HAKIM MOHANDAS AMANI WILLIAMS
Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams, a native of Laventille, Trinidad & Tobago, is Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Director of Peace and Justice Studies, and affiliate in Education, Globalization Studies, and Public Policy at Gettysburg College. He also adjuncts at the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College (NYC), and he completed his doctorate at Columbia University in International Educational Development, with a focus in peace education. His research centers on school/structural violence, educational inequities, and youth and community empowerment, and he has conducted many workshops and trainings on restorative circles in diverse settings.
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Mas, Limbo, Calypso and Steelpan: Musicking Marronage and Decolonial Ways of Being
The Caribbean is one of the few regions in the world that experienced the triad of colonialism, slavery and indentureship. Resistance to these oppressions occurred in diverse forms; from the onset, slaves would escape the plantations and form maroon communities. Neil Roberts has conceptualized the notion of freedom as marronage, a perpetual flight to sovereignty. In turn, I appropriate musicking to relate to marronage: the performativities of freedom. In characterizing mas, limbo, calypso and steelpan as embodiments of marronage, I will historicize these four art-forms in Trinidad as part of a decolonial lineage of individual and national identity formation.