Rex Nettleford is a well-known Caribbean scholar, trade union educator, social and cultural historian and political analyst. A former Rhodes Scholar, he is Vice Chancellor Emeritus at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. After taking an undergraduate degree in History at the UWI he pursued post-graduate studies in Politics at Oxford. He is also the founder, artistic director and principal choreographer of the internationally acclaimed National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica and is regarded as a leading Caribbean authority in the performing arts.

Outside of the Caribbean he has served on several international bodies having to do with development and intercultural learning. He was a founding governor of the Canada-based International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and International Trustee of the AFS Intercultural based in the USA and former Chairman of the Commonwealth Arts Organization. He is a director of the London-based News Concern and a former member of the Executive Board of UNESCO. He served as one of the Group of Experts (ILO) monitoring the Implementation of Sanctions and other Actions against Apartheid and as member of the West Indian Commission. He is a member of the Castles and Fort Trust Fund – Ghana (Central Region).

He has served as a consultant on cultural development to UNESCO and OAS and Cultural Advisor to the Government of Jamaica, and is Rappateur of the International Scientific Committee of UNESCO’s Slave Route Project as well as Regional Coordinator for the Caribbean. As an authority on development and cultural dynamics, he has lectured in many countries of the world including the USA, Canada, UK, India, Israel and South Africa. He headed the National Council on Education and has served on numerous other commissions in his native Jamaica.

He is editor of Caribbean Quarterly and the author of “The Rastafarians in Kingston, Jamaica” (with F R Augier and M G Smith); “Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica”; “Manley and the New Jamaica”; “Roots and Rhythms”; “Caribbean Cultural Identity”; “Dance Jamaica: Self-Definition and Artistic Discovery”; “The University of the West Indies: A Caribbean Response to the Challenge of Change” (with Sir Philip Sherlock); and “Inward Stretch, Outward Reach: A Voice from the Caribbean”.

He edited in 1992 a collection of essays entitled “Jamaica in Independence: The Early Years” and has co-edited (with Vera Hyatt) “Race, Discourse and the Origins of the Americas” a publication for the Smithsonian Institution. He has numerous articles published in scholarly journals and is also the author of major national reports on Cultural Policy, Worker Participation, Reform of Government Structure in Jamaica and National Symbols and National Observances.

He is the recipient of the high national honour of Order of Merit, the Gold Musgrave Medal (from the Institute of Jamaica), the Living Legend Award (Black Arts Festival, Atlanta, USA), the Pelican Award (of the UWI Guild of Graduates), the Zora Neale Hurston-Paul Robeson Award (from the National Council for Black Studies, USA), the Pinnacle Award from the National Coalition on Caribbean Affairs (NCOCA), the Second Annual Honor Award from the Jamaican-American Chamber of Commerce in 1999, and was made a fellow of the Institute of Jamaica in 1991.