P R O F. R O L A N DT H E C A R I B B E A N I N

P O S T- C O LO N I A L P E R S P E C T I V EA N T H 1 1 1 5

RECITATION #4: RACE, CLASS, GENDER AND CULTURE CHANGE IN JAMAICA

FROM RESPECTABLE PEASANT TO PROGRESSIVE CITIZENRY (Thomas, Brereton/Mintz recap)

• Slave trade ends 1807 in British Caribbean• 1834-1838 abolition of slavery in British Caribbean• Newly emancipated peasants respectable citizens

GENDERED RESPECTABILITY• MEN• Euro-centered ideal:• Responsible workers• Family men

• Caribbean reality:• High unemployment• Extreme poverty • WOMEN

• Euro-centered ideal:• Submissive housewives • Mothers with virtues of

home

• Caribbean reality:• Must work outside the

home to support household

RESPECTABILITY (PER JAMAICA’S JUBILEE)

• 1. Owning a small plot of land in the mountains

• 2. Ability to support family through small-scale agricultural production

• 3. Quiet disposition

• 4. Living simply

BLACK MIDDLE CLASS GROWTH

• Status based in education & adherence to Victorian ideology

• Middle & professional class blacks reproduce & institutionalize European value system

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS?

DANCEHALL CULTURE & REDEFINING “PROGRESS”

• Multiple Meanings of “America”• “Land of Opportunity”

• “Evil empire”• Land of racism• Negative cultural influences

• Consumerism, Individualism, Materialism

• Hegemony & “silent” power

2-WAY CULTURAL EXCHANGE (IF UNEVEN)

• Jamaican influences on US culture (esp. black/Latino)

• Jamaicans re-inscribing American meanings via pop culture• MODERN BLACKNESS:• Contemporary vision of upward

mobility by alternate means to Jamaican middle class

• No long-term transformations in social, political, or economic hierarchies

• RADICAL CONSUMPTION:• Rejection of middle class models of

progress• Creative and liberatory potential

of consumption

UPTOWN LADIES, DOWNTOWN WOMEN (ULYSSE)

• Uptown: Brown & Black professional/elite• “Ladies” & legacy of colonial-

era color hierarchy• Beauty pageants celebrate

“ladies”

• Downtown: Black lower class• “Women”• ICIs and female economic

empowerment

WHEN “LADIES” & “WOMEN” CLASH

• “Stoosh” & “Infradig”• Performance of classed

disapproval & superiority• Attitudes that reinforce

limits of fraternization

• Transcending & reinscribing color-class meanings• ICIs allow lower class

women to redefine self

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS?