Renee Davy is a PhD candidate in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University and a first-time BILD blogger.

This week’s blog post includes a linked audio file. Just click on the link below if you would like to hear the post read aloud. Scroll down to read the text.

In the opening of Tuck’s (2009) article, she recounts a popular story from her childhood. Inspired by her approach, I highlight a legendary character from stories in Jamaican and Caribbean folklore: Anansi. Originating in West Africa and brought to the Caribbean by slaves, Anansi, the trickster spider, appears in numerous stories as the main character. He is renowned for his mischief, cunning reputation and his ability to outsmart even the sharpest minds. So much so, that the term Anansi is now used in everyday speech to refer to someone who is a trickster and even inspiring the term Anansi-ism in scholarly literature to refer to trickery in people or systems.

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