For final exam: Have outline in your head

No writing on your hands

When you get to the exam, write everything in your head on the first page of the booklet

Dancehall summary
1970s was a period of social unrest and political turmoil in many parts of the world
Due to falling prices of oil and other social unrests around labor movement
1970s was when we had black power movement, etc.
1968 student revolutions around politics all over Europe and US
Jamaica is also feeling this unrest dealing with IMF
Jamaicas independence is in 1962, very close to these movements
What kind of political/economic systems would you have? Jamaicans questioned
Jamaica had to decide where is the role of race and the role of African and the role
of Europe in the way we define ourselves as an independent country.
No longer need to enforce European epistemology, but what do you replace it with?
Jamaica emphasized Afro-Caribbean parts of their culture as a way to find a new
post-colonial identity, that can be a contrasts to the colonial identity imposed on
them by Europe
One African/black influence was Reggae
Reggae was a denigrated art form
Reggae comes out of the 30s/40s/50s
Failure of economic/political vision of left-leaning politicians and policies, under the
weight and obligation to borrow from IMF and other organizations
The 1980s sees Jamaicans being in a more conservative mood and culture becomes
transformed
Rise of a popular commercial music thats a derivative of Reggae (Reggaes cousin:
Dancehall)
Called Dancehall because this music concentrates on a rejection of these ideas of
respectability that are dictated by the dominant bourgeois Euro colonial
epistemology, seen as a contrast to respectability
Raw(Frank) lyrics about sexuality, body, movement of the body, and the sartorial
(clothing) elements of the body, and making this contrary to patriarchy by using
women to reject these Euro colonial ideals of respectability.

They dont necessarily have the education/financial abilities to dress quiet and
subdued, and get the education to get the respectability that comes out of Euro
colonial epistemology
Poke patriarchy and Euro colonial respectability in the eye and come up with their
own system.
Peter Wilson-Crab Antics: Ethnography of social leveling (when crabs try to pull
themselves out of the bucket, they push others down)
Theres a debate that Reggae has a very explicit political critique to it. Lyrics very
clearly support world peace, etc.
Scholars, artists, and political commentators say that Unlike Reggae, Dancehall is
not political and doesnt deal with any philosophical questions. Emphasizes aspects
of daily lives with racy lyrics about sexual ability, very individual experience
focused. Doesnt criticize larger structures of power relations that are much larger
than an individuals experience with sexual relations, or whatever.
However, other people argue the opposite and say that Dancehall is in fact still
political commentary, because its still dealing with power relations. Just because
you focus on the micro level of the individual of sex, money, work, etc. doesnt
make something not political because you are still focusing on power, and the focus
on power is necessarily a political engagement.
Much of the homophobia in early dancehall is not healthy political critique that goes
quite as far as One Love
What is resistance and how much creativity is allowed to still meet the definition of
resistance? Is it liberating for women, particularly poor women, or does it replicate
patriarchy?
Terrible exploitation, but creative resistance. Painful cornucopia and cradle
hammock.
What is the measure of transgression that we can estimate?
Visibility is important because it makes identity visible. LGBTQ Caribbean identity is
too narrow according to publishers. Who determines whats too narrow?