Small Axe

The Small Axe Project:
A Caribbean Platform of Criticism
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small axe: a caribbean platform for criticism

The Small Axe Project consists of this: to participate both in the renewal of practices of intellectual criticism in the Caribbean and in the expansion/revision of the scope and horizons of such criticism. We acknowledge of course a tradition of social, political, and cultural criticism in and about the regional/diasporic Caribbean. We want to honor that tradition but also to argue with it, because in our view it is in and through such argument that a tradition renews itself, that it carries on its quarrel with the generations of itself: retaining/revising the boundaries of its identity, sustaining/altering the shape of its self-image, defending/resisting its conceptions of history and community. It seems to us that many of the conceptions that guided the formation of our Caribbean modernities—conceptions of class, gender, nation, culture, race, for example, as well as conceptions of sovereignty, development, democracy, and so on—are in need of substantial rethinking. The Small Axe Project aims to provide a platform for such rethinking. We aim to enable an informed and sustained debate about the present we inhabit, its political and cultural contours, its historical conditions and global context, and the critical languages in which change can be thought and alternatives reimagined. Such a debate, we would insist, is not the prerogative of any one genre, and therefore we invite fiction as well as nonfiction, poetry, interviews, visual art, and discussion pieces.

09/29/2026

SHAME, SHAME, SHAME…

Statement by Small Axe Project Director, David Scott regarding war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the United Nations:

“When the war criminal, Benjamin Netenyahu, took to the podium of the General Assembly of the United Nations on Thursday 24 September 2026 to deliver his address, delegates from an estimated 77 countries walked out of the hall in protest against the continuing genocide being perpetrated by his regime on Palestinians in Gaza. Seven supposedly sovereign Caribbean nation-states remained seated: the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. What an unspeakable shame! Why did they sit there? What compels this sort of supine cowardice? Do their complicit actions represent the views of their citizens? Think of Jamaica for a moment, whose Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, has been very cosy with US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio (holding
“talks” with him on the “sidelines” of the February 2026 CARICOM meetings in Basseterre). In early September 2026 the Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment, and Sport, the Honorable Olivia Grange, led the Jamaican delegation to the United Kingdom to petition King Charles to refer legal questions pertaining to the atrocity of the transatlantic slave trade and Britain’s obligations to the descendants of the enslaved to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It was a grand, prideful gesture. And yet, there Jamaica remained, tacitly condoning the genocide of the racist-Zionist state of Israel. Is this hypocrisy? Should anyone take them seriously? Where is the moral principle? Has Jamaica no shame?”

Access the statement on our blog. Link 🔗 https://smallaxe.net/content/1422

09/14/2026

Check out our latest entry on SX blog, “The Revolution, Reconsidered. An Inquest Against the Binary” by Michelle Patiño-Flores.

In this entry, Michelle Patiño-Flores describes the binary consensus surrounding the Cuban Revolution and its consequences, arguing instead for an ethnographically-informed approach capable of recognizing oppressive structures of power within the Cuban state without resorting to “capital domination” as its solution. The full text is available on our blog; link 🔗 https://smallaxe.net/content/1421

We also remind you that our blog accepts submissions on a rolling basis. Submissions should between 700-900 words and should be emailed to: [email protected]

09/10/2026

The abstracts and author bios for our next issue, SX81, are now available on our website, 🔗smallaxe.net!

We culminate our 30 year celebration of the Small Axe Journal with our next issue, SX 81, to be published next month, November 2026.

Take a look at the table of contents, and stay tuned for its release in November!

SX81 will be available online through Duke University Press.

08/27/2026

Event alert 🚨!

The fifth iteration of our Keywords project, centered around “Spirituality,” will be published in Small Axe 81, November 2026. In these essays contributors trace and explore the keyword across the region and from a range of approaches. Join us for a conversation with authors Rose Mary Allen, Claudine Michel, Yanique Hume, Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken, Cécile Accilien, and N. Fadeke Castor!

The conversation will be moderated by Ryan Cecil Jobson and Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, and will take place on Friday, 2 April 2027 at 12:00 - 14:00 EST.

RSVP at https://tinyurl.com/sxspirituality
See you there!

08/24/2026

Congratulations! 🎊

Nathan H. Dize’s essay, “Translating for Future Readers: Glossing Haitian Literature in English Translation?”, published in SX 78, was selected as runner up for the Society of French Studies Malcolm Bowie Prize!

This essay has been made freely available for the next 30 days through Duke University Press; check it out!

Link 🔗: https://read.dukeupress.edu/small-axe/article/29/3%20(78)/115/404652/Translating-for-Future-Readers-Glossing-Haitian

08/17/2026

SX 80 features a discussion of Laëtitia Saint-Loubert’s book “The Caribbean in Translation: Remapping Thresholds of Dislocation.”

The section features essays by Nathan H. Dize and Ryan James Kernan, as well as a response by the author, Laëtitia Saint-Loubert.

The essays are available through Duke University Press; link 🔗 : https://smallaxe.net/sx/issues/80

08/13/2026

New section debut! 🎉

SX80 features the first essay in our new section, “Notes, Commentary, Reflections,” written by Percy C. Hintzen. Titled “Venezuela and the Caribbean: Colonialism on the Cheap or American Decline?,” the essay addresses the 3 January 2026 capture of President Nicolas Maduro and its significance for the Caribbean.

The essay is available digitally through Duke University Press ; link 🔗: https://smallaxe.net/sx/issues/80

08/09/2026

The Visualities section of our latest issue, SX 80, titled “Memories of the Night: The Wanderer’s Awakening” features the work of artist Richard Nattoo (Richard Nattoo), whose work also appears on the cover of this issue.

Check out this visual essay is available through Duke University Press ; link 🔗 https://smallaxe.net/sx/issues/80

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