man and the Body of His Work” in TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 42 (2021)
- “Which Scandalous Bodies? Black Women Writers Refuse Nation Narratives” in Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, 243, 146-152 (2020)
- “Un/Belonging in Diasporic Cities: A Literary History of Caribbean Women in London and Toronto” in Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, 13, 17-50 (2019)
- “The Black Woman Native Speaking Subject: Reflections of a Black Female Professor in Canada” in Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice, 39 (1), 70-78 (2018)
- “‘The Real Toronto’: Black Youth Experiences and the Narration of the Multicultural City” in Journal of Canadian Studies, 51 (3), 725-748 (2017)
- James, Carl E. and Andrea Davis, “Instructive Episodes: The Shifting Positions of the Jamaican Diaspora in Canada” in Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean, 14 (1), 17-41 (2012)
- “Black Canadian Literature as Diaspora Transgression: The Second Life of Samuel Tyne” in TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 17, 31-49 (2007)
- “Diaspora, Citizenship and Gender: Challenging the Myth of the Nation in African Canadian Women’s Literature” in Canadian Woman Studies, 23 (2), 64-69 (2004)