1. PROF. ROLAND THE CARIBBEAN IN POST-COLONIAL PERSPECTIVE ANTH 1115 RECITATION #4: RACE, CLASS, GENDER AND CULTURE CHANGE IN JAMAICA

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. BLACK MIDDLE CLASS GROWTH Status based in education & adherence to Victorian ideology Middle & professional class blacks reproduce & institutionalize European value system

6. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS?

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS?