EUC Global Connection: The Caribbean
The Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change brings together geographers, physical scientists, social scientists, humanities researchers and artists whose innovative research seeks to advance sustainability and social justice. Using field-based science, policy analysis, critical social theory, planning skills, geomatics, and cultural and arts-based approaches, our researchers drive action to address the world’s environmental and urban challenges.
EUC researchers are engaged in collaborative relationships, projects and partnerships with colleagues and institutions around the world. Here are the works we have been doing in The Caribbean.
EUC Main Researchers in The Caribbean
EUC Main Partner Institutions in The Caribbean
EUC Research in The Caribbean
Professor Andil Gosine’s work in the Caribbean began at the start of his career. As an academic, Gosine wanted to investigate the issues of sexuality rights, especially as they impacted LGBTQ2S+ communities within the Caribbean. Gosine’s efforts to advance sexuality rights had a groundbreaking impact, with him leading the charge in organizing the first major gathering of scholarship of academics and activists in Barbados, “Sexualities in Conversation,” in 2008. Gosine then went on to produce a groundbreaking special issue from this meeting for the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, at the University of West Indies.
Gosine has worked with a range of international, governmental and non-governmental organizations across the Caribbean. He documented the history of CAISO, a “feminist non-profit civil society organisation committed to ensuring wholeness, justice and inclusion for Trinidad and Tobago’s LGBTQI+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex) communities, by developing analysis, alliances and advocacy.” At the Washington DC-based Organization of American States, the inter-governmental association for countries of the Americas, Gosine curated its museum’s first solo show of a Caribbean woman, Trinidadian Wendy Nanan. In recent years, he also began working with the Alliance of Rural Communities (ARC), a non-profit organization run by residents of rural and semi-rural communities to “ensure wealth distribution and environmentally sustainable income generation in financially excluded rural Caribbean communities.” ARC’s work in revolutionizing the cocoa trade and generating “third place” community spaces, are the focus of Gosine’s developing research in these areas.
Beyond this research, Gosine’s creative work as an artist and curator has a significant impact in the region and beyond. In 2014, he conceived “Visual Arts after Indenture,” which considers the legacy of the colonial Indentureship program that brought Asians to the region as replacement plantation workers following the abolition of slavery. The considerable body of work he has produced has been exhibited internationally, including in Trinidad, where he has held several exhibitions at Medulla Art Gallery. His 2022 exhibition at Medulla, “Nature’s Wild (Duets)” featured collaborative work with Caribbean and Canadian artists that were inspired by his book Nature’s Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean. Included in the exhibition were work with some of his graduate students, including MES graduate Amber Williams-King.
Gosine’s commitment to the region continues to be demonstrated by his supervision of Caribbean students, as well as his work as the curatorial director of sx art, the visualities arm of the main Caribbean Studies journal, Small Axe, and as a board member of the London-based Journal of Indentureship Studies.
EUC is dedicated to continuing research and collaborations within the Caribbean. Through the work of Gosine and students who come to York University for their education, our relationship continues to grow and deepen. There is a rich history and culture within the Caribbean and EUC is honoured to take part and learn from academics and community members alike.
