Miss Caribbean UK 2022 – Trishauna Stewart

In representation of land

Warm greetings, I am Trishauna Stewart, a (diasporic) representative of Jamaica, who currently holds the status of ‘finalist’ in Miss Caribbean UK 2022. I here transmit a trans-national/trans-continental salute to all young women in this movement; a unique scholar-
activist led space of activism. With you in this space I inscribe, in passioned will, the shape of feet planted with you in climate action, resilience, and empowerment.

Whilst movement over(sea), displaced me, in birth, but not in vitality, the young women of the Caribbean have always been located in my thought, with the land, being (majorly) an imaginary yet outlined verity. Through this outline, I have felt climate and studied its changes. These changes have been studied alongside the violence of the colonial productivity of the capture of our environments, and biodiverse ecosystems – new frameworks have been thought. We connect.

I am currently touching the out-moving elements within my core, moving Westward to the Caribbean, whilst still in the United Kingdom. I am here present on the Miss Caribbean UK platform; a platform which was designed to ‘promote’ Caribbean countries in one space,
allowing young women of the (UK) Caribbean to walk in celebration of their heritage. It is a platform which, in my experience, thus, closes the distance between British-Caribbean women and the Caribbean, allowing us to demonstrate a walk which is representative of our
countries of origin.

As a researcher/writer, holding a specialist interest in diaspora and its histories – as well as the multi-paradigmatic and often (sub)stantive processes which inform outspread – there is a fulfilment which has been achieved in this journey, which has allowed me to continue to
experience my diaspora identity whilst fitting within ‘home’ flag. In this practice of fitting within flag, valuable connections have been made with other (diasporic) women of Caribbean heritage/origin. Although a competition, these connections will be modelled on the Miss Caribbean UK 2022 (MCUK 22) stage, which is one which seeks to establish a space for women’s empowerment.

Importantly, in my work, I also create centres of empowerment. Educational empowerment is demonstrated through my education/mentoring service, where I teach youth of Caribbean, African and Asian backgrounds.

Aligning with GirlsCARE’s movement, throughout my MCUK 2022 campaign has submerged me further within the archipelago of Caribbean feminist climate action and gender justice; re(invigorating) upon collective lines of thought the desire to work for land(s), atmosphere’s,
sea(s) and (eco)systems with complete recognition of gender disparities induced by injustice in climate action and resilience. I believe that in this air, the movement towards justice – one that is of a decolonial nature – must be truly collective, involving diaspora communities.

The active, pedagogical, and strategic calibration of new spaces of action thought and theory – where movement upon the frontlines and shorelines of our lands are bequeathed to young power-possessing women and girls in our Caribbean nations/societies – is to-be-reckoned
with.

Further you mirror the essence of the expansion of my thought and true desire to connect and collaborate with young women of the Caribbean and wider Global South community. I will continue to trace patterns of movement, in critique of the conditions of Caribbean
ecologies in its (re)colonial state, with intention to effect the emergence of our complete decolonial now. I, as writer, reader and speaker of the Caribbean, (de)disaggregate, in the quest for unification and the sovereignty of true Caribbean independence in; climate action, resilience, justice, ecosystem protection/preservation, gender equality, policy development, strategic thought, movement in empowerment and the shaping our historical futurity.

In the face of perpetual climate and ecological injustice, as Caribbean women, we will remain grounded.

Forever in solidarity. For the land, not the likes.

Trishauna Stewart