Conservation and Conflict in the Cockpit Country, Jamaica, 1962-2022

Cockpit Country in west central Jamaica is a unique karst landscape. Based on a wide range of published and online sources, this article examines threats to the area’s biodiversity and attempts to conserve it, from Jamaica’s independence in 1962 to the declaration of the Cockpit Country Protected Area in 2022. It focusses on several stakeholders – the government, international organisations, environmental groups, and Cockpit communities –, and argues that their interplay made conservation of the area a far from straightforward trajectory.  It will show that by the late 1980s, international organisations increasingly used mainstream conservation approaches in their work to protect the Cockpit Country and that local environmental groups gradually also came to embrace mainstream conservation. But it will also highlight that Cockpit communities have had a more ambivalent attitude towards conservation of the area than local environmental groups and international organisations, and that a focus on short-term gain has made the government a reluctant and even obstructive stakeholder in the preservation of the area’s biodiversity.Cockpit Country in west central Jamaica is a unique karst landscape. Based on a wide range of published and online sources, this article examines threats to the area’s biodiversity and attempts to conserve it, from Jamaica’s independence in 1962 to the declaration of the Cockpit Country Protected Area in 2022. It focusses on several stakeholders – the government, international organisations, environmental groups, and Cockpit communities –, and argues that their interplay made conservation of the area a far from straightforward trajectory.  It will show that by the late 1980s, international organisations increasingly used mainstream conservation approaches in their work to protect the Cockpit Country and that local environmental groups gradually also came to embrace mainstream conservation. But it will also highlight that Cockpit communities have had a more ambivalent attitude towards conservation of the area than local environmental groups and international organisations, and that a focus on short-term gain has made the government a reluctant and even obstructive stakeholder in the preservation of the area’s biodiversity.Cockpit Country en el centro oeste de Jamaica es un paisaje kárstico único. Basado en una amplia gama de fuentes publicadas y en línea, este artículo examina las amenazas a la biodiversidad del área y los intentos de conservarla, desde la independencia de Jamaica en 1962 hasta la declaración del Área Protegida Cockpit Country en 2022. Se enfoca en varias de las partes interesadas: el gobierno, organizaciones internacionales, grupos ambientalistas y comunidades de Cockpit, y argumenta que su interacción hizo que la conservación del área no fuera una trayectoria sencilla. Mostrará que a fines de la década de 1980, las organizaciones internacionales utilizaron cada vez más enfoques de conservación convencionales en su trabajo para proteger Cockpit Country y que los grupos ambientalistas locales gradualmente también adoptaron la conservación convencional. Pero también resaltará que las comunidades de Cockpit han tenido una actitud más ambivalente hacia la conservación del área que los grupos ambientalistas locales y las organizaciones internacionales, y que su enfoque en la ganancia a corto plazo ha convertido al gobierno en un actor reacio e incluso obstructivo en la preservación de la biodiversidad de la zona

Representations of Slave Women in Discourses on Slavery and Abolition, 1780–1838

This book analyzes textual representations of Jamaican slave women in three contexts--motherhood, intimate relationships, and work--in both pro- and antislavery writings. Altink examines how British abolitionists and pro-slavery activists represented the slave women to their audiences and explains not only the purposes that these representations served, but also their effects on slave women’s lives

Tackling child malnutrition in Jamaica, 1962-2020

On the eve of independence in 1962, 40 to 60 per cent of Jamaican children aged 6 to 24 months died of malnutrition or gastroenteritis. In the decades following, child malnutrition rates rapidly declined: in 2000, less than 4 per cent of all Jamaican children under five were underweight. Based on a wide range of sources, including public documents, newspaper reports, scientific studies and reports by international agencies, this article examines the process by which child malnutrition rates declined in Jamaica in the decades after independence. In particular, it will show that changes in the global economy and conditions imposed by international lenders intersected in complex ways with local factors, making it difficult for the Jamaican government to lower child malnutrition. In doing so, it adds to the history of medicine in post-colonial contexts, which has so far not paid much attention to nutrition. Because of the complex interplay between local and global factors, this article will argue that traditional forms of public health nutrition are incapable of effectively addressing the increasing double burden of malnutrition faced by low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) – the coexistence of undernutrition with overweight and obesity. In Jamaica today pockets of high child malnutrition exist alongside rapidly rising levels of childhood obesity. To address this, a multi-faceted approach is needed, involving different ministries and government agencies. Jamaica experimented with such an approach in the 1970s. The following will set out some lessons we can learn from this experiment and other approaches used to lower child malnutrition levels in post-independence Jamaica

Representations of Slave Women in Discourses on Slavery and Abolition, 1780–1838

This book analyzes textual representations of Jamaican slave women in three contexts--motherhood, intimate relationships, and work--in both pro- and antislavery writings. Altink examines how British abolitionists and pro-slavery activists represented the slave women to their audiences and explains not only the purposes that these representations served, but also their effects on slave women’s lives

Designing Prostitution Policy Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade

In policy terms, social order is seen as the outcome of the more or less orchestrated practices of a large number of actors who ... Second, because prostitution in contemporary society is so entangled with public policy, it is essential that we ..

Designing Prostitution Policy

While the debate on regulating prostitution usually focuses on national policy, it is local policy measures that have the most impact on the ground. This book is the first to offer a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of prostitution policy at the local level and carefully situates local policy practices in national policy making and transnational trends in labour migration and exploitation. Based on detailed comparative research in Austria and the Netherlands, and bringing in experiences in countries such as New Zealand and Sweden, it analyses the policy instruments employed by local administrators to control prostitution and sex workers. Bridging the gap between theory and policy, emphasizing the multilevel nature of prostitution policy, while also highlighting more effective policies on prostitution, migration and labour exploitation, this unique book fills a gap in the literature on this contentious and important social issue

Designing Prostitution Policy

While the debate on regulating prostitution usually focuses on national policy, it is local policy measures that have the most impact on the ground. This book is the first to offer a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of prostitution policy at the local level and carefully situates local policy practices in national policy making and transnational trends in labour migration and exploitation. Based on detailed comparative research in Austria and the Netherlands, and bringing in experiences in countries such as New Zealand and Sweden, it analyses the policy instruments employed by local administrators to control prostitution and sex workers. Bridging the gap between theory and policy, emphasizing the multilevel nature of prostitution policy, while also highlighting more effective policies on prostitution, migration and labour exploitation, this unique book fills a gap in the literature on this contentious and important social issue