‘EDC girls’ and women's work: Race, gender and labor in the financial services sector in the US virgin islands

Abstract

This essay outlines my academic research on economic development in the Caribbean, which traces paradigm shifts in the region with particular attention to both the gendered ideologies underpinning these shifts and their gendered effects. Drawing on the long and important history of Caribbean feminist anthropology (Abraham‐Van der Mark 1983; Anderson 1986; Barrow 1995; Barrow 1998; Bolles 1983; Ellis 2003; Kempadoo 2004; Leo‐Rhynie 1997; Mohammed 2002; Mohammed and Shepherd 1988; Momsen 1993; Yelvington 1995), this article situates my research on development paradigms in the US Virgin Islands in this trajectory. Drawing on my ethnographic work on the Economic Development Commission (EDC) program and the women employed in this sector, this article affords me the opportunity to engage with the legacy of feminist ethnography that has enabled my continued engagement with naming both the centrality of the region to global economic processes and the significance of women's labor to these processes.