Island Innovation would like to to sincerely thank Gennike Mayers, Island Studies Press, Dr. Godfrey Baldacchino, and The University of the West Indies Press for contributing these books! Your contributions make this event a success. Thank you so much for your generosity and support!
If you have not yet entered the Island Finance Forum Book Giveaway, register for the IFF here and you will be directed to the giveaway page!
Gennike Mayers
Though small in total population size, CARICOM represents a voting bloc of 15 Member States with the power to sway decisions taken in wider regional and international organisations. By maintaining a united front, CARICOM can play a greater role as mediator extending good offices to Venezuela’s government and opposition leaders as they seek to resolve the ensuing political crisis. Since 2018, there has been dissonance among CARICOM Member States regarding their diplomatic positions on the Venezuelan crisis. This dissertation analyses the variety of positions of selected CARICOM Member States through the lens of realism and constructivism to attempt to explain what factors are influencing the States in question.
Working Together Marian Bruce and Elizabeth Cran
Working Together tells the story of the co-op movement in Prince Edward Island from its beginnings in the 19th century to its prospects for the 21st. Based on exhaustive research and dozens of oral interviews, and written in a journalistic style, it bursts with portraits of individuals and communities working together to create better conditions in challenging times. The book highlights a part of PEI’s history that has shaped its working landscape, and which continues to offer relevant lessons on how it might shape its future.
Island Entrepreneurs Dr. Godfrey Baldacchino
Developing successful, indigenously-owned, small scale, export-oriented, manufacturing firms from small island locations is difficult but not impossible. This monograph describes key outcomes of a research project which is reviewing a selection of such successful firms from 5 European island territories. Operating in the information and communication technology sector allows small island firms to compete successfully in export markets. They often do so by depending on the wide, ‘extra-island’ contacts and experiences of their ‘global-local’ entrepreneurial founder-owners, who often leverage start-up funds from private and personal sources. The absence of notable local market opportunities induces island entrepreneurs to ‘export or perish’, obliging a competitive strategy from inception.
Rethinking Poverty Corin Bailey, Christine Barrow, Jonathan Lasley
Researchers have been grappling with finding an adequate means of defining poverty since the nineteenth century, yet no universal consensus exists today. Much of the debate has been concerned with whether poverty should be defined in absolute or relative terms. Today, most countries use income as a measure of poverty, and the extent of poverty in a country is assessed on the basis of a poverty line, as is the case in Barbados. Human deprivation cannot be accurately portrayed purely by of a lack of financial resources; however, a variety of factors, including unemployment, violations of human rights, increased migration, weakening of family ties, and reduced social and political participation may combine to severely reduce the quality of living conditions for large sectors of Caribbean society.