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In the first parts of this chapter, the term ‘security’is given a definition and is discussed in-depth. In this chapter, the term is also redefined into more specific divisions. The said divisions or ‘dimensions’ of security as mentioned here include: military, social, and political as well as environmental, economic, and criminal dimensions. Furthermore, the chapter also discusses the impact of globalization in the field of security. As the chapter progresses, more focus is given to the Caribbean region's state of security. A short overview of the region's history is tackled. Towards the end of the chapter, various security measures including the nationalization of police among the republics in the said region are examined. The chapter also gives emphasis on the different views of people regarding the security propositions being laid by the authorities and sectors engaged in the issue. The relationships between the various Caribbean republics is also studied. The region's economic state is also discussed. Various policies regarding the region's security also undergo analyses.

This chapter begins with a brief description of the Caribbean Islands and the area's historical relevance. The drastic change in Caribbean settlers' lives are also discussed in the succeeding parts. As the chapter progresses, a series of security problems surrounding the region are discussed. The sudden increase in the number of criminal cases in particular republics in the Caribbean region are examined. The growing crime rate in the area as well as the effects of more complex criminal modus operandi are also tackled. The problems that the region faces regarding much serious crimes such as the rampancy of drug trafficking and abuse as well as indiscriminate bloodshed are scrutinized. This chapter also gives a breakdown of the effects of the increasing crime rate in the Caribbean region. Also included in the chapter are security measures that the authorities have been resorting to in order to bring peace and order to certain parts of the region. However, in places the chapter provides arguments regarding the securitization of the region and how much will it affect the republics therein.

This chapter states that the crusade against crime — illegal drug trafficking in particular — has put the Caribbean settlers'lives in peril. In addition, the context of security has brooded an even greater sense of depression that the people of the region have had to face. This chapter also discusses the idea that security issues and threats will always coincide with the further advancement of globalization. The chapter also focuses on various organizations that take part in international security affairs. The chapter points out that the possibility of having a transnational policing government can only be accomplished by attaining a more cosmopolitan approach regarding the definition of police responsibilities. This chapter also stresses that peace and order is something that needs careful planning — something that cannot be achieved over a short period of time. The chapter also includes a list of interviewees as well as on-point details for policing the region.

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about colonialism, race issues, and social transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean region. This book examines some of colonialism's complex aftereffects, focusing on struggles in Uruguay, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Brazil, and investigates the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico and the more recent ascendancy of Evo Morales's Movement toward Socialism (MAS). It also analyzes noncanonical, counterinstitutional voices from Bolivia, the French Antilles, Colombia, and Ecuador, whose common objective is to unsettle the received knowledge that buttressed colonial power.

“The air was literally filled with pigeons; the light of noonday was obscured as by an eclipse.” So observed John James Audubon, the eminent naturalist and bird artist, of a mass migration of passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) passing through Kentucky in 1813. For three days the pigeons poured out of the Northeast in search of forests bearing nuts and acorns. By Audubon’s estimate, the flock that passed overhead contained more than I billion birds, a number consistent with calculations made by other ornithologists. As the pigeons approached their roost, Audubon noted that the noise they made “reminded me of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel.” Indeed, they were so numerous that by some accounts every other bird on the North American continent was probably a passenger pigeon at the time of European colonization (Schorger 1955). Yet despite this extraordinary abundance, barely 100 years later the last passenger pigeon, a female bird named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo. The vast flocks of passenger pigeons moved around eastern North America, feeding mostly on the fruits of forest trees such as beechnuts and acorns. Two factors conspired to seal their fate. Because of their huge numbers, the birds were easy to hunt, especially at their roosting sites. Hunters were ingenious in developing increasingly efficient ways to slaughter the birds. Armed with sticks, guns, nets, or sulfur fires, hunters swept through the enormous roosting colonies, carting away what they could carry and feeding the remaining carcasses to their pigs. One of these methods, in which a decoy pigeon with its eyes sewn shut was attached to a perch, or stool, gave rise to the term stool pigeon. As the railroads expanded west, enormous numbers could be sent to major urban markets like New York, where pigeons became the cheapest meat available. They were so cheap and abundant that live birds were used as targets in shooting galleries. At the same time that this frontal assault on the pigeons was under way, human settlers were expanding into the interior of the country, clearing large areas of the forests on which the flocks depended for food.