Event

 The Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS) will host another session of their lunchtime seminar series on Wednesday 13^th May, 2009, at 12 noon in the Seminar Room, CGDS. This segment is entitled ‘Fighting for King and Country: Manhood, Imperial Patriotism, and The Makings of the British West Indies Regiment’. Dr. Reena Goldthree, Ph.D Candidate (Duke University NC, USA) will be the feature speaker at this event.

Between 1915 and 1918, tens of thousands of men from the Anglophone Caribbean volunteered to fight for the Allies in World War I and nearly 16,000 men, hailing from all ten British colonies in the region, served in the newly-formed British West Indies Regiment (BWIR).  

Drawing on a wealth of archival documents, military recruitment posters, local newspapers, World War I-era photographs, oral accounts, and soldiers' memoirs, this presentation offers a gendered analysis of the mobilization for World War I in the British Caribbean.  It critically examines how military recruiters, colonial officials, and local elites fuelled the recruitment effort by employing a common discourse of imperial patriotism, manhood, and mutual obligation while also highlighting the novel ways in which women rallied men to fight for "King and Country." This presentation is draws upon Reena’s PhD research entitled "Shifting Loyalties: War and the Gendered Politics of Patriotism in the British Caribbean, 1900-1938."

For further information, please contact the CGDS at (868) 662-2002 Ext. 3548.