Browsing by Author "Cox, Edward"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    'A Almshouse Ting Dat': Developments in Poor Relief and Child Welfare in Jamaica during the Interwar Years
    (2013-07-24) Roper, Shani; Cox, Edward; Byrd, Alexander; Ward, Kerry; Shehabuddin, Rahnuma
    This dissertation examines the development of poor relief and child welfare policy in Jamaica during the interwar years. It establishes the paradigms for accessing relief and how this influenced broader discussions of poverty, class and citizenship in society. As such it shows how these concerns about poverty, in the public sphere, influenced state policy as it related to tackling juvenile delinquency and destitution in society. Currently, the historiography of the 1930s emphasizes the role of labor unrest as a propelling force to political change in the Caribbean. My thesis, while accepting this premise, uses the poor relief administration to elaborate upon the response of colonial administrators to pauperism in Jamaica. Financial difficulties restricted the amount of assistance provided to the aged and infirm, single mothers, orphans and juvenile delinquents. Inevitability, access to assistance became tinged with tensions of race, class and gender in the island. I conclude, therefore, that colonial administrators used the poor relief administration to intervene in the dialectic of poverty, class, citizenship and gender especially in the rehabilitation of destitute, displaced and delinquent children.
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    A Leaky House: Haiti in the Religious Aftershocks of the 2010 Earthquake
    (2012-09-05) Payne, Nichole; Faubion, James D.; Georges, Eugenia; Cox, Edward; Woodson, Drexel
    My research explores nation building, religious conflict and Christian democratization in Post-earthquake Haiti. Christians I spoke with blamed Vodou for the destructive quake. In Haiti, Vodouisants now require UN protection to practice their faith. The thick religious tension in Haiti post-earthquake could portend deep political riffs and dangerous religious persecution. What is more, the quake has effectively shut down government, leaving in its wake essentially an NGO Republic. Moreover, some sectors of the population, particularly the very poor in the black majority, have been converting to evangelical Christianity at very high rates. About the conversions Vodouisants say, "Kay koule twompe soley soley men li pa twompe lapil." A leaky house can fool the sun, but it can't fool the rain. I took this notion of a leaky house from the discussion with a Vodouisant research participant who often compared the massive conversions to an incomplete and quick cover for the inner turmoils of the Haitian subject. I expanded this phrase to work as analogy for the significant evangelical/NGO infrastructure in Haiti. Can this leaky house last as the pseudo-governmental body of Haiti? Problem: A devastating 7.0 Earthquake rocked Haiti on January 12th, 2010. By January 24th, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded (CBS News 2010). Cite’ De Soleil has turned into a devastating battleground-- Vodouisants against Christians. Christian evangelicals have a carte blanche to intervene into the lives of devastated Haitians, also into the Haitian government. Struggling with insufficient capacity in the face of overwhelming poverty and environmental disasters, the Haitian government has capsized in what many are calling a religious coup d’état. At least 10,000 religious non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are operating in Haiti. Against this background, the actual hypothesis to be tested in this research is that the conversion from Vodou to most sectors of evangelical Christianity and the subsequent violence against Vodou practitioners is, in the case of some of my research participants, actually a modality for expatriation from, or incorporation into, the New Haitian body politic.  
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    The making of Mau Mau: The power of the oath
    (2010) Hudson-Koster, Mickie; Cox, Edward
    From the unique perspective of the oath, this study investigates the entanglements of change in Kenya during the Mau Mau period, 1952-1960. Specifically, it challenges the prevailing Mau Mau narrative, revealing the oath as a complex, adaptive, and rational process ordered around symbols, gestures, and statements with long standing meaning and power. All Mau Mau initiates were required to take a secret oath of unity in order to join the struggle. Breaking the oath invoked an unstoppable curse on oathers and their families. As a result, the oath became a powerful mechanism in the formation of Mau Mau and served as a precursor to Kenyan Independence in 1963. Contrary to the long standing discourse of savagery, the Mau Mau oath was actually an elaborate, dynamic, and sophisticated ceremony based on ancient oathing traditions, symbolism, and beliefs. It was reconstituted from its former state to one that was much more offensive, secretive, dangerous, and inclusive of other groups such as women who were previously excluded. The oath was a product of the economic, political, cultural, and social unrest of the time. In addition to tracing historical developments and modeling the oath experience, this study explores the radicalization of the oath during the Mau Mau period forming new relationships to gender, crime, and purification that did not exist prior to the 1950s. This study centers the oath as the object for historical analysis through the investigation and documentation of African rituals, beliefs, and memories. The past is reconstructed from oral tradition, personal narratives, ceremonial reenactments, survey data, archived documents, ethnography, and myths. The sources reveal that Mau Mau oathers had their own imaginations, dreams, and objectives associated with the restoration of their stolen land and freedom. These varied perspectives demonstrate colonial contradictions juxtaposed with African oral accounts and memory. This study offers a fresh way to look at the contested Mau Mau past through the lens of the often misunderstood and misinterpreted oath. It intervenes with a new African Mau Mau story of reinvention, renewal, and power.
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    The Religious Community and Latinos in Alabama: Two Steps Forward
    (2013-12-06) Davis, Christopher; Boles, John B.; Cox, Edward; Aranda, Jose F., Jr.
    This dissertation explores the nuances of how the religious community of Alabama responded to the development of a Latino population in the state, beginning in the mid-1980s, as well as how Latinos found a place among the preexisting religious institutions. Much of the academic focus on Latinos in the South has explored the topic from the perspectives of labor, politics, housing, and other lenses that typically revealed negative interactions between Latinos and the long-term population. Also, studies of religious matters generally focus on the Catholic Church, which included the majority of the Latino population but left out much of the interaction with the mostly Protestant majority. Through interviews with congregation leaders, this study shows that the incorporation of Latinos was a complex process based in a history and experience of missions work. Beginning in the 1950s, the understanding of missions began to change from long-term missions undertaken by few Christians to mostly short-term missions experienced by many. That missions background made the possibility of ministering to Latinos in Alabama much more plausible and led to the partnerships discussed in the rest of the dissertation. The part of the state to first receive Latinos was the northeast corner where the religious community initially responded to migrant Latinos beginning in the 1950s and then to a permanent Latino population in the 1980s. The study also focuses on the city of Birmingham and finds that strong leaders were the crucial element in developing Latino ministries. Such partnerships resulted in great variety among the structures of ministries based on the abilities and desires of the individual churches. The relationships formed in the church environment served as a counter to the state and national vitriol concerning illegal immigration and produced a state population with mixed feelings about its Latino component. Those relations also provided hope for the eventual partnership of all races.