Peter Espeut | A life that made a difference

Every week at the bottom of this column I associate myself with the tradition guiding my thoughts. Most often I identify as “a sociologist and development scientist” because of my recent studies, although I am trained in other disciplines. But today, I want to pay tribute to one of my mentors at whose funeral I assisted last week.

Patricia Yvonne Anderson (1944-2024) attended Alpha Academy and excelled! She was valedictorian in her year, and was deeply influenced by those early experiences. Like most of us, Pat was disturbed by the deep inequalities she saw in her country, and decided she wanted to make a difference – to make things better for the poor in this country. She decided to study sociology.

She did her undergraduate work at Mona, and chose to do her doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, where she was a contemporary of three others who also had a profound impact on me: Don Robotham, who introduced me to sociology and anthropology; Derek Gordon, who taught me social research methods and, in fact, hired me as his research assistant; and Diane Austin-Broos, the most insightful sociologist of (Jamaican) religion I have come across.

Pat was a demographer – a head counter, a psephologist. She began her career at the National Planning Agency – today called the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) – where she was a major influence.

At her funeral last week Dr Omar Davies recalled: “during my tenure as Director General of the PIOJ, I initiated collaboration between a team from the World Bank and a Jamaican group, headed by Pat and including the late Dr Derek Gordon and Dr Michael Witter. The Survey of Living Conditions (SLC) was a major output of that collaborative effort.

I should indicate that the World Bank officials were initially reluctant to agree to a joint effort between the Washington-based researchers and the Jamaican team which we had assembled, as they were not certain that the local researchers possessed the ‘appropriate level’ of training. In response, I informed the senior World Bank official that I had a similar misgiving about the World Bank’s team being able to match wits with Prof Anderson and Dr Gordon (PhDs from the University of Chicago) and Dr Witter (PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison)”.

I was honoured to work in a very junior way on that project with both Pat and Derek.

POVERTY INDEX

The poverty index for Jamaica was derived from the Survey of Living Conditions and this quantitative analysis provided a basis for the development of the Food Stamp Programme and the PATH Programme. This poverty index allowed for the development of criteria to identify households and individuals across Jamaica deserving of support from the State. Consequently, the possibility of bias or arbitrary selection was diminished given the objective data sets derived from the Survey of Living Conditions.

Dr Anderson – now Professor Anderson – was appointed head of the department of sociology, psychology and social work at the University of the West Indies (UWI), and led the development of the Social Policy and Development major with the accompanying new courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Her work has already influenced the training and development of a generation of social policy professionals and development practitioners who have worked at the UWI, PIOJ and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), and who have staffed government ministries across the Caribbean and elsewhere. The programmes and courses she developed are still being taught, and she leaves a legacy which will influence generations to come.

While she was head, the Centre for Population, Community and Social Change was established through which the Social Work Unit’s Caribbean Internship Programme took flight. She expanded the work of her friend and colleague Derek Gordon in computer-based statistical analysis, and she established a computer lab in his honour. Along with Prof Don Robotham she established the Human Resource Development (HRD) Unit, which today produces some of the finest HRD and Organisational Behaviour specialists in the region.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

While Pat’s primary focus during her period at the Department of Sociology was labour market analysis (using UWI’s mainframe computer I processed a lot of data for her using the STATIN Labour Force Surveys), her research interests were much wider. She led the research team which carried out a comprehensive analysis of the chaotic urban transportation system in the Kingston Metropolitan Region (KMR), which had resulted from the prevailing liberalisation doctrine of the multilaterals in the 1980s. The output was a research piece called Minibus Ride. It still remains the most comprehensive assessment of the resulting chaos from which the public transportation system in the KMR has never fully recovered. Pat’s consistent concern was to identify those issues which affected the ability of ordinary citizens to live with some level of decency under challenging economic circumstances.

Pat’s latest interest, in recent years, has been in fatherhood and masculinity. Using research output from Prof Barry Chevannes (another of my friends and mentors) as her starting point, she has sought to identify a more precise measure of masculinity as it impacts Jamaican society. Some feel that she produced her most significant work – Masculinity and Fathering in Jamaica – after her official retirement. That book will influence generations of academics to come, and hopefully will lead to lasting social change.

But after all is said and done, Pat was a generous human being who cared for others. She has mentored many – including myself – and helped us to be better people and better social scientists.

Never one to draw too much attention to herself, there are too few who know of her sterling contribution to human and social development in this country and this region. I am proud to have known her and studied at her feet. I will dedicate the Research Methods Course I will teach next semester to herself and Derek.

Well done, good and faithful servant! You have lived the motto of your alma mater, Ad Verum et Bonum.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com