In the anthropological literature on Jamaica, one can find scattered
references to thj2e incidence of begging in urban low-income communities.
However, few of these studies have sought to apprehend if begging among
the urban poor in Jamaica has a specific logic of its own. I suggest that
begging in Jamaican urban low-income communities should not be
confused with more conventional forms of begging, but is in fact a distinct
type of coping strategy of the poor. Begging in Jamaican urban low-income

First, we present a historical and contemporary profile of Chinese
immigration into the Latin American and Caribbean region in general and
the English-speaking Caribbean in particular, as a way of contextualizing
a subsequent focus on the Eastern Caribbean island sub-group. We set up
the historical and comparative context by providing a succinct
introduction to the historical Chinese presence in the LAC region and
briefly profiling their social class evolution in the case of Jamaica. Next, we

BOOK REVIEW

Using the Jamaica poverty line data as its base, the authors develop a formula for calculating the living wage for Jamaica. Using the formula, as well as economic and fiscal data, the living wage is found to be 27% higher than the 2012 minimum wage. The feasibility of implementing a living wage and issues that will curtail implementation are discussed. We also provide a comparative analysis of living wage models in both developed and developing countries.

The institutional context within which public investment decisions are undertaken, and the quality of project selection, management, and implementation, determine the return on investments. This article uses a methodology established by Dabla-Norris et al. (2012) to examine and develop an index of public investment management for Antigua, and Barbuda, and provides recommendations for improving the efficiency of public investment management.
 

Over the past 10 years Trinidad and Tobago has seen a shift in its trade structure due to increased energy exports and foreign investment in the energy sector. This article examines how changes in the trade structure of Trinidad and Tobago’s economy have impacted upon its revealed comparative advantage. This will be done by comparing the distributions of Trinidad and Tobago’s revealed comparative advantage structure.

Delivery of affordable homes to potential homeowners remains a key theme of housing policies in Trinidad and Tobago, where affordability is the extent to which households can cover housing costs without imposing significant constraints on their living costs. In Trinidad and Tobago, house prices increased by as much as 108%, but salaries have not kept pace, thus having a negative impact on affordability. This study utilized the expenditure to income ratio approach to demonstrate the severity of the issue of the delivery of affordable homes to potential homeowners.

Feminist scholarship on gender-based violence in the Caribbean has examined how relations of power account for women’s increased vulnerability. While such frameworks are useful, they run the risk of reproducing heteronormative theorising on gender-based violence, and fail to account for the multiple ways in which gender and sexuality are implicated in the violence experienced by diverse groups. This article examines the gendered and heterosexist production of violence in online Caribbean newspapers.

Devotion to “branding” has become a shibboleth for entrance into the twenty-first century’s iteration of consumerism and globalisation. Branding will not only fatten wallets, it will also provide a “meaningful life”. As with advertising, branding not only creates a subject, the consumer of the product, but also an object, the product itself. It also attempts to imbue these products with meaning. Branding, as Naomi Klein has famously argued, is about the imaginary, not the material.

Father involvement is an important plank in the social and cognitive development of a child, and this is best facilitated by a common residence. Yet little is known about the interaction of Jamaican fathers with their young children who do not reside with them. This article, based on a survey of 252 urban fathers, shows that despite expressing a strong ideological commitment to fatherhood, almost half of the sample did not interact with these children on a weekly basis through reasoning, and encouragement with schoolwork.