Jamaican Culture and Society

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Jamaican Culture and Society

I. Introduction- Retracing the Remnants of Colonialism:

When discussing and analyzing contemporary Caribbean culture one must not fail to acknowledge the dreadful legacies of colonialism and imperialism. Contemporary Caribbean society, politics, and economics thinly veil the ramifications of a colonial and hegemonic past. Due to the remnants of colonial institutions such as slavery and the plantation system, the Caribbean has experienced a range of negative societal effects, namely the consolidation of a unifying cultural identity. The demise of colonialism in the Caribbean did not mark the end of social stratification based on racial and ethnic divisions. The prevailing racial distinctions and hierarchy that characterized colonialism via the institution of slavery have historically thwarted any systematic attempt to create a distinct national cultural identity. Thus, this study of the Jamaican culture and society will intimately relate racial ideologies and social class structures in order to illustrate the dynamics of the Jamaican cultural identity crisis.

II. The Emergence and Implications of a Social Caste System:

The post-colonial period in the Caribbean posed the challenge of creating nation states with thriving societies that would meet the desires and destinies of their inhabitants. Jamaica, which recently attained its independence from Great Britain in 1962, was indeed no exception to this challenge. In fact, Jamaica, like many of its Caribbean counterparts, "had an inordinate difficulty in creating and maintaining a strong, cohesive national sensibility" (Knight, 307). The difficulty of creating a cohesive national identity initially emerged in the post-emancipation period in J...

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...liography-

Excerpts taken from: Michelle Cliff’s essay, "If I Could Write This With Fire."

Henriques, Fernando. Jamaica: Land of Wood and Water. Maggibbon & Kee: London. 1957

Knight, Franklin. The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism. Oxford University Press: New York, 1990.

Lawson, Winston Arthur. Religion and Race: African and European Roots in Conflict- A Jamaican Testament. Peter Lang Publishing: New York, 1996.

Morris, Mervyn. "Making West Indian Literature" University of the West Indies 2013. Web 9 May 2015.

http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1280&context=anthurium

Nettleford, Rex. Caribbean Cultural Identity: The case of Jamaica- An Essay in Cultural Dynamics. UCLA Publications: Los Angeles.

Nettleford, Rex. Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica. William Morrow & Company: New York, 1972.

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