The conference "New Perspectives on Caribbean Studies: Toward the 21st Century and Prospects for Caribbean Basin Integration," sponsored by the Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM) and the City University of New York (CUNY), was held at Hunter College, CUNY, in New York City, from August 28 – September 1, 1984. Vera D. Rubin, Ph.D., founder and director of RISM, Frank McGlynn, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, and Linda Basch, Ph.D., member of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), were the principal organizers of the conference. The Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) provided additional collaboration and support. The conference, which received generous support from the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, attracted 117 participants from the several regions of the Caribbean, the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom. Over 350 people registered for the conference, and many others, primarily students, attended without registering.
"Pacem in Maribus" (Peace in the Ocean) was chosen as the theme of the conference, to foster an air of cooperation and inclusion, and to establish a framework for exploring relationships between nation and culture, political economy and scientific progress, social organization and the arts, and agriculture and public health. Critical responses to the recently implemented Caribbean Basin Initiative, a United States program for trade provisions with Caribbean and Latin American countries, shaped the primary goals of the conference: to revisit, review and reorient long-standing theoretical issues associated with Caribbean studies. The conference was designed to stimulate direct engagement among scholars working in different countries addressing theoretical and methodological issues with an interdisciplinary focus on the region as an integrated whole.
More than one hundred prominent Caribbean scholars, government officials and policymakers engaged in a scholarly examination of the economic, political and social issues particular to the Caribbean region. Notable speakers included Michael Manley, former Prime Minister of Jamaica and leader of the People's National Party (PNP), novelist and poet George Lamming, and anthropologist M. G. Smith.
Conference sessions consisted of presented papers and panel discussions. Participants interacted as discussants and co-chairs, and took part in question-and-answer exchanges with audience members. In addition to the scheduled sessions, there was a series of informal panel discussions, referred to as "roundtable sessions," in which two to six scholars discussed significant contemporary issues in the Caribbean. Roundtable sessions were video-recorded with the intention of producing short educational videos on Caribbean issues to be used throughout the CUNY system. Guided by framing questions, roundtable participants reflected on seven main topics: history of the region, artistic culture and politics, the "crisis" caused by multiple development policies in the Caribbean, transnational oil companies in Trinidad, obstacles to socioeconomic and political change, intraregional and international migration, and Haitian political and cultural issues.
Additional recorded highlights of the conference included an awards ceremony for outstanding achievement in the creative arts hosted by Donna Shalala, former President of Hunter College. Award recipients were Calypso singer Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco) of Trinidad and Tobago, author George Lamming of Barbados, and sculptor Edna Manley of Jamaica, whose award was accepted by her son Michael Manley on her behalf.
Sources:
Unpublished Conference Address, Vera D. Rubin, August 29, 1984 (Series XI)
RISM Press Release, August 28, 1984
At Hunter, quarterly newsletter No. 2, October 1984.