Race & Class review of "Globalizing the Caribbean"

Race & Class has published a review of my new book, by Dr. Jerry Harris, National Secretary of the Global Studies Association of North America.  Read it here. 

Review of 'Global Displacements: The Making of Uneven Development in the Caribbean'

 I have a new book review looking at Marion Werner's "Global Displacements: The Making of Uneven Development in the Caribbean".   It is published in the Journal of World-Systems Research. You can read it here.   

Order my new book and get a 40% discount.

You can now order a copy of my new book on the Temple University Press website, and get a 40% discount. Use the code GLOCAR19 to receive the discount. It will be out in mid-July. 

Interview on the Caribbean & the Trump administration's policies toward the region

Here is a two-part video interview that I conducted with the listener-sponsored alternative media outlet The Real News Network.   We discuss current events in the Caribbean, focusing on the Trump administration’s new aggressive policies toward Cuba and its attempts to divide CARICOM.  The videos are posted below: 

Part One

Part Two

Global Capitalism in the Caribbean

The 2018 summer issue of NACLA Report on the Americas includes my new article: "Global Capitalism in the Caribbean".  Read the article here or download the PDF here. Here is a French and Spanish translation of the article.

Check out the new issue of the @NACLA , focusing on Capitalism, Colonialism, and Climate Change in Caribbean. Nearly a year after Hurricanes Irma and Maria rocked the Caribbean, what lessons can we glean as we approach the 2018 hurricane season? pic.twitter.com/aqIhf12ruv

— LAPerspectives (@LAPerspectives) June 19, 2018

Hilbourne Watson on Global Capitalism, White Supremacy, and Nationalism

Here is a recent presentation (that I recorded) by Emeritus Professor Hilbourne Watson.  It is titled "Crisis of global capitalism, global white supremacy, and the new nationalism" and was given at the 2018 conference of the Global Studies Association-North America at Howard University in Washington, D.C.  

Here is Hilbourne's Google scholar page and Amazon page.


Here is the abstract for his talk:

The study of social change is dominated by philosophical individualism and methodological nationalism that fragment the social, treats the individual as the irreducible unit of analysis, makes the sum of the parts greater than the whole, and reduces social relations between humans to technical relations between things. Contrastingly, I offer a historical materialist analysis of global white supremacy (GWS) and the new nationalism, and subsume them under the crisis of global capitalism, as reflected in overaccumulation, social polarization, legitimation and sustainability, and the impacts on working classes and other exploited and oppressed groups. I argue that GWS naturalizes and racializes world history, culture, politics, and social existence; historicizes nature; foments reactionary identitarian tendencies; doubles as the dominant norm of world order, and represents a politico-ideological expression of power relations, beyond the white somatic norm. ”

Forthcoming book with Temple University Press

I am happy to announce that Temple University Press will publish in early-2019 my second sole-authored book.  It will be titled: Globalizing the Caribbean: Political Economy, Social Change, and the Transnational Capitalist Class.  

New peer-reviewed article

I have a new research article on Haiti published in the journal Third World Quarterly. It can be read here.  Also listen here for a related recent interview that I did with Pacifica Radio's show Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod.  I was also quoted in the Miami Herald in regards to this research.

New TWQ article on one of those countries apparently denigrated by Donald Trump: Global capitalism, Haiti, and the flexibilisation of paramilitarism https://t.co/4moFZdZQBy

— thirdworldq (@thirdworldq) January 15, 2018

The Caribbean cruise ship business and the emergence of a transnational capitalist class

The Journal of World-Systems Research published a new peer-reviewed journal article that I have authored. 

Through the context of the Caribbean region, this article examines the globalizing cruise ship business and its changing strategies for the exploitation of labor and local communities. You can read the article here.

Cornell University Interview on my previous and forthcoming books.

Jeb Sprague-Silgado Interview from CUSLAR at Cornell University on Vimeo.

Interview on The Real News

I was interviewed today by The Real News Network on current events in Haiti and in relation to my earlier research on paramilitarism in the context of economic restructuring, social conflict, and political tensions in the country.

1 of 2

2 of 2

My new piece in Latin American Perspectives

The journal Latin American Perspectives has published my lengthy review of Caribbeanist Hilbourne Watson's excellent new monograph Globalization, Sovereignty and Citizenship in the Caribbean (published with the University of the West Indies Press).

The review also includes some thoughts on the contributions to the volume by other well-known Caribbean political economists, such as Alex Dupuy, Linden Lewis, and Anton L. Allahar. You can read the entire review here.  

CFP: Global Capitalism in the Americas

Call For Papers: Global Capitalism in the Americas The 4th Biennial Conference of the Network for the Critical Study of Global Capitalism (NCSGC) November 1-3, 2017 Colegio Universitario San Geronimo de La Habana, Cuba Featuring keynote speakers Luis Suarez and William I. Robinson

Co-sponsored by the Universidad de La Habana

In today’s global political economy, we are witnessing a new era of integration and inequality, which is playing out through particular expressions of systemic crises. We are also witnessing the rise of a ultra-neoliberal authoritarian political project in the United States, in conjunction with the resurgence of right-wing political sectors across the Americas. What should we understand about the particularities of this globalization phase in the history of world capitalism, and in the context of these regions and their populations? How can working and popular classes, and their movements from below, effectively coordinate and struggle in a world of capitalist globalization? The purpose of this conference is to focus critical studies of global capitalism on Central, North, and South America, and on the Caribbean, to provide opportunities for interested scholars and activists to explore, discuss, and debate related issues occurring in these regions.  • The transnational capitalist class across the Americas. • Capitalist globalization, capital accumulation and development. • Trumpism: the rise of neo-liberal authoritarianism and its neo-fascist contingents. • Movements from below, activism, and the popular classes in the 21st century Americas. • Migration and crossing borders. • Transnational capital and the state. • State repression, militarization, soft power, & coup d’etats. • Class war on the marginalized and super-exploited. • Financialization and tax havens. • Education and other institutions. • Global corporate networks intersecting with Latin America and the Caribbean. • Capitalism, class and power relations in these regions. • Gendered and Racialized social relations in the Western Hemisphere. • Ideological formation in the global epoch. • Natural resource conflicts and environmental movements. All abstracts (100 words) must be submitted by August 15, 2017 to: Vladimir Pacheco Cueva, vpc@cas.au.dk CONFERENCE COST: $175.00 US    For more information on the Network for the Critical Study of Global Capitalism see: https://netglobalcapitalism.wordpress.com/about/ Conference Organizing Committee: William K. Carroll (Univ. of Victoria, Canada), Vladimir Pacheco Cueva (Aarhus Univ. Denmark), Anthony van Fossen (Griffith Univ. Australia), Jerry Harris (Global Studies Association, US), Marek Hrubec (Czech Academy of Sciences), Georgina Murray (Griffith Univ. Australia), Isaias R. Rivera (Univ. Autonoma de Chihuahua, Mexico), William I. Robinson (Univ. of California Santa Barbara, US), Leslie Sklair (London School of Economics, UK), and Jeb Sprague-Silgado (Univ. of California Santa Barbara, US).

Upcoming talk at Cornell University

I will be giving a talk at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York on Thursday, March 9, 4:30 pm, Founders Room, Anabel Taylor Hall, Cornell University. The talk is co-sponsored by CUSLAR (the Committee on U.S.-Latin American Relations). The talk, titled "The Caribbean in the vortex of global capitalism" will be connected to a chapter in my forthcoming book The Caribbean and Global Capitalism.

New article with NACLA on the Dominican Republic

I have a new short article published with NACLA, titled "Polyarchy in the Dominican Republic: The Elite Versus the Elite". Read it here. I was also  interviewed on this topic on Latin Pulse.  An expanded version of the article in español appears in the Dominican media-worker cooperative El Grillo.

New article published in the peer reviewed journal Caribbean Studies

Click here for a PDF of my new article published in the scholarly journal Caribbean Studies.  This is an altered version of one chapter in my recently completed Ph.D. dissertation: The Caribbean and Global Capitalism.  The article is titled: "From International to Transnational Mining: The Industry's Shifting Political Economy and the Caribbean". The English, Spanish, and French versions of the abstract are below. Click here for a URL link to the journal.

Symposium on Paramilitarism in the Modern Americas, November 12-13

See below, for information on an upcoming symposium at the University of Arizona, where I will be presenting updated material related to my 2012 book and put forward a theoretical approach for understanding the "flexibilization" of paramilitarism in the context of global economic restructuring.

Upcoming talk at CSULB

This March 23rd I will be giving a few talks on the Caribbean's shifting political economy.  More specifically I will look at the restructuring of the cruise ship, remittance, mining, and export processing industries and how social groups have been caught up in the changes taking place. The talks will be hosted by the International Studies Program at California State University of Long Beach. 

Book Reviews of my 2012 book

York University Associate Professor Justin Podur has published a review of my 2012 book in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. Read the review here.  Podur is also the author of the book Haiti's New Dictatorship (Pluto Press, 2012).

Professor Valerie Kaussen (author of Migrant Revolutions: Haitian Literature, Globalization, and U.S. Imperialism) has published a review of my 2012 book in the oldest scholarly journal on the Caribbean: the New West Indian Guide. You can read the entire review here.

Cruise Ships and Global Capitalism: The Industry's Shifting Political Economy

I published a short piece here  titled "Cruise Ships and Global Capitalism" which will be part of a forthcoming journal article and a chapter in my  forthcoming dissertation that looks at the sociological and political economy dynamics of the Caribbean's insertion into global capitalism.