The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes, expectations, and evolution of early experiences of Trinidadian adolescent girls as they navigate physical and emotional intimacy, their capacity to conceptualize and/or enact sexual desire to develop their own sense of agency. Using Trinidad and Tobago (TandT) as a case study, it examines whether attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors pertaining to sexual agency are influenced by socioeconomic factors or key life events, adverse experiences, and the influences of family, community, and broader societal structures. Emerging scholarship on sexuality in the Caribbean explores how women navigate sexual relationships and exercise their agency within the social and economic contexts of the Caribbean. The lived experiences of Caribbean people, particularly women and girls, are important, worthy of exploration, and necessitate permanent documentation. An examination of Caribbean society – a confluence of diverse and complex natural and social environments will enrich scholarship on the worlds shaped by people in this region, particularly by youth who will form the society of the future. Using transnational, Caribbean, and Black feminist frameworks, this study seeks to understand sexual awareness, desire, actions, and motivations in their early stages by conducting interviews with a diverse sample of adolescent girls in TandT. / Doctor of Philosophy / The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes, expectations, and evolution of early experiences of Trinidadian adolescent girls as they navigate physical and emotional intimacy, their capacity to conceptualize and/or enact sexual desire to develop their own sense of agency. Using Trinidad and Tobago (TandT) as a case study, it examines the factors that influence adolescent girls' behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs, about sexual, and how their behaviors demonstrate their agency and independence of thought. Emerging scholarship on sexuality in the Caribbean explores how women navigate sexual relationships and exercise their agency within the social and economic contexts of the Caribbean. The lived experiences of Caribbean people, particularly women and girls, are important, worthy of exploration, and necessitate permanent documentation. An examination of Caribbean society – a confluence of diverse and complex natural and social environments will enrich scholarship on the worlds shaped by people in this region, particularly by youth who will form the society of the future. This study seeks to understand sexual awareness, desire, actions, and motivations in their early stages by conducting interviews with a diverse sample of adolescent girls in TandT.

As policy makers and educators from varying philosophical platforms develop strategies for facilitating inclusive education, there is a subsequent realization that this involves inclusive leadership. Such leadership may be addressed through ethical decision-making, exceptionality in learning, equity, effective programming, and partnerships (Crockett, 1999). Related to the moral and ethical aspects of decision making is the issue of caring leadership. Among the educational leaders who have demonstrated caring leadership, and who have had transformative influences over followers are the four women who constitute this study. To understand how they evolved as educational leaders, testimonies of their experiences and perceptions were developed. These testimonies are presented as reconstructed narratives. The discussion on these narratives explores relationships between who these women are in character, their experiences of the ethic of care, and leadership. The study directs focus on the lives of these women with a view to documenting their contributions and sharing their voices about the education systems of Trinidad and Tobago, and the broader Caribbean area. Oral history interviewing, within the biographical tradition, is the methodology used for data collection. The data as transcribed narratives and topical life histories were then content-analyzed to identify common themes and link these with contemporary research on leadership, women, and the ethic of care as discussed in the review of the literature. Findings from the study revealed caring leadership as an evolutionary process, and the importance that spirituality, community, and a sense of gender-equity and inter-relatedness played in the lives of the participants. / Ph. D.

No description available.

På Nationaldagen år 1992 utnämndes steelpan till Trinidad och Tobagos nationalinstrument. Världens yngsta akustiska instrument har på några få decennier gjort en klassresa. Syftet med denna uppsats är att utifrån de gällande teorierna om subkultur analysera steelbandkulturens ursprung och dess utveckling från en gräsrotskultur till en representant för en hel nation. Vilka faktorer bidrog till subkulturens uppkomst? Hur var det möjligt för steelbandkulturen att inta en så framträdande position i ett multikulturellt samhälle där den europeiska kulturen värdesattes högst av alla? Och vad händer med en subkultur som blir accepterad av resten av samhället?

This study examines the systematics and biogeography of frogs in the Eastern Caribbean, a biogeographical province consisting of the Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, and Tobago. A comprehensive collection of specimens was subjected to an analysis incorporating morphometric, osteological, and biochemical approaches. An investigation of $ alpha$-level taxonomy revealed the presence of four additional taxa: Colostethus chalcopis sp. nov. on Martinique, Eleutherodactylus amplinympha sp. nov. on Dominica, E. euphronides comb. nov. on Grenada, and E. shrevei comb. nov. on St. Vincent. Based on species distributions and detailed analyses of the largely congruent data sets, Eastern Caribbean frogs can be grouped into two major categories, those originating with South American stock and those of Greater Antillean ancestry. A South American origin is obvious for species which have no congeneric relatives in the Greater Antilles, e.g. C. chalcopis, Leptodactylus fallax, L. wagneri. Among the Eleutherodactylus species, northern Eastern Caribbean taxa form a monophyletic group within the E. auriculatus species group; the topology of relationships is ((E. barlagnei, E. pinchoni) ((E. amplinympha, E. martinicensis) E. johnstonei)). The southern Eastern Caribbean species may or may not form a monophyletic group, but E. euphronides and E. shrevei are sister taxa. The topology for these species is (E. urichi (E. terraebolivaris (E. euphronides, E. shrevei))). Thus, the Eastern Caribbean forms a biogeographic link between the large South American and Greater Antillean radiations of Eleutherodactylus; Eleutherodactylus is the only truly circum-Caribbean frog genus. Furthermore, historical evidence shows that the patchy, Caribbean-wide distribution of E. johnstonei is the direct result of accidental introduction mitigated by humans during the past three centuries.

Cette thèse part de l’hypothèse que des traces du passé, portées par chacun, habitent le quotidien, comme une sorte de mémoire collective insoupçonnée. Elle se propose en analysant les caractéristiques ou encore la transmission de quelques pratiques sociales (celles liées à la mort, à la religion, à la médecine populaire, au gwoka, au calypso et au conte) de comprendre ce qui se joue au-delà des apparences. A partir de ces expériences d’aujourd'hui, on découvre les apports divers, les dynamiques, les interactions, les ambivalences, ainsi que tout ce qui avait été mis en œuvre pour « braconner » des expressions, se créer des espaces de liberté et commencer à transcender un quotidien douloureux. Il s’avère, cependant que ces traces ne sont pas seulement des vestiges. Elles constituent plutôt un tissu complexe et mouvant construit par des perceptions, des émotions ainsi que des faits véridiques. Ces traces entremêlées d’hier et d’aujourd'hui, sont sans cesse réactivées par ceux qui les reçoivent, les portent et les transmettent à leur tour. / This thesis assumes that traces of the past, worn by everyone, inhabit the everyday, as a sort of unsuspected collective memory. In order to understand what is happening beyond appearances, it analyzes the characteristics of the transmission of a few social practices such as those related to death, religion, folk medicine, gwoka, calypso and storytelling. From today experiences, one discovers the various contributions, the dynamics, the interactions, the ambivalences, as well as all that had been implemented to "poach" expressions, to create spaces of freedom and start to transcend a painful reality. It turns out, however, that these traces are not just remnants. They are rather a complex and moving fabric woven by perceptions, emotions as well as truthful facts. These traces, which are those of yesterday and today intermingled, are constantly reactivated by those who receive them, carry them and transmit them in their turn.

Few studies have assessed the optimum second line highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) regimen in patients who had failed on the first-line HAART in resource-limited settings. This study aimed to compare the Protease inhibitor (PI)-based second line HAART regimens used in one clinic in Trinidad by comparing immunological, virological and clinical outcomes of patients on the different second line HAART regimens. The records of 35 treatment-experienced patients, over 21years of age and on PI-based regimens for at least six months, were analysed using SPSS version 20. The regimen containing TDF/FTC/AZT/LPV/r proved to produce superior outcomes compared to the other second line regimens. Due the small number of usable patients’ records, the findings cannot be generalised but indicate directions for future studies attempting to compare the treatment outcomes of different second line HAART regimens / Health Studies / M. A. (Public Health)

Few studies have assessed the optimum second line highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) regimen in patients who had failed on the first-line HAART in resource-limited settings. This study aimed to compare the Protease inhibitor (PI)-based second line HAART regimens used in one clinic in Trinidad by comparing immunological, virological and clinical outcomes of patients on the different second line HAART regimens. The records of 35 treatment-experienced patients, over 21years of age and on PI-based regimens for at least six months, were analysed using SPSS version 20. The regimen containing TDF/FTC/AZT/LPV/r proved to produce superior outcomes compared to the other second line regimens. Due the small number of usable patients’ records, the findings cannot be generalised but indicate directions for future studies attempting to compare the treatment outcomes of different second line HAART regimens / Health Studies / M. A. (Public Health)

The invasion of individuals into new habitats can pose a major threat to native species and to biodiversity itself. However, the consequences of invasions for native populations that are not fully reproductively isolated from their invaders are not yet well explored. Here I chose the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata, to investigate how different population traits shaped the outcome of Haskins's introduction, a well-documented invasion of Guanapo river guppies into the Turure river. I especially concentrated on the importance of behaviour for invasive success. I investigated if the spread of Guanapo guppies is due to superiority in behaviour, life-history and/or genetics, or if the outcome of this translocation is due to chance. Despite the fact that by today the invasive front has passed the Turure's confluence with the River Quare many kilometres downstream of the introduction site, and the original genotype only survives in small percentages, as was revealed by genetic analysis in this and other studies, no obvious differences between invasive and native populations could be detected in any of the tested behavioural, life-history and genetic traits. When tested for mate choice, neither Guanapo nor Oropuche (Turure) males seemed to be able to distinguish between the population origin of females, but courted and mated at random. At the same time, females did not prefer to school with individuals of the same population over schooling with more distantly related females. The formation of mixed schools after an invasive event is therefore likely. Because female guppies showed a very low willingness to mate, even after having been separated from males for up to six months, sperm transfer through forced copulations will become more important. Taken together, these behaviours could increase the speed of population mixing after an invasion without the need for behavioural superiority of the invasive population. When tested for their schooling abilities, offspring of mixed parentage, in contrast to pure breds, displayed a large amount of variety in the time they spent schooling, a circumstance that can potentially influence survival rates and therefore the direction of gene pool mixing. Guanapo fish did not show reproductive superiority in a mesocosm experiment, where both populations were mixed in different proportions. On the contrary, in two out of three mixed treatments, the amount of Oropuche (Turure) alleles was significantly higher than expected from the proportion of initially stocked fish. The almost complete absence of distinguishable traits other than genetic variation between the examined populations that belong to different drainage systems, opposes the recent split of the guppy into two different species following drainage system borders, as is argued in this thesis. However, the successful invasion of the Turure by Guanapo guppies and the nearly entire disappearance of the original population can be explained in absence of differing population traits. Here I demonstrate how behavioural and genetic interactions between subspecies influence the outcome of biological invasions and second, how factors other than population traits, such as the geographic situation, can produce an advantageous situation for the invader even in the absence of population differences.

Notre sujet de thèse porte sur la contribution des journalistes caribéens au processus démocratique à travers le traitement des événements socio-politiques majeurs entre 1989 et 2009. Il s’agit de la tentative du coup d’état de juillet 1990 à Trinidad-et-Tobago et du mouvement social de 2009 en Guadeloupe.Cette étude part d'un état des lieux des concepts de journaliste, de démocratie et de liberté de la presse. Cette thèse vise à interroger le terme « démocratie » et l'éthique des journalistes. Il existe des chartes déontologiques, édictées par la profession des journalistes, qui reprennent les principes démocratiques. Nous avançons donc l'hypothèse selon laquelle les journalistes sont de véritables acteurs du processus démocratique. Garants de la démocratie, ils ont aussi une responsabilité sociale envers les citoyens.Cette recherche vise à analyser les événements socio-politiques majeurs dans les deux territoires entre 1989 et 2009. A travers ces événements, il s'agit de montrer la manière dont les journalistes contribuent au processus démocratique. Notre méthodologie consiste à analyser les articles de presse et les entretiens semi-directifs avec les journalistes pour comprendre comment ils travaillent et comprendre leur concept de liberté de la presse. / The present research deals with the involvement of Caribbean journalists in the emergence of democracy through media coverage of the major socio-political events between 1989 and 2009. It is the attempted coup d’etat in Trinidad and Tobago in July 1990 and the social movement in Guadeloupe in 2009.This study starts by defining concepts such as journalists, democracy and freedom of the press. This thesis aims at examining the term “democracy” and journalists' ethics. There are democratic principles in the code of ethics written by journalists themselves. This leads me to think that journalists are indeed major actors in the democratic process. Indeed, they are the guarantors of democracy because they have a social responsibility towards citizens.This research aims at analyzing the major socio-political events in both territories between 1989 and 2009. Through these events, I would like to show the way journalists contribute to the democratic process. That is why I analyzed the articles of the newspapers and interviews with journalists were conducted, in order to know in detail the way they work and their concept of freedom of the press.