Compounding vulnerabilities: Black Caribbean women’s experiences of professional violence in the international development sector

Commissiong, Natasha K. (2024). Compounding vulnerabilities: Black Caribbean women’s experiences of professional violence in the international development sector. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between race, gender, and violence in the Anglophone Caribbean. In doing so, this research examines experiences of racialised violence that target Black Caribbean women who are development professionals and experts on gender-based violence (GBV) located across the geography of the Caribbean. I argue that these women’s complex identities are targeted within their work environments and their identities compound into vulnerabilities that can increase their chances of being exposed to a form of ‘professional violence’ that is racialised and unique to the development sector. The specific expression of racialised ‘professional violence’ can emerge within development work environments and organisations in the Anglophone Caribbean. This results in the violent disenfranchisement of a specific group of women who are simultaneously working to mitigate the issue of violence. This adds to my argument that racialised ‘professional violence’ can target Black Caribbean women differently depending on their workplace demographic - be it predominantly international, mixed, or Black.

Alongside 'professional violence’ this group of women can simultaneously experience and live with two additional forms of violence: the exposure to violence experienced from working daily with survivors, perpetrators, and/or, GBV prevention infrastructure, and the experience of encountering violence in their personal lives and relationships. Interdisciplinary literature that frames this research includes critical development studies that examine the power of development discourse and the sector’s ties to colonialism. Caribbean feminist scholarship and cultural theorists' contributions to identity politics paired with theorisation on gender, power, and violence, and emerging literature on Caribbean cyberfeminism also ground this thesis. I have employed a reflexive, Caribbean feminist research methodology to further contextualise violence by conducting interviews with Black Caribbean women who are development workers, conducting discourse analysis of cyberfeminist tweets, and reflecting on my own positionality as insider/outsider to this work as a Black Caribbean feminist researcher with professional development experience. As such, this thesis broadly fits within Caribbean feminist geography, Black Caribbean feminist literature, and critical development studies.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):