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Verene Shepherd

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Verene Shepherd
Shepherd in 2023
Born
Verene Albertha Shepherd

1960 (age 63–64)
Hopewell,Saint Mary Parish,Jamaica
EducationSt. Mary High School
Alma materUniversity of the West Indies(BA; MPhil);
University of Cambridge(PhD)
Occupation(s)Academic and writer
Employer(s)University of the West Indies,Mona

Verene Albertha Shepherd(néeLazarus;born 1960) is a Jamaican academic who is a professor of social history at theUniversity of the West IndiesinMona.She is the director of the university's Institute for Gender and Development Studies, and specialises in Jamaicansocial historyanddiaspora studies.

She has published prolifically in journals and books on topics including Jamaican economic history during slavery, the Indian experience in Jamaica, migration and diasporas and Caribbean women's history,[1]and is a contributor to the 2019 anthologyNew Daughters of Africa.[2]

Early life and education

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Shepherd was born in Hopewell,Saint Mary Parish,Jamaica, one of the ten children of Ruthlyn and Alfred Lazarus. She attended Huffstead Basic School, Rosebank Primary School, andSt. Mary High School,and then completed a teaching certificate at Shortwood Teachers' College. Shepherd went on to theUniversity of the West Indies,where she completed aBAdegree in history in 1976 and aM.Phil.in history in 1982. She was later awarded a PhD from theUniversity of Cambridgein 1988 for her thesis on the economic history ofcolonial Jamaica.[3]

Academic career

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In 1988, Shepherd joined the Department of History at the University of the West Indies. She was elevated to a full professorship in 2001, and in 2010 was appointed director of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies.[4][5]She has served as president of the Association of Caribbean Historians, chair of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, chair of the Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee.[6]

Shepherd specialises in Jamaicansocial historyanddiaspora studies.She is an advocate ofreparations for slavery,[7][8][9]and in 2016 was appointed co-chair of Jamaica's National Council on Reparations.[10]Shepherd has also held several positions within theOffice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights(OHCHR), serving as a member of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. She was chair of WGEPAD from 2011 to 2014, and lobbied for the creation of theInternational Decade for People of African Descent.[11]

Zwarte Pietcontroversy

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In 2013, in her role as chair of WGEPAD, Shepherd was asked to inquire intoZwarte Piet( "Black Pete" ). She authored a letter, on "headed, officialUN high commission for human rightspaper "[12]to the Dutch government proposing that it move towards ending the tradition, and in a later interview withEenVandaagdescribed the character as "a throwback to slavery".[13]Her remark complicated and further polarized an ongoing national debate, accompanied by protests and social media campaigns, in particular as she was supposedly speaking on behalf of the UN when this was not actually the case.[12]Her remarks thatSinterklaas,a national feast in the Netherlands central to Dutch culture, could just be done away with in its entirety because "one Santa Claus is enough",[14](apparently referring to the American version who partially descends from Sinterklaas but is decidedly not the same), caused much anger and unleashed a public reaction that continues to have ramifications years later. A number of public figures, includingMark RutteandGeert Wilders,spoke out in defence of Zwarte Piet.[15]A BelgianUNESCOofficial later claimed that Shepherd had no authority to speak on behalf of the UN and was "abusing the name of the UN to bring her own agenda to the media".[12]

Selected works

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  • Pens and pen-keepers in a plantation society: aspects of Jamaican social and economic history, 1740–1845(thesis), University of Cambridge, 1988
  • Transients to Settlers: The Experience of Indians in Jamaica 1845–1950: East Indians in Jamaica in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century,Peepal Tree Press, 1994,ISBN978-0948833328
  • Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective(edited withBridget BreretonandBarbara Bailey), Palgrave MacMillan, 1995,ISBN978-0312127664
  • Women in Caribbean History: The British-Colonised Territories(compiled and edited), Ian Randle Publishers, 1999,ISBN9789768123305
  • I Want to Disturb My Neighbour: Lectures on Slavery, Emancipation and Postcolonial Jamaica,Ian Randle Publishers, 2000ISBN9789766372552
  • Maharani's Misery: Narratives of a Passage from India,University of West Indies Press, 2002,ISBN978-9766401214
  • Working Slavery-Pricing Freedom: Perspectives from the Caribbean, Africa and the African Diaspora(edited), James Currey, 2002,ISBN978-0852554654
  • Questioning Creole: Creolisation Discourses in Caribbean Culture(edited with Glen L. Richards), Ian Randle Publishers, 2004,ISBN978-9766370398
  • Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic: A Student Reader,Ian Randle Publishers, 2004,ISBN978-9768123619
  • Liberties Lost: The Indigenous Caribbean and Slave Systems(withHilary Beckles), Cambridge University Press, 2004,ISBN978-0521435444
  • Trading Souls: Europe's Transatlantic Trade in Africans(with Hilary Beckles), 2007
  • Livestock, Sugar and Slavery: Contested Terrain in Colonial Jamaica,Ian Randle Publishers, 2009,ISBN9789766372569
  • "Historicizing Gender-Based Violence in the Caribbean" inMargaret Busby(ed.),New Daughters of Africa,2019.[2]

References

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  1. ^"Verene A. Shepherd",Caribbean Review of Gender Studies,University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
  2. ^abHubbard, Ladee (10 May 2019)."Power to define yourself: The diaspora of female black voices".TLS.Archivedfrom the original on 1 October 2020.Retrieved14 August2020.
  3. ^Holou, Roland (2016).The Most Influential Contemporary African Diaspora Leaders.AuthorHouse.ISBN978-1524605582.
  4. ^"Prof. Verene Shepherd"Archived15 December 2017 at theWayback Machine,University of the West Indies. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  5. ^"Verene Shepherd Appointed University Director of the Institute for Gender & Development Studies",University of the West Indies, 2 July 2010. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  6. ^"Prof Verene Shepherd’s remarkable accomplishments"Archived1 December 2017 at theWayback Machine,Jamaica Observer,11 October 2010. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  7. ^Jordens, Peter,"Verene Shepherdon Reparations, History Education and Honoring Heroines of Resistance"Archived1 December 2017 at theWayback Machine,Repeating Islands,28 August 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  8. ^"Shepherd To Speak On Reparations At US Conference"Archived29 November 2017 at theWayback Machine,Jamaica Gleaner,22 September 2017. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  9. ^Shepherd, Verene,"David Cameron, you still owe us for slavery",The Guardian,30 September 2015. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  10. ^"12-member reparations council named"Archived1 December 2017 at theWayback Machine,Jamaica Observer,13 July 2016. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  11. ^"Prof Verene Shepherd off to UN"Archived23 December 2023 at theWayback Machine,Jamaica Observer,24 April 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2023.
  12. ^abcWaterfield, Bruno,"UN drops Black Pete 'racism' charge against the Dutch"Archived23 April 2018 at theWayback Machine,The Daily Telegraph,24 October 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  13. ^Cendrowicz, Leo, "Black Pete: Dutch relic of Christmas past prompts racism row",The Guardian,6 December 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  14. ^"'Zwarte Piet terugkeer naar slavernij en moet stoppen'".Archivedfrom the original on 24 February 2017.Retrieved18 November2018.
  15. ^McGrane, Sally,"The Netherlands Confronts Black Pete"Archived1 December 2017 at theWayback Machine,The New Yorker,4 November 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
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