The Globalization of Rastafari

The Globalization VOL 7 | 2008 of RASTAFARI ISSN 0799 1401 • Ian Boxill editor With an Introduction by Richard Salter The Globalization of Rastafari © I D E A Z Special Issue: Vol 7 • 2008 ISSN 0799 1401 www.ideaz-institute.com Published by A r a w a k publications • Kingston, Jamaica Page & cover design / composition by Annika Lewinson-Morgan C O N T E N T S Editor’s Note | Ian Boxill — v 1. Rastafari in Global Context: An introduction | Richard C. Salter — 1 2. Rastafari in a Global Context: Affinities of ‘Orthognosy’ and ‘Oneness’ in the Expanding World | Richard Salter — 10 3. A Voice from Cuba: Conceptual and Practical Difficulties with Studying Rastafari | Samuel Furé Davis — 28 4. Interview with Mutabaruka | (by Richard Salter) — 41 5. Globalization and Rastafari Identity in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil | Jan DeCosmo — 52 6. The Lantern and the Light: Rastafari in Aotearoa (New Zealand) | Edward Te Kohu Douglas & Ian Boxill — 70 7. The Globalization of the Rastafari Movement from a Jamaican Diasporic Perspective | Michael Barnett — 98 8. Medicated Ganja and Rasta Rituals: Allies in a Global Battle | Samuel Murrell — 115 9. Rastafari and Paulo Freire: Religion, Democracy, and the New World Order | Leslie James — 138 10. Journeying towards Mount Zion: Changing Representations of Womanhood in Popular Music, Performance Poetry, and Novels by Rastafarian Women | Loretta Collins Klobah — 158 Contributor Affiliation and Research Focus — 197 iii EDITORIAL Editorial his special issue on the ‘Globalization of Rastafari’ has been T long in the making. The articles were originally written for a book and then a journal, many years ago. Only two of the original articles are excluded from this issue. We have decided to publish this issue because of the path-breaking nature of many of the articles and the importance of Rastafari as a social and political phenomenon. Rastafari cultural practices are now part of global culture. Rastafari ideas have become part of resistance movements the world over and are no longer seen as strange or threatening to many of those who were once unfamiliar or critical of them. In other words, Rastafari, as a social movement or as part of popular expression, is no longer as peripheral as it appeared only a few decades ago. Many aspects of Rastafari philosophy are now part of our everyday lives. For this publication, we have kept the original Introduction by Richard Salter. Although Michael Barnett’s piece was not part of the original collection, it adds an important dimension of the Rastafari movement since, as he puts it, he focuses on the “globalization of the Rastafari movement as an outcome of the major migration waves of Jamaicans to England and North America in the fifties and the sixties respectively, as opposed to the more popular perspective that the movement was globalized through reggae music and the emergence of reggae’s first international Superstar, Bob Marley.” Historically, migration has been one of the most powerful tools of cultural transfer for many Caribbean countries. It seems reasonable then for aspects of Rastafari philosophy and practice to accompany waves of Jamaican migration to the Americas and Europe during the 20th century. The Globalization of Rastafari is our largest volume yet. We are truly excited about the uniqueness and the breadth and depth of the articles in this collection. We hope that you will share our fascination Dept of Sociology, Psychology & Social Work Dept of Sociology, IDEAZ Vol. 7 • 2008 ISSN 0799 1401 IDEAZ Vol. Indies,© University of the West v vi • Editorial and excitement when reading this issue. Thanks to the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work, University of the West Indies, Mona for financing this special issue. Ian Boxill Editor RASTAFARI in Global Context: An Introduction RICHA R D C. SALTE R R.C. Salter he articles in this issue had their origins in 1998 with the T Rastafari in Global Context Seminar of the Academy of American Religion (AAR). The seminar met annually for three years, with a dozen or so active participants who discussed issues and presented papers relating to the global context of Rastafari. We were an eclectic and interdisciplinary group, coming from fields as far ranging as religious studies, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, theology and literature. We were also an inclusive group, inviting onlookers and other interested parties to our meetings, and doing our best (but in the end failing) to also include Rastafari voices in our discussions. The Rastafari elder, Mortimo Planno, for example, agreed to attend, and was even offered a stipend by the AAR to offset costs, but was continually denied a visa by the US government. Over the course of time some participants in the seminar dropped out, and others, who had planned to publish papers with us, published elsewhere because they were working with especially time-sensitive data. Our hope is that these articles might serve as groundwork for additional research on Rastafari’s global context, including specifically additional ethnographic work on the forms Rastafari takes in various communities worldwide, an increased emphasis on the dynamics and change within Rastafari as it continues to grow, and an increased self-awareness by scholars of Rastafari of how Rastafari’s global context might reshape methodology. It is tempting to say that by placing Rastafari in a global context this issue of IDEAZ raises exciting new questions that have been precipitated by the rapid growth of the movement and its seemingly recent spread beyond Jamaica in the last twenty-five years. On the contrary, questions about Rastafari in its global context are less a set of new questions than a set of largely unexplored questions, for the context of Rastafari has always been global, and must be understood as such if we are to appreciate the movement’s complex origins, diverse forms and potential impact. All too often in the past the Dept of Sociology, Psychology & Social Work Dept of Sociology, IDEAZ Vol. 7 • 2008 ISSN 0799 1401 IDEAZ Vol. Indies,© University of the West movement has been seen solely as a manifestation or revitalization 1 2 • R.C. Salter of local religious nativism. The articles in this special issue of IDEAZ focus most particularly on the latter two concerns: first, how does the global context of Rastafari affect the dynamics of the movement and the forms the movement takes? Second, how do we understand the potential impact of Rastafari on the larger world when we view it in a global light? A third question, corollary to the first two and central to our task as scholars of Rastafari, is how a global view of Rastafari changes the methodology of Rastafari scholarship and the fundamental relationship of the Rastafari movement to academic scholarship. If the articles in this issue can sharpen and clarify these questions so that they will be de rigueur in future considerations of the Rastafari movement, they will have served their task well. As an introduction to our questions, it is important to quickly lay out why the global context has always been important for Rastafari and why narrower views of the movement may have misconstrued it by only viewing it in local context. Three historical observations make the point: the Caribbean region in general has been inextricable from the global context since Columbus’ first voyage;A fro-Caribbean religions (and Rastafari in particular) have always been woven out of a global context and considered a global context as part of their worldviews; and Rastafari founders, early leaders, and current participants were and continue to be intentional participants in and products of a global context. THE GLOBAL CARIBBEAN Long before the term ‘globalization’ became overused, scholars of the Caribbean recognized the region’s complex global origins. Since the time of Columbus’ arrival the Caribbean has never been isolated; scholars of globalization may speak of an emerging sense of a shrinking world, but the Caribbean has always existed in a ‘small world’. As colonies, the territories were pawns in competing European economic and military battles. It does not matter whether we characterize the relationships of the territories to their colonial masters in terms of politics, economics or worldviews, the practical upshot of the Caribbean situation was a fate that tied the region to the broader world and a consciousness that was always aware of other regions of the world. Politically speaking, the fate of the colony was never just a matter of ‘periphery’ and ‘center’, but rather also of relationships to various ‘centers’ which were always located somewhere other Rastafari in Global Context: An Introduction • 3 than the Caribbean. In the early years these ‘centers’ would have included colonizing countries such as Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Later they would also include the geopolitical ‘centers’ of the United States and USSR. In terms of economics, the wealth and prosperity of the region have never depended on internal markets, but always on global markets, global tariff and trade agreements, and the global economic viability of successive monocrop cultures. For those who speak of ‘globalization’ in terms of creeping industrialization or rationalization of production, it is worth remembering that the estate and plantation systems were the first proto-industries, always systematized to make the best use of slave labour and rationalized to the end of producing greater wealth for owners. As slavery disappeared, monocrop cultures continued. In some territories it was ‘king sugar’, coffee, or limes, while on others it may have been bananas or nutmeg, but in each case the territories were inextricably linked to a demand produced externally and foreign markets. Later industries also focused on producing raw materials, like petroleum or bauxite, and selling them on unstable world markets.

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