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After more than 30 years on The UWI St Augustine campus, the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), originally the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, recently moved to new quarters located at the university’s North Campus. The staff and student body were in a nostalgic mood, as the old chemistry building that they occupied held much of their origin story, along with a kaleidoscope of memories.

Emerita Professor Patricia Mohammed, who once headed IGDS’s Mona unit, commented that “former heads fought for space, staff, courses and a stake in university life. Now, with those battles behind the institute, the move is a mandate and challenge for a new generation.”

Prof Mohammed added that some progressive elements would certainly be lost in the move from the main campus. The spontaneity of drop-ins and unplanned visits from students, colleagues and off-campus visitors would likely decrease as the institute is no longer in a thoroughfare of activity.

However, she reiterated that IGDS has gained in space and possibility for new connections and directions. Both Emerita Professors Mohammed and Rhoda Reddock, former heads of IGDS, reminisced about the periods they were deeply involved with the operations of the institute.

Creating a space for women in development studies

As the founding head at St Augustine, Prof Reddock talked about IGDS’s 1980s precursor, the Women and Development Studies Group (WDSG). The WDSG, a multidisciplinary group of UWI staff, worked to lay the groundwork for the introduction of a formal programme in gender studies. This work of carving out academic and societal spaces was carried out across the three campuses by women leaders who shared their belief in women and gender studies as a discipline with perspectives that are beneficial to the advancement of Caribbean life.

Centres, as they were called, were headed by Prof Reddock in St Augustine; Emerita Professor Eudine Barriteau at Cave Hill; and Prof Mohammed, who was the first head at the Mona campus. Their appointments came between 1993 and 1994.

“Although the centre’s work was officially institutionalized in 1993, there was one head and one secretary, and everything else had to be found or sought after— including a space from which to begin work,” said Prof Reddock, speaking specifically about the St Augustine campus.

On advice, she approached the then Dean of the Department of Chemistry, Prof Dyer Narinesingh, who graciously agreed to make available some of the department’s unused, old laboratories as a starter space. Prof Reddock used a small budgetary allocation to refurbish the area, and they moved in—just the two members of staff.

Gradually, they gained a position of a cleaner/messenger. With only one academic staff member for 14 years, the academic part of the centre's work was augmented through temporary and part-time staff, former WDSG members, and with visiting Fulbright scholars who helped with course development and delivery.

Gradually, and with the generous co-operation of various deans and heads of departments, more space was incrementally added. This allowed for a reading room, an additional office, and workspaces for a range of staff. “I would like to publicly thank Prof Dyer Narinesingh and subsequent heads of Chemistry, such as Dr Anderson Maxwell, for graciously hosting us for so many years and for being excellent and supportive neighbours,” says Prof Reddock.

During this time, the centre grew into an institute with approximately 18 members of faculty and staff, and numerous graduates with minors, post graduate diplomas, MSc’s, MPhil’s and PhD’s over the 30 years of its residency on the main campus.

‘We made the atmosphere dignified and celebratory’

"With staff growth, we redesigned the layout until the office boasted different sections: administration, outreach, media, documentation, teaching and learning, with faculty offices,” said Kathryn Chan, who has managed the department's marketing and media (and more) and been with IGDS since 2008.

She added, “How many things were fit into that square footage is a testimony to the camaraderie of the staff and our students. No matter what we had to do, we made the atmosphere dignified and celebratory. In that small seminar room, we transitioned from a centre to an institute.”

Ms Chan described how they carried on the tradition of lunchtime seminars that began in 1998, and built partnerships with NGOs and international organisations whose representatives shared the space.

“We hosted many international researchers, scholars, and creatives in literature, film, music and performance. Someone recently asked me how I came to know so many people. My reply was that nearly everyone passed through the IGDS," she laughed.

Students of IGDS have memories just as resonant.

“I wrote my thesis in 2019 in that space...it was small but deeply powerful—it felt like home,” recalled Marcus Kissoon, who joined IGDS around 2010 as a member of the Break the Silence (BTS) network through the Rape Crisis Society. He became a master's student and research assistant for the BTS network in 2016/2017.

“I’ll miss how open it was to both students and the wider community. It allowed for creative, radical, and necessary discussions on gender justice,” he added.

‘It was a small space that launched big dreams’

Mr Kissoon hopes that the new space will host political debates, policy work, and national dialogues on freedom, child rights, and gender-responsive budgeting. He was “grateful for the leadership and foremothers of IGDS who built the foundation. It was a small space that launched many big dreams including mine as I pursue a PhD in Childhood Studies at Rutgers University in the US”.

Another mark of the institute's maturity is the number of students that transitioned into faculty upon graduation. In fact, both a former and the current IGDS head trained at the institute: Dr Gabrielle Hosein and Dr Sue Ann Barratt.

Dr Hosein, who became faculty in 2005, was in the first cohort of graduate students in 1997.

"I have a 28-year association with the institute,” she said. “It began with me sitting in MPhil classes in the seminar room taught by Professor Reddock. Then I shifted to teaching those classes in that very room. As both student and faculty in that space, I have uncountable memories of innovation, solidarity, collaboration and intellectual growth from generations of students.”

Dr Barratt, the Head of Department, will soon mark a two-decade association with IGDS. Starting as a graduate student, she has many happy memories, professional experiences and deep acquaintances. She recounted that "working on a UNIFEM research project allowed me to understand the complexity of child support and family maintenance, and reinforced the need to understand and contend with gender-based violence in TT and the Caribbean."

Time to activate opportunities for growth

As a member of staff, Dr Barratt recalled that the institute organised and hosted the 2018 Caribbean Cyber-Feminisms Conference, another event that brought discovery and transformation. Her experience of the move has added insights to academic administration, although it was principally orchestrated by her predecessors who clearly saw that the next level of IGDS growth needed more space. Their legacy is now her mandate.

She reflected on the next phase by saying that, “I think now that the move has facilitated space for developing further the capacity of the IGDS, it is time to activate opportunities for growth, to enhance the institute's ability to engage with key communities and stakeholders.”


Rebecca Robinson is a communication strategist and freelance business writer.