scholarly journals Mervyn Morris, Miss Lou – Louise Bennett and Jamaican Culture

Miranda ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Doumerc
Keyword(s):  
Jamaican Culture ◽  
Louise Bennett

The politics of representing the African diaspora in the Caribbean

1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 301-308
Author(s):  
Kevin A. Yelvington
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
Defining Moment ◽  
Caribbean Culture ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Jamaican Culture ◽  
The Way

[First paragraph]Roots of Jamaican Culture. MERVYN C. ALLEYNE. London: Pluto Press, 1988. xii + 186 pp. (Paper US$ 15.95)Guinea's Other Suns: The African Dynamic in Trinidad Culture. MAUREEN WARNER-LEWIS. Foreword by Rex Nettleford. Dover MA: The Majority Press, 1991. xxii + 207 pp. (Paper US$ 9.95)A recent trend in anthropology is defined by the interest in the role of historical and political configurations in the constitution of local cultural practices. Unfortunately, with some notable individual exceptions, this is the same anthropology which has largely ignored the Caribbean and its "Islands of History."1 Of course, this says much, much more about the way in which anthropology constructs its subject than it says about the merits of the Caribbean case and the fundamental essence of these societies, born as they were in the unforgiving and defining moment of pervasive, persuasive, and pernicious European construction of "Otherness." As Trouillot (1992:22) writes, "Whereas anthropology prefers 'pre-contact' situations - or creates 'no-contact' situations - the Caribbean is nothing but contact." If the anthropological fiction of pristine societies, uninfluenced and uncontaminated by "outside" and more powerful structures and cultures cannot be supported for the Caribbean, then many anthropologists do one or both of the two anthropologically next best things: they take us on a journey that finds us exploding the "no-contact" myth over and over (I think it is called "strawpersonism"), suddenly discovering political economy, history, and colonialism, and/or they end up constructing the "pristine" anyway by emphasizing those parts of a diaspora group's pre-Caribbean culture that are thought to remain as cultural "survivals."

“C’mon, Get Happy”: The Commodification of Linguistic Stereotypes in a Volkswagen Super Bowl Commercial

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiuana Lopez ◽  
Lars Hinrichs
Keyword(s):  
Primary Objective ◽  
Super Bowl ◽  
Linguistic Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
American Television ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Racial Lines ◽  
Jamaican Culture ◽  
Jamaican Creole ◽  
Selection Of

This article examines a national Volkswagen commercial, broadcast on American television during the 2013 Super Bowl, and the intense public debate that met it. It shows a cheerful European American owner of a 2013 Volkswagen Beetle, who despite being from Minnesota speaks in a Jamaican Creole (JC) accent with features of Rastafarian speech. The focus of analysis is the linguistic performance of the JC as well as the linguistic reception by American and Jamaican audience members. The linguistic analysis reveals that the primary objective in how the character uses forms of JC is not linguistic authenticity, but simply to index Jamaican culture and identity through selective feature use. Our discourse analysis of the ad’s reception shows that linguistic ideologies, including ideas about what constitutes linguistic racism, vary widely among American viewers and are generally divided along racial lines. On the other hand, Jamaican viewers were found to have a more homogenous perspective. We conclude that the selection of non-local racialized stereotypes as the target of cross-racial stylization practices complicate, but do not eliminate, modern types of linguistic minstrelsy.

Humbling the human: Posthuman explorations in contemporary short fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elke D’hoker
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
Species Extinction ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Louise Bennett ◽  
Being And Becoming

In a context of manmade global warming, ecological destruction and species extinction, posthumanist scholars have advocated moving beyond the anthropocentrism that determines western thinking in favour of an embedded and embodied interspecies relationality. If these remain fairly abstract notions in the work of critics such as Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti, contemporary short fiction provides many interesting examples of these alternative forms of being and becoming. The short story seems especially suited to exploring this decentring of the human subject, given its own status as a liminal, ‘minor’ or ‘humble’ genre and its long tradition of exploring human–animal relations in animal stories. This article demonstrates how contemporary short stories by Lauren Groff, Claire-Louise Bennett, Sarah Hall, Sara Baume and Louise Ehrdrich stage a profoundly biocentric perspective by moving beyond animal stories’ traditional modes of the fabular and the figural towards a realistic depiction of our creaturely existence in experiences that may be at once empowering and terrifying.

scholarly journals JAMAICAN TAÍNO SETTLEMENT CONFIGURATION AT THE TIME OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
David V. Burley ◽  
Robyn P. Woodward ◽  
Shea Henry ◽  
Ivor C. Conolley
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Archaeological Excavation ◽  
Christopher Columbus ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
The People ◽  
Culture History ◽  
Small House ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Limestone Rock ◽  
Jamaican Culture

Stranded in Jamaica for a year in AD 1503, Christopher Columbus and crew became reliant on the Taíno village of Maima for provisions. Recent archaeological survey and excavations at this site document a sizeable hillside settlement established early in the White Marl period of Jamaican culture history with continued occupation up to Spanish contact. Beginning by 13th to 14th century AD, the people at Maima expanded their settlement capacity across the hillslope through construction of house terraces and platforms employing large volumes of limestone rock and gravel fill. Archaeological excavation on these features has exposed at least one circular, center-pole Taíno house with a surprisingly limited floor space. A review of Jamaican archaeology suggests both hillside terracing and small house form is characteristic of Jamaican Taíno village configuration more broadly. This pattern stands in contrast to other areas of Taíno settlement in the Caribbean, and to the small number of Spanish chronicles in which Taíno villages and houses are described.

scholarly journals Identity, Cultural Transnationalism and Second Generation Jamaicans in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serron Thomas ◽  
Vappu Tyyskä
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
Canadian Identity ◽  
Greater Toronto Area ◽  
Jamaican Culture ◽  
The Impact

This study researches the impact that cultural transnationalism has on the identity of second generation Jamaicans in the Greater Toronto Area. Through a focus group interview, five participants provided responses to questions which identified (i) the components of cultural transnationalism in the Jamaican community, and (ii) how second generation Jamaicans create their identity between their Jamaican ancestry and Canadian nationality. The participants were asked about their relationship to Jamaican culture, Canadian identity, and their sense of belonging to both societies. Other themes which emerged from the data such as cultural values, exclusion and survival in Canadian society were also discussed. The results showed that the second generation is prone to developing a hybrid identity which includes aspects of their national and cultural identity. To explain this phenomenon, I applied the research of Tajfel (1974) and Stryker (1980) which discuss the identity theory and social identity theory, respectively.

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