As a uni­ver­si­ty fo­cused on us­ing re­search for the up­lift­ment of its com­mu­ni­ty, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine (UWI STA), the pre­mier ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tion in the re­gion, pro­duc­ing world-class schol­ars, be­lieves sci­ence should be ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic.

We are pleased to present our me­dia se­ries, “UWI Sci­en­tists Speak”. In this se­ries, our sci­en­tists—three of whom re­ceived the na­tion’s high­est ho­n­our, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in 2023 and one in 2024—will show­case some of their work.

This week, we hear from Dr Talia Es­nard, who dis­cuss­es the role of the so­cial sci­ences in un­der­stand­ing so­cial sol­i­dar­i­ty and jus­tice.

Dr Es­nard is a so­ci­ol­o­gist, Se­nior Lec­tur­er and Head of the De­part­ment of Be­hav­iour­al Sci­ences, Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

—Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, Prin­ci­pal, UWI STA

Dr Talia Es­nard

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has opened the door for many new ways of com­mu­ni­cat­ing and re­lat­ing as a peo­ple and as a re­gion. Yet, this pan­dem­ic has al­so un­masked some of the many in­equal­i­ties that con­tin­ue to dis­ad­van­tage some while ben­e­fit­ting oth­ers. If any­thing, the pan­dem­ic has sig­nalled to us that we can­not con­tin­ue to min­i­malise the im­por­tance of the “so­cial” nor to en­gage in the treat­ment of symp­toms with­out ground­ing our ac­tions with­in an un­der­stand­ing of the com­plex ways in which so­cial cur­rents un­der­pin struc­tur­al, cul­tur­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal out­comes.

Though we must ac­knowl­edge that many as­pects of our so­cial lives are con­tin­u­al­ly en­hanced, we must al­so take to task the still too many con­cerns from spe­cif­ic groups of work­ers, such as women, moth­ers, mi­grant farm­ers, and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, who are dif­fer­ent­ly po­si­tioned with­in the so­cial struc­ture and re­la­tions of our so­ci­eties.

The ur­gency of this call to ac­tion is with­in the on­go­ing strug­gles for de­cent work, gen­der eq­ui­ty, eq­ui­table ac­cess to re­sources, and with the po­ten­tial for per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al growth.

Be­yond all of these con­tes­ta­tions, there is a clear need for ac­tion that chal­lenges on­go­ing ex­pres­sions of in­dif­fer­ence and in­equal­i­ty. The So­cial Sci­ences of­fer many fields through which we can lo­cate and ad­dress these con­cerns. Of note, for ex­am­ple, is a line of re­search with­in so­ci­ol­o­gy that recog­nis­es the need to work through com­mu­ni­ties and in­sti­tu­tions as sites of so­cial jus­tice ac­tion.

This ap­proach to build­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty de­mands that we think through the sys­tems, prac­tices, and val­ues that can be em­braced and ac­tioned to en­sure that these goals of lead­ing a fair and just so­ci­ety ma­te­ri­alise. This line of think­ing al­so push­es one to con­sid­er the val­ue of dis­rup­tion and sub­ver­sion with­in so­cial jus­tice agen­das.

Dis­rup­tion, how­ev­er, does not nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late in­to vi­o­lence but can be strate­gi­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly achieved through mean­ing­ful and col­lec­tive so­cial ac­tion that re­dis­trib­utes and en­hances re­la­tion­al sys­tems.

While this may seem some­what of a tall or­der, there are many van­tage points at more mi­cro lev­els from which we can learn and grow. We can all learn from some of the long-stand­ing cul­tur­al prac­tices of In­dige­nous peo­ples and those of their de­scen­dants who work through prin­ci­ples of co­op­er­a­tion and col­lec­tive labour to en­sure the gen­er­al well-be­ing of all. In To­ba­go, we are fa­mil­iar with gayap as a so­cio-cul­tur­al frame­work or prac­tice of sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of peo­ple with­in a com­mu­ni­ty. The same is true in St Lu­cia, where this cul­tur­al prac­tice is re­ferred to as Koud­men, and in Do­mini­ca, where it is ref­er­enced as Koud­net and used to re­claim the val­ue of a com­mu­ni­ty. These have al­so been used to cul­ti­vate so­cial at­ten­tive­ness and reci­procity that build crit­i­cal safe­ty nets.

We can al­so grow from the scal­ing up of such self-help or or­gan­is­ing sys­tems to sup­port those who are most dis­ad­van­taged across in­sti­tu­tions. This type of col­lec­tive ac­tion can be for­mal­ly and loose­ly de­vel­oped based on spe­cif­ic events, goals or sit­u­a­tions as they arise and res­onate with mem­bers of the group.

In­for­mal­ly, for ex­am­ple, col­leagues across the so­cial sci­ences and hu­man­i­ties with­in The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) ex­plore the idea of a Koud­men as a prac­tice of care and sup­port for ear­ly ca­reer schol­ars.

Be­yond the writ­ing and the re­search­ing, this type of en­gage­ment al­so al­lows for or­gan­ic mo­ments of shar­ing and work­ing through the strug­gles, mile­stones and achieve­ments. These mo­ments rep­re­sent the build­ing of so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty cap­i­tal where one can har­ness the con­nec­tions and cul­tur­al as­sets, whether de­fined as lin­guis­tic, as­pi­ra­tional, fa­mil­ial, or nav­i­ga­tion­al, us­ing Tara Yos­so’s no­tion of com­mu­ni­ty cul­tur­al wealth as a point of ref­er­ence.

For­mal­ly, we are ac­tive­ly work­ing with­in the De­part­ment of Be­hav­iour­al Sci­ences (UWI) to build col­lab­o­ra­tive struc­tures through re­search clus­ters, in­ter-dis­ci­pli­nary pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment train­ing pro­grammes, and the strength­en­ing of pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships to ad­dress some of the burn­ing chal­lenges that we face as a so­ci­ety.

These prac­tices, though al­ways a work in progress, rep­re­sent a way of hu­man­is­ing work­spaces, in­sti­tu­tions, and re­la­tions to lever­age ties that bind and build self and oth­ers. While we are in­creas­ing­ly mov­ing away from some of our cul­tur­al­ly sus­tain­ing her­itage, there are many lessons that we can take for­ward and ac­tion in­to tan­gi­ble so­cial jus­tice in­ter­ven­tions.