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An ethnographic study of cultural policy in Jamaica as seen from above and below in relation to race, class, and nation
FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description
Modern Blackness is a rich ethnographic exploration of Jamaican identity in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Analyzing nationalism, popular culture, and political economy in relation to one another, Deborah A. Thomas illuminates an ongoing struggle in Jamaica between the values associated with the postcolonial state and those generated in and through popular culture. Following independence in 1962, cultural and political policy in Jamaica was geared toward the development of a universal creole nationalism reflected in the country's motto: "Out of many, one people." As Thomas shows, by the late 1990s, creole nationalism was superceded by "modern blackness"--an urban blackness rooted in youth culture and influenced by African American popular culture. Expressions of blackness that had been marginalized in national cultural policy became paramount in contemporary understandings of what it is to be Jamaican. Thomas combines historical research with fieldwork she conducted in Jamaica between 1993 and 2003.She situates contemporary struggles over Jamaican identity in relation to late-nineteenth and early- to mid-twentieth century nationalists, scholars, and cultural activists; their visions of progress and development; and their efforts to formulate and institutionalize cultural policy.Drawing on her research in a rural hillside community just outside Kingston, she looks at how nationalist policies and popular ideologies about progress have been interpreted and reproduced or transformed on the local level. She chronicles the strategies poorer community members have used to advance their interests and discusses how these strategies are represented in popular culture. With detailed descriptions of daily life in Jamaica set against a backdrop of postcolonial nation-building and neo-liberal globalization, Modern Blackness is an important examination of the competing identities that mobilize Jamaicans locally and represent them internationally. Deborah A. Thomas is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University.
Notes
An ethnographic study of cultural policy in Jamaica as seen from above and below in relation to race, class, and nation
Back Cover
"In its critique of creole respectability,Modern Blacknesschallenges established views of Jamaican nationalism and the nation-state. Deborah A. Thomas argues that the young and black who live in Kingston have forged social values and transnational links that reflect their disillusion with education and aspirations to the middle class. She confronts the reader with the reality of life among the 'lower sets' and provides a provocative agenda for rethinking blackness."-Diane Austin-Broos, author ofJamaica Genesis: Religion and the Politics of Moral Orders
Author Biography
Deborah A. Thomas is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiIntroduction: "Out of Many, One (Black) People" 1Part 1: The Global-National 271. The "Problem" of Nationalism in the British West Indies; or, "What We Are and What We Hope to Be" 292. Political Economies of Culture 58Part II: The National-Local 933. Strangers and Friends 954. Institutionalizing (Racialized) Progress 1305. Emancipating the Nation (Again) 158Part III: The Local-Global 1936. Political Economies of Modernity 1957. Modern Blackness; or, Theoretical "Tripping" on Black Vernacular Cultures 230Conclusion: The Remix 263Epilogue 271Notes 279Bibliography 311Index 341
Review
" ... Modern Blackness is an exploration of the counterculture that has come to dominate Jamaica's national identity--despite what anybody in authority asserts."--Times Literary Supplement 1 July 2005 " ... Jamaica-born Thomas presents compelling, multi-layered arguments about the significant shift in conceptualizations of Jamaican national identity over the four decades-plus since independence."--SHE CARIBBEAN, Nov 2007
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An ethnographic study of cultural policy in Jamaica as seen from above and below in relation to race, class, and nation
Review Quote
" Modern Blackness is an important book. It is well written, it puts forth a creative theoretical apparatus, and it displays Deborah A. Thomas's keen ethnographic eye. It is on a topic of extreme importance to the discipline of anthropology as well as to African diaspora and Caribbean and Latin American studies, engaging as it does some of the effects of neoliberalism and structural adjustment in today's world."-Kevin A. Yelvington, author of Producing Power: Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in a Caribbean Workplace
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An ethnographic study of cultural policy in Jamaica as seen from above and below in relation to race, class, and nation
Details ISBN0822334194 Author Deborah A. Thomas Pages 376 Language English ISBN-10 0822334194 ISBN-13 9780822334194 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2004 Imprint Duke University Press Subtitle Nationalism, Globalization, and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica Place of Publication North Carolina Country of Publication United States Short Title MODERN BLACKNESS Publisher Duke University Press Birth 1966 DOI 10.1604/9780822334194 Edited by Silverblatt, Irene UK Release Date 2004-11-29 AU Release Date 2004-11-29 NZ Release Date 2004-11-29 US Release Date 2004-11-29 Series Latin America Otherwise Publication Date 2004-11-29 DEWEY 306.097292 Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this
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