Feminist scholarship has always transcended disciplinary boundaries. Its concern has been with the myriad facets of the lives of women and their relationships with men, the family, the community, the workplace and the state, as well as with using new methods to fully explore dimensions of power and influence in these settings, dimensions which cross gender, race and social class lines. Massiah (1986) in reviewing the beginnings of the movement to establish a programme in gender studies at the UWI, notes that an important feature of this initiative was

…an interdisciplinary mode of operation, to make the connections between separate branches of knowledge, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the whole.

The imperative of interdisciplinarity was strongly intertwined with the need to change the structure of existing knowledge and its method of transmission, in order to create alternative narratives and a new pedagogy, which would be liberating and empowering. Thus interdisciplinarity was not merely a modification of concepts and boundaries of knowledge but also a critical assessment and reconstruction of such knowledge. Using that knowledge to develop, in the academy and beyond, new insights and generate new personal and political meaning has been a major task of the gender studies programme.

The challenges presented by these imperatives and the methods used to address them over the period of the introduction and institutionalization of gender studies at the University of the West Indies are presented and critically assessed.

Massiah, Joycelin (1986) Establishing a programme of Women and Development Studies in the University of the West Indies. Social and Economic Studies Vol.35 No.1 pp. 151 – 197