It is with great pleasure that we present the 3rd edition of the 
Caribbean Quilt. This journal began with the hope of facilitating a space, 
outside the classroom, where students could express their ideas as well 
as engage in discourses that they felt were important in regards to the 
Caribbean and its diaspora.  This volume strives to continue to facilitate 
and contribute to these discussions. With over 20 pieces, this year’s 
publication features the work of undergraduate, masters and PhD 
students all engaged in challenging, at various levels, the histories, 
realities, and varying narratives that colour and layer the Caribbean 
region. The pieces that have been published in this issue were hand 
selected by us as student editors and were also acquired by the 
recommendation of our professors – who take every opportunity to 
showcase their student’s most outstanding work.   

While each of these pieces stand on their own merit, they are 
interrelated and overlapping and have been organized in a manner to 
illustrate this fluidity. Despite the regional similarities between some of 
the pieces, we sought to thematically knit the topics together in ode to 
our proverbial quilt. Each piece of work illustrates the complex and 
dynamic dialectical relationships that exist between individuals, 
institutions, and the hegemonic discourses therein. Each stitch that 
binds one piece to another should be viewed in terms of its 
complimentary or extensive nature on the topic. With that being said, 
this edition encompasses a wide range of topics from unearthing racial 
conflicts, uncovering various forms of systemic violence and spaces of 
vulnerabilities, the polemics of autonomy and neoliberalism, to the 
niches of agency, and those to yet be recognized.  

The dialectical relationship was one that inspired us in piecing 
together this edition of the journal. We are reminded that the agents in 
the equation of a relationship actively set that partnership on a new 
course by colliding with the substance and structure by which it 
operates. This collision between the partners will inevitably perpetuate, 
elucidate, challenge, or redefine the very fabric it was once made of. 
CARSSU and its publication of the Caribbean Quilt have continuously 
made a conscious effort to honour the last three verbs. The pieces of 
work in this edition inevitably seek to do the same. We are incredibly 
proud to have watched CARSSU and the Caribbean Quilt grow and 
flourish in its short years. We are equally humbled in having inherited a 
tradition and a medium by which we can inquire and challenge the 
discourses that may stifle or enamor us.  It is deeply fulfilling to be able 
to be a part of this process.  

 Editors, 
 

Samra Hasnain, Alayna Balkaran, Sarah Taluy