ERIC Number: ED577884
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 254
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: 978-0-3550-9905-8
ISSN: EISSN-
EISSN: N/A
A Critical View of Women in the Modern Caribbean: An Extension of the Construction of the Other in the Colonial Visual Imagery and Written Discourse of the Hispanic and Anglophone Caribbean
Amezaga Rivera, Lesbia Nannette
ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras (Puerto Rico)
Considering the signifying power of visuality to function as language as it constructs, fashions, and alters conceptualizations, and focusing on the Caribbean woman for my research, this study explored the dynamics involved in the construction of the Other by means of the colonial visual imagery and written discourse deployed by Europe and the United States in their venture to conquer the Caribbean as a land beyond their frontiers. I look at colonial imagery as generating a visually gendered grammar in which particular sexual attributes were assigned to women and so, I contend that these ramifications persevere in contemporary culture. I work from theories of representation that consider a social constructivist approach to visuals and language (Hall), ideology and issues of power and knowledge (van Dijk), and the power of colonial discourse to construct mechanisms of otherings such as the stereotype (Bhabha). I theorize that the colonial agenda of economic and political prosperity that reigned in the Caribbean demanded the creation of an edenic and paradisiacal visual/textual discourse in which women were envisioned as part of the commodities. Nineteenth and twentieth centuries visuals and texts from the colonial Spanish and Anglo Caribbean are analyzed using a critical visual methodology (Rose, 2012) based on semiology and discourse analysis that considers a qualitative approach. The study shows through analysis of the visuals and written texts selected that even when we stand on the dawn of the twenty-first century, the eighteenth-century imagery made of the Caribbean woman, representing fifteenth century Renaissance ideas of women and sexuality as a Venus type sexual object, continues much alive through a colonial discourse framed through many of the images and literature created of the Caribbean mulatta woman as a way to sell the region. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
Descriptors: Females, Latin Americans, Power Structure, Foreign Policy, Imagery, Discourse Analysis, Grammar, Language Usage, Gender Differences, Ideology, Stereotypes, Economic Factors, Political Influences, Qualitative Research, Visual Aids, Written Language, Sexuality, Sex Role, Multiracial Persons
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Publication Type: Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Authoring Institution: N/A
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