When Antonio wrote to me about Connie’s death I was saddened to lose a cherished friend and colleague in Caribbean Studies. But I was also reminded of the enjoyable times I had spent in Connie’s good company. I first met Connie through her close friend Helen Safa that I had come to know at the mid-decade UN conference on women, which was held in Copenhagen during the summer of 1980. When I met Connie in the company of Helen at the AAA conference in the fall, they invited me to join them as they went out together for a great meal and animated discussions about feminist issues in anthropology and returned to the hotel for a night cap of good Caribbean rum. Over the years I maintained contact with Connie as we met at AAA meetings, on trips to New York and during her visit in Denmark where she lectured at the Anthropology Department at the University of Copenhagen. I came to value her tremendously as an intellectually astute, energetic, generous and hospitable person. She was justly proud of the many outstanding anthropologists whose careers she had helped propel, but she also made important contributions to anthropology herself within the areas of Caribbean Studies, the anthropology of women and migration research. I am grateful for having been part of her “family” of anthropologists who benefited from her help, advice and stimulating conversations about academic as well as political issues. She was a warm, uncompromising and committed anthropologist who could only be admired as a role model for future generations within the discipline.
Karen Fog Olwig, University of Copenhagen