This cutting-edge book provides a comprehensive examination of applied qualitative research in the Caribbean. It highlights the methodological diversity of qualitative research by drawing on its various approaches to the study of Caribbean society, addressing the lack of published qualitative research on the region. Featuring 17 chapters, the book covers 5 key areas, namely, Overview and Introduction; Gender, Crime and Violence; Gender and Intimate Partner Violence; Health, Management and Public Policy, and Migration and Tourism. Throughout the course of the book, the chapters explore how different kinds of qualitative research can be used to inform public policy and help deal with a myriad of socio-economic problems that affect Caribbean people. The book further uses distinct approaches to showcase a diverse selection of qualitative research methods, such as autoethnography, life history, narrative enquiry, participants’ observation, grounded theory, case study, and critical discourse. The book will be beneficial for students and scholars both from the Caribbean and internationally who are engaged in the conduct of qualitative empirical enquiry. It will further hold appeal to advanced undergraduate level classes and post graduate students along with scholars in the fields of social sciences and education.

It is generally accepted that men commit more crimes than women. The widespread acceptance of this view is based primarily on the number of convictions with most jurisdictions reporting considerably fewer incarcerated women/girls than men/boys. This manuscript argues however that decisions made by the various stakeholders that play a role in the incarceration of men are inherently gendered. These decisions are based on patriarchal perceptions and stereotypes related to the familial roles of men and women, and by extension their motivations or offending. Few studies have sought to explore the nature of these perceptions, and the effect these may have on incarceration patterns. Indeed, this form of inquiry remains absent from the research agenda of Caribbean criminologists. Using qualitative data from Barbados, this book analyses the extent to which these factors are taken into consideration not only by the police and members of the judiciary, but by examining the gendered decisions made by shop managers and proprietors in cases involving shoplifting, it seeks to analyse the extent to which these factors are taken into consideration before incidents reach the justice system. Critically, this book seeks also to juxtapose these assumptions against testimony from men incarcerated at Her Majesty's Prison. The large proportion of males in Caribbean prisons when compared to their female counterparts necessitates an investigation into the factors that may contribute to differential treatment as they move through the justice system. Using data from Barbados, the present study seeks to fill this need.

It is generally accepted that men commit more crimes than women. The widespread acceptance of this view is based primarily on the number of convictions with most jurisdictions reporting considerably fewer incarcerated women/girls than men/boys. This manuscript argues however that decisions made by the various stakeholders that play a role in the incarceration of men are inherently gendered. These decisions are based on patriarchal perceptions and stereotypes related to the familial roles of men and women, and by extension their motivations or offending. Few studies have sought to explore the nature of these perceptions, and the effect these may have on incarceration patterns. Indeed, this form of inquiry remains absent from the research agenda of Caribbean criminologists. Using qualitative data from Barbados, this book analyses the extent to which these factors are taken into consideration not only by the police and members of the judiciary, but by examining the gendered decisions made by shop managers and proprietors in cases involving shoplifting, it seeks to analyse the extent to which these factors are taken into consideration before incidents reach the justice system. Critically, this book seeks also to juxtapose these assumptions against testimony from men incarcerated at Her Majesty's Prison. The large proportion of males in Caribbean prisons when compared to their female counterparts necessitates an investigation into the factors that may contribute to differential treatment as they move through the justice system. Using data from Barbados, the present study seeks to fill this need.

Despite high crime rates among men in the Caribbean, rising rates of violence against women in the region, and a significant number of Caribbean nationals incarcerated abroad due to drug smuggling, existing research has yet to offer explanations that are tailored to the unique Caribbean societies and the individuals in them. This edited volume adds to the existing body of scientific, empirical and theoretical work on crime (victimization), and criminal justice in the Caribbean, with a specific focus on impacts of post-colonialism and gender. To investigate these impacts on a developing Caribbean criminology, the contributions in this volume focus on how impacts of post-colonialism, associated racial stereotypes, and/or gender throughout the Caribbean impact on (a) types of offending, (b) victimization, and (c) criminal justice system responses and policies. Bringing together a broad range of experts, this book sheds light on key criminological topics in the Caribbean, including victimization, risk factors for offending, subcultures of violence and particularly gendered violence, and the role of motherhood within matrifocal societies. It is essential reading for those engaged with Caribbean - or decolonial - Criminology and those engaged with comparative and international studies in crime and justice more generally.

Despite high crime rates among men in the Caribbean, rising rates of violence against women in the region, and a significant number of Caribbean nationals incarcerated abroad due to drug smuggling, existing research has yet to offer explanations that are tailored to the unique Caribbean societies and the individuals in them. This edited volume adds to the existing body of scientific, empirical and theoretical work on crime (victimization), and criminal justice in the Caribbean, with a specific focus on impacts of post-colonialism and gender. To investigate these impacts on a developing Caribbean criminology, the contributions in this volume focus on how impacts of post-colonialism, associated racial stereotypes, and/or gender throughout the Caribbean impact on (a) types of offending, (b) victimization, and (c) criminal justice system responses and policies. Bringing together a broad range of experts, this book sheds light on key criminological topics in the Caribbean, including victimization, risk factors for offending, subcultures of violence and particularly gendered violence, and the role of motherhood within matrifocal societies. It is essential reading for those engaged with Caribbean - or decolonial - Criminology and those engaged with comparative and international studies in crime and justice more generally.

This book seeks to examine crime in the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA), Jamaica, as a reaction to social exclusion, a condition in which a large segment of the society is shut out from the systems which determine their level of social integration in the society. Its interdisciplinary nature, drawing from the authors experience in both geography and sociology provides a unique perspective in which a spatial element is added to the traditional discourse on social exclusion. This will give the reader special insight into the manner in which young men in poor communities in the KMA are isolated from mainstream society and the role that this plays in the construction of 'alternative' careers.

Researchers have been grappling with finding an adequate means of defining poverty since the nineteenth century, yet no universal consensus exists today. Much of the debate has been concerned with whether poverty should be defined in absolute or relative terms. Today, most countries use income as a measure of poverty, and the extent of poverty in a country is assessed on the basis of a poverty line, as is the case in Barbados. Human deprivation cannot be accurately portrayed purely by of a lack of financial resources; however, a variety of factors, including unemployment, violations of human rights, increased migration, weakening of family ties, and reduced social and political participation may combine to severely reduce the quality of living conditions for large sectors of Caribbean society. Corin Bailey, Jonathan Lashley and Christine Barrow propose the use of a more comprehensive measure of deprivation, one that takes into consideration the range of resources or assets necessary to maintain an acceptable standard of living. They argue that the absence of critical physical, human, social and environmental assets leaves individuals and groups vulnerable to social exclusion and they offer a framework that provides a unique contemporary approach to the study of poverty in the Caribbean. Rather than relying solely on statistical data, the authors use qualitative data in the form of testimony from the excluded to allow them to explain, in their own words, the realities of exclusion that they face and the manner in which the absence of the assets described leaves them vulnerable to deprivation. This use of mixed methodology includes a survey of living conditions as well as qualitative participatory poverty assessments designed to adequately capture the experience of exclusion in Barbados and an institutional assessment that seeks to determine what government and civil society organizations have done to reduce poverty. Rethinking Poverty is a refreshingly innovative analysis of poverty in the region.