Andrea Davis
Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence
In 2012, Jamaica celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of independence from Britain. In the short period of its life as a nation, Jamaica’s increasingly powerful influence on global culture cannot go unremarked. The growth of Jamaican diasporas beyond Britain to the United States, Canada and West Africa has served to strengthen Jamaica’s global reach, so that […]
James, Carl E. and Andrea Davis, "Instructive Episodes: The Shifting Positions of the Jamaican Diaspora in Canada" in Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean, 14 (1), 17-41
This paper is interested in the ways in which the everyday experiences of Jamaican Canadians function as accumulated moments that mark their collective journeys across time and place, and reveal the complexity of their dual relationship between Jamaica and Canada. Specifically, the paper uses five uniquely Canadian episodes or incidents, occurring in each of the […]
Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women's Cultural Critiques of Nation
In Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women’s Cultural Critiques of Nation, Andrea Davis imagines new reciprocal relationships beyond the competitive forms of belonging suggested by the nation-state. The book employs the tropes of horizon, sea, and sound as a critique of nation-state discourses and formations, including multicultural citizenship, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and the hierarchical […]
"Un/Belonging in Diasporic Cities: A Literary History of Caribbean Women in London and Toronto" in Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, 13, 17-50
This article traces a comparative literary history of Black Caribbean women’sexperiences in diaspora in the post-war period from the 1950s to the 1970s whenCaribbean families migrated in large numbers first to England and then toCanada and the United States. Foregrounding the forgotten female character 2as a symbol of Caribbean women’s double marginalization as racializedmigrants and […]
"Diaspora, Citizenship and Gender: Challenging the Myth of the Nation in African Canadian Women's Literature" in Canadian Woman Studies, 23 (2), 64-69
Black women writers in the Americas are engaged consciously or unconsciously in cross-border, cross-cultural dialogue. In opening up the critical spaces that recognize and value women's differences as well as their similarities, black women writers complicate and enhance discussions about identities, race, ethnicity, gender, colour, class, geography and sexuality. This cross-cultural dialogue situates the black […]
"Black Canadian Literature as Diaspora Transgression: The Second Life of Samuel Tyne" in TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 17, 31-49
This paper attempts to interrogate some of the challenges involved in the ar-ticulation of a black Canadian literature and suggests that such a literature may best be understood not as a set of “coherent” national narratives but as a complex engagement of the multiple diasporic experiences that inform and influence understandings of Canadian-ness. The study […]
"'The Real Toronto': Black Youth Experiences and the Narration of the Multicultural City" in Journal of Canadian Studies, 51 (3), 725-748
Looking back at more than 45 years of official multicultural policy in Canada, this article asks us to reflect on how the experiences of Black male youth in Toronto and the ways in which race, class, age, and gender intersect to alienate them from full access to educational and employment opportunities disrupt the construction of […]