Discovering public relations in the Caribbean

Faced with the glaring “undocumentation” (I just created that word) on the Caribbean, I’ve decided that I need to do something about it, hence my research on the role of public relations practitioners in CSR being based on sweet T&T (Trinidad and Tobago). My past ten months in the UK have exposed me to a wealth of literature on PR, including books and peer-reviewed journals, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. It’s this exposure that has helped me to consider the various perspectives, from the normative and idealist, to the critical and radical. Exposure to theoretical dimensions of PR is extremely valuable, as is exposure to the practical dimension. Both dimensions are open to criticism, and that’s one of my challenges as I embark upon my research, considering all that I’ve learnt thus far, and will continue to learn, but being able to be truly analytical, truly critical. Ensuring that I look at phenomena not just from a narrow-minded view, but embracing various perspectives. After all public relations is a multidisciplinary field, and if I carry out research from a fixed viewpoint, then my research will reflect a narrow-minded approach. If I’m narrow-minded in my approach, then I decrease the diversity that public relations thinking should reflect, so I’m doing all I can to increase it.

Recently, one of my university lecturers told me he’d met a Trini who was seeking to get onto the MSc Corporate Communication programme at Thames Valley University (the university I attend), and that she wanted to contact me. He said he’d been able to tell her about the Public Relations Association of Trinidad and Tobago (out of me doing A-grade information and knowledge management assignments on the association). Although, she wasn’t able to open a book on PR and read about the Caribbean that day, I’m sure she was happy to attend an interview in a foreign country, which tends to dismiss us Caribbeans, and be able to hear someone not only know of her country, but be able to share knowledge about Trinidad and Tobago’s PR scene.

I’m the first Trini to be on this course, and I’m hopeful that perhaps, if even a little, I made her feel as if someone has been warming a seat for her. In a way, I feel like an ambassador, who went before to make things a little easier, every time I insisted on basing every assignment on T&T, every time I insisted on connecting what I was learning to where I come from, instead of being cornered into simply being assimilated into UK or American mentalities.

I hope she gets in. And if she does, I hope she does like me, resist only exploring Western, developed-world PR. Embrace it, of course, but also look at Latin America, Africa, Asia, and other regions. Look at how it helps you discover Trinbagonian PR, Caribbean PR. I hope you do, cause after all, I have a dream (and a deep-seated interest in international public relations).

As always, thanks for blogging in.