CSA2022 Moves to a Virtual Conference

Fellow Members:

Let me start by wishing that, for every day of 2022, you will experience an abundance of blessings and amazing growth in all aspects of your life.

I share the following statement with you, which I have found to be an appropriate depiction of our collective inclination at this time: We are passengers in the same boat that’s heading towards a common destination. May the hopes of the New Year guide us in the right direction!

The foregoing seems a fitting segue into the important subject at caption.

After careful consideration of the report of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of CSA2022, the Executive Council (EC) at its meeting of January 18, 2022 accepted the recommendation for the conference to transition to a virtual format. Among the compelling reasons are the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which results in the adoption of stricter measures to curtail movement of persons and limit the size of gatherings in the host city, Kingston, Jamaica. These measures if breached attract severe penalties. Other evolving factors related to the pandemic that give rise to high degrees of unpredictability and uncertainty surrounding, for example, air travel and vaccine mandates suggest a kind of logistic nightmare that the Association is ill-equipped to handle. Critically, the host venue, The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus has continued with its remote delivery of courses for the majority of its programmes, contributing to our decision.

As a consequence CSA2022 will move completely online from May 30-June 3, 2022.

I am sure you appreciate the gravamen of the situation and the thought that has gone into this decision, as well as understand that the Association has a duty to act responsibly to ensure the well-being of its members/conference delegates.

We look forward to your participation, even with a change in conference modality and will be reaching out with details on programming after the deadline for the call for abstracts has passed.

For key dates pertaining to abstract submission and payment of membership and registration fees, please visit our webpage: https://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org. For general queries, you may send an email to: secretariat@caribbeanstudiesassociation.org.

Eris Schoburgh
President CSA 2021-2022