Dying to be beautiful?

The very first International Scientific Conference to be hosted at the UWI, Mona Western Jamaica Campus is a reality. The conference dubbed Dying to be Beautiful? Body Image, Eating Behaviours and Health in the Caribbean should bring well needed support for the activities of the newest outpost of the UWI, Mona brand.  Much respect and admiration go out to Doctors Caryl James, Abigail Harrison and Stacy Brodie Walker, the conference chair and co-chairs respectively.  This team of young, vibrant, determined, and experienced researchers in the fields of clinical and counseling psychology, paediatrics and adolescent medicine are charting a way forward for the UWI and the Western Jamaica Campus that can only be seen as positive.

When a campus is new, everything is first, everything is pioneering, and everything is history-making. Everyone involved therefore has the opportunity to be groundbreaking, to be innovative, and to be a forerunner. But this is not just about being first or new simply as a chronological eventuality but rather about making a deeply positive impact on the lives of the different peoples we serve as researchers and educators.  This conference is certainly a welcomed initiative and opportunity for the Western Jamaica Campus of the UWI Mona brand to further underscore the significant role that universities and university education play in the development of a society. 

Just as importantly, the conference is a platform to advance UWI’s rich tradition and highly-favored reputation as an outstanding innovator, a distinguished pioneer, and a celebrated leader in teaching, research, and outreach across the Caribbean and indeed throughout the world.  This is indeed the place to shine! Oriens ex occidente lux!

The Dying to be Beautiful? conference is also tapping into a longstanding but always alive topic – beauty and body imaging and the things we do or not do to fit certain ideals.  Whether these ideals are defined by others or self, influenced by history or geography, perpetuated by soft parental socialization or heavy media cultivation, the pursuit of beauty can be as life changing as it can be life threatening.  The dialogue around this topic is as varied in form and nature as in perspectives – from subtle linguistic gymnastics to violently rambunctious in-your-face debates about self, identity, human rights, race, gender and power relations.

For the academics there is going to be all levels of analysis – be they sociological, etymological, epistemological, heuristic, you name it – but one thing is certain; the theme of the conference touches the core of our Jamaican being.  Have we seen the raft of responses to Professor Carolyn Cooper’s article in the Sunday Gleaner of January 8, 2012 – including an apology and distancing of the newspaper from Cooper’s comments about racial policy and editorial decisions?

From self-serving interpretations of the coloring book to questionable internationally sanctioned practices in dieting, beauty and body image are excitingly essential parts of our everyday discourse. The heightened interest and anticipation of the student population about the public forum on Defining Sexy may not be so much about the expected debate over being fluffy or slim bodied, nor even the black versus brown obsession which always gets the talk going.  It is also about the presence of celebrated beauty queen Yendi Phillips and the ever cutting-edge Rastafarian folk philosopher, Mutabaruka. It’s about the real live experience of questioning those who have come to symbolize certain ideals about self and identity.  It’s about being documented in pictorials with those who play an important role in the uncovering of the truths about our health behaviours.

 In other words, taking the research to the people is an important part of the development process and this must be encouraged. As the Conference chair herself acknowledges in her introduction, there are socio-cultural and psychological implications, historical and geo-political considerations, and even economic and global impacts of beauty on the human body that must be explored at all levels, in all forms, and on all platforms. It is of significance therefore that this conference is a convergence of disciplines and, according to the organizers, “for the first time at the University the relevance of an integrated approach in healthcare is (being) emphasized”.

I do hope the sessions we have had so far have been enlightening, engaging, and revealing and that we are, in the true Jamaican sense, ‘dying’ to get to the others to come.  We salute all who have worked to make this possible and look forward to the UWI, Mona –Western Jamaica Campus making its true impact on the building of the intellectual capital across the region.