Resilience and the creative economy in Kingston, Jamaica

ABSTRACT

Creative industries are understood as key to Jamaica’s resilience. Development initiatives encourage Jamaicans to recall historical resilience in the face of slavery and colonization in order to construct contemporary neoliberal-led development goals focused on creative practice. This paper asks what tensions, contradictions and erasures are made visible when grounding resilience in context specific sites? What are the implications of framing historical forms of resilience grounded in slavery and colonialism as commensurable with those traits that define the resilient subject of neoliberal development? And, what meanings of resilience are evident when local communities are confronted with a state apparatus that contributes to insecurity and attempts to discipline the celebratory and creative livelihoods made available through creative practice?

KEYWORDS:

• Creative economy
• resilience
• Jamaica
• development

Acknowledgements

I am incredibly grateful to Dia Da Costa, Alex Da Costa, Erin MacLeod, and Susan Cahill for their generous and thoughtful feedback on earlier versions of this work. Thanks to Afifa Aza for the many conversations surrounding resilience. As well, thank you to: Dia Da Costa and Alex Da Costa for organizing the Reimagining Creative Economy workshop at the University of Alberta; the participants for their feedback on my work; and to Timothy Pearson for his editorial assistance. This article is based on research and development of ideas from my Social Science and Research Council of Canada funded doctoral dissertation, Cultural Politics of Resilience in Kingston, Jamaica.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Meaghan Frauts holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from Queen’s University. Her work has appeared in Studies in Social Justice, Globalization Working Papers, University Affairs and Rabble.ca. She can be reached at [email protected].

Notes

1. I am grateful to Dr. Erin MacLeod (2017) and her playlist, ‘Rae Town Memories Vol.1,’ which helped me fill in these details.

2. Stolzoff (2010) briefly touches on colonial law that regulated noise. See page 29.

3. ‘Brand Jamaica’ is how Jamaica identifies itself globally. Rather than ‘Brand Jamaica,’ some have called it ‘Jamaican Identity.’ See Paul (2015).

4. This is one of the goals of Jamaica’s development policy, Vision 2030. See page VIII.

5. Hartman (2007) writes:

If slavery persists as an issue in the political life of black Americans, it is not because of an antiquarian obsession with bygone days or the burden of a too-long memory, but because black lives are still imperilled and devalued by a racial calculus and political arithmetic that were entrenched centuries ago. This is the afterlife of slavery—skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration and impoverishment. (p. 6)

6. It should be noted that the Jamaican government is working on a new cultural policy.

7. Free Villages were communities established during emancipation by former enslaved poplations or ‘freedmen’ who purchased land from either plantations directly or through missionary churches. Free Villages were built on land that had been taken from indigenous people and were subsequently ‘claimed’ by colonists and plantation owners. These communities are significantly different than Maroon communities, which were made up of those who had escaped enslavement.

8. Reverse colonization is partially a reference to Jamaican poet Louise Bennett’s poem, Colonization in Reverse (1966). In describing reverse colonization, my informant defined it in the following way: ‘a way to show the worth and power of our culture, especially in comparison to that of our former colonizers. This is part and parcel of the national branding project’ (006, interview, 2014).

9. Regarding Cairo, Elyachar (2005, p. 214) writes,

the market is not a technical instrument that can be put to use for the benefit of all. Expansion of the neoliberal market is not the application of an instrument or model that has been scientifically proven to work best. […] The expansion of the neoliberal market is much more than the selling of an economic device. It is a political project par excellence; it is a massive exercise of power aiming at no less than creating a world—the whole world—in the image of neoliberalism.’

For critical development scholarship on empowerment through markets, microfinance, and entrepreneurship see Elyachar (2005); Elyachar (2002); Roy (2010); Karim (2014).

10. Defining dancehall culture is difficult because the term speaks simultaneously to a genre of music, a space, a type of dance, and a style. Dances can be informal, free of cost, in neighbourhoods, or in sports stadiums with security and million-dollar sponsorships. Dancing and other forms of entertainment have been known to reinforce colonial and imperial power, however, dancehall culture is also considered a form of resistance from the margins. Often any number of these attributes occurs simultaneously. This multiplicity highlights dancehall’s complexity and contradictions, and broadens the term to include various meanings, rituals, acts, and histories. As such, it might be useful to think of dancehall as rhizomatic where multiple understandings exist concurrently.

11. For excellent histories of dancehall see Stanley Niaah (2010) and Stolzoff (2000).

12. See for example, Rodney (1983), Rist (2002), and Mitchell (2002).

13. As C.LR. James (1963, pp.15–16) points out, suicide among enslaved blacks was common and death meant a release from enslavement.

14. Vincent Brown (2008) also discusses the ways Africans had to constantly form and re-form social bonds and connections in captivity, even prior to making it to Jamaica or the rest of the Americas. This continual adaptation to the unknown and loss, or ‘spiritual cataclysm,’ as Brown (2008, p. 43) writes, was ‘perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the experience of enslavement.’

15. Stone Love is, among many things, a sound system and a venue. Its headquarters in Kingston/St.Andrew is where the dance Weddy Weddy Wednesdays is held. This is where I spoke with one of the vendors.

16. Stanley Niaah (2010) also discusses the noise abatement act and the necessity of zones to prevent clashes between communities and police. She argues that there needs to be a shift from policing to policymaking in order to resolve concerns with dance lock-offs (p. 66). I am in no position to offer a solution; however, I do question the policymaking aspect now that one has been tabled.

17. For expert analysis on dancehall see Cooper (2004), Hope (2006), and Stanley Niaah (2010).

18. For more on policing and dancehall, including the police raid referenced in Banton’s song, see Stanley Niaah (2010).

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on the work in my Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded doctoral dissertation.