Scholars on Repeating Islands

March 23, 2021 ESENDOM

This year marks the 12th anniversary of Repeating Islands, a Caribbeanist blog edited by Ivette Romero and Lisa Paravisini-Gebert. In order to commemorate the 12th anniversary of Repeating Islands, ESENDOM interviewed Paravisini-Gebert and Romero. Defiantly independent, Repeating Islands has become a vital source of information and insight into Caribbean life and Caribbean/Latinx diasporic cultural production. ESENDOM asked some scholars, librarians and writers to send us their thoughts on Repeating Islands and its legacy so far.

Check out our Interview with Ivette Romero and Lisa Paravisini-Gebert from Repeating Islands

Sophie Maríñez, Professor of French & CUNY William P. Kelly Research Fellow

Over the past twelve years, indefatigable Lisa Paravisini-Gebert and Ivette Romero have turned Repeating Islands into the must-read, must-follow blog for all Caribbeanists, be they senior scholars, graduate students, or readers from the general public interested in all things Caribbean. The blog does justice to Benítez Rojo’s notion of an archipelagic, de-centered Caribbean, not only through a name that evokes his classic La isla que se repite but also through its daily posts. As they cover and link cultural productions from Anglophone, Creolophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Papiamento-speaking populations, Lisa and Ivette boldly circumvent linguistic and colonial fragmentations still reproduced in academic and intellectual circles today. Personally, I can't imagine a day without getting exciting news from Repeating Islands’s posts sent directly into my mailbox.

Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Professor and Chair,Department of Modern Languages and Literatures Marta S. Weeks Chair in Latin American Studies University of Miami

Repeating Islands has been a crucial venue for Caribbeanists to share and find out information about current events, recent debates and publications in Caribbean Studies. Dr. Lizabeth Paravisni-Gebert and Dr. Ivette Romero have sustained throughout the years this incredible labor of love to which we are all indebted. They are also both pioneers in Digital Humanities in Caribbean Studies, before social media and blogs were as visible as they are now. Their shared vision of a multilingual Caribbean that can and must have interdisciplinary and comparative dialogues about the particularity of the lived experiences in colonial archipelagoes has been a source of inspiration for my work and for the work of many Caribbeanists. Thank you, Lisa and Ivette for keeping us all connected thru your blog and congratulations on this well-deserved recognition of your work.

Alex Gil, Digital Scholarship Librarian at Columbia University

Repeating Islands was one of the few lifelines I had as a graduate student at the University of Virginia doing my Caribbean Studies. Over a decade ago Twitter and Facebook were infants, and we had very few places where we could informally keep up with cultural and academic news about the Caribbean. What made the work of Lisa Paravisini-Gebert and Ivette Romero so nurturing and necessary was its broad scope. They did and continue to do their best to cross national and linguistic boundaries with news of relevance to Caribbean Studies. As a great supplement to the journalistic work of Small Axe, Salon included, Anthurium, H-Net, Caribbean Commons and other academic venues, Repeating Islands was never afraid to look at business news, sports, and any number of neglected cultural corners of the Caribbean. Even in 2021 many of us revisit the site regularly to check and see if there was anything we missed on the firehoses of social media. In the future I can imagine the archive of the site to be a unique source for scholars of our own period to piece together the common winds that brought us together at the beginning of the 21st Century. I wish Lisa and Ivette many more happy and productive years. Godspeed, Repeating Islands.

Mariel Acosta, Linguist and Independent Researcher

Repeating Islands is an important resource for the Caribbean community. Its accessible articles and interviews in blog format cover a range of topics from arts, history to anthropology and other areas. Through Repeating Island's posts, both lay and academic readers are able to stay informed of important issues and topics from the region.

Thanks to Ivette Romero-Cesareo and Lisa Paravisini-Gebert for putting together and managing this important and accessible source of information. Here's to many more years of Repeating Islands!

Molly Hamm-Rodríguez, PhD candidate in Equity, Bilingualism, and Biliteracy University of Colorado Boulder

Repeating Islands as Dynamic Multiliteracy Space for Youth

As a scholar of language, literacy, and education, I think often about the sorts of learning experiences in which youth engage as they make sense of and act in the world. While youth frequently use digital technologies as a relational platform for information and creative self-expression, schools often rely on a combination of published texts and state-mandated curriculum for bounded disciplines such as language arts and social studies. Because schools are used as sites of nation-building, learning experiences are typically bordered and exclusionary, with few opportunities to think relationally with and across the Caribbean regardless of where youth study. Repeating Islands, on the other hand, is a vibrant multiliteracy space. It allows readers to use a range of modalities to engage the Caribbean in a way that is dynamic rather than static and to emphasize interconnections rather than fragmentation. Repeating Islands weaves together topics, perspectives, and experiences that cannot be contained within curricular or disciplinary standards; there is always a multiplicity that spills out of the corners of classroom walls.

One of the many pedagogical strengths of Repeating Islands is its accessibility, depth, and breadth. I often recommend this resource to secondary school educators as a key site for students to engage in a variety of literacy practices beyond digital literacies (which is what most educators envision when they think of technology and learning). As a dynamic multiliteracy space, Repeating Islands encourages readers to see and participate in the ways that texts travel, to understand literacy as contingent across space and time, and to view literacy as a situated practice embedded in social relationships. As Repeating Islands facilitates this movement and interplay of ideas, the platform serves as a springboard for students to read the Caribbean relationally and to consider how their own practices of literacy are always in motion.

Ryan Mann-Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY)

It is always a pleasure to get my daily digest from Repeating Islands, which is the most consistent, important and informative blog that connects the circum-Caribbean and its diasporas through engaging with past and present issues and news of the region. An invaluable resource for faculty, students, community and activists who are trying to sustain networks and collaborate across the Caribbean space and to amplify the important stories that center Caribbean identity, culture, arts and history among others. More than just a blog, Repeating Islands is a virtual space for peoples across the Caribbean and from the Diasporic spaces we occupy to connect, engage and struggle. Its contribution to the field of Caribbean studies and the connections it makes to Latin American studies, which many times excludes the Caribbean space, helps us to imagine and work towards collaborations that can inform and transform. On its 12th year anniversary, I can only look forward to many more years of curated posts, the lessons I will learn and the networks we can create.

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