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Queer Marronage in the Jamaican Dancehall

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Queer Marronage in the Jamaican Dancehall WAH EYE NUH SEE HEART NUH LEAP: QUEER MARRONAGE IN THE JAMAICAN DANCEHALL by Carla Kathleen Martina Moore A thesis submitted to the Department of Gender Studies In conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (January, 2014) Copyright © Carla Kathleen Martina Moore, 2014 Abstract This thesis explores the interweaving of colonial and post-colonial British and Jamaican Laws and the interpretive legalities of sexuality, compulsory heterosexuality, and queerness. The research project begins by exploring the ways in which the gendered colonial law produces black sexualities as excessive and in need of discipline while also noticing how Caribbean peoples negotiate and subvert these legalities. The work then turns to dancehall and its enmeshment with landscape (which reflects theatre-in-the round and African spiritual ceremonies), psycho scape (which retains African uses of marronage and pageantry as personhood), and musicscape (which deploys homophobia to demand heterosexuality), in order to tease out the complexities of Caribbean sexualities and queer practices. I couple these legal narratives and geographies with interviews and ethnographic data and draw attention to the ways in which queer men inhabit the dancehall. I argue that queer men participate in a dancehall culture—one that is perceived as heterosexual and homophobic—undetected because of the over-arching (cultural and aesthetic) queerness of the space coupled with the de facto heterosexuality afforded all who ‘brave’ dancehall’s homophobia. Queer dancehall participants report that inhabiting this space involves the tactical deployment of (often non-sexual) heterosexual signifiers as well as queering the dancehall aesthetic by moving from margin to centre. In so doing, I argue, queer dancehall queers transition from unvisible (never seen but always invoked) to invisible (blending into the queered space) while also moving across and through, as well as calling into question, North American gay culture, queer liberalism, and identity politics. ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the presence of a Higher Power that I call God but that is called by many other names. I recognize that while my work and the work of all the people mentioned here was important, that Higher Power was instrumental in allowing our paths to cross so it could be completed. To my mother, who started fighting for me before I was even in this world, thank you for never leaving me alone in a battle; always reminding me that I am limitless; buying so many plane tickets home; and for being the clearest example of beauty, brilliance, and strength I could ever need. You are my first and dearest love. 5%. To my father, who taught me to take everything with a laugh, thank you for helping me to take a rough life easy and for being so determined to meet your baby girl. To my brothers, who have plagued my life with their fighting, loving and unwanted advice from the day of my birth, never ever stop doing those things. I think growing up with all of you has shaped my interest in masculinities; you are integral to my work. To Lamby, who answered every call, read every proposal and responded to every snivelling “I can’t do it” with a “yes yu can, go drink a rum and try again”, thank you for being a piece of home in big bad Canadia. To Yasmine who has borne out my varying moods, shut-in like study habits, and overall Jamaican inspired oddity with remarkable grace and patience, thank you for being the type- A to my no type at all. Your kindness has made the cold, the distance and the passa passa much more tolerable, 6:30! To Rhys, Jodi, Marai, Auntie Shammie and Lloydie who always wanted to know when I was going to finish the people dem work, and always promptly sent me back to Canada, despite my certainty that the cold would kill me; thank you for being some of the meanest but greatest friends ever. #teamcarla. To Marion who feel she a fi har thesis dis, me love yu like cook food. To my supervisor Prof. Katherine McKittrick, thank you for being the kind of intellectual I never knew existed, the kind I now want to be. Thank you for shade-ery, conferences, coffees and community. Thank you for always making sure that your student had the best, did the best, and had your time and attention. To Prof. Scott Morgensen who taught me to think and rest...but keep thinking; thank you for reminding me that academia is important, but a healthy life matters most. To Terrie Easter Sheen the GNDS warrior, and Kathy Baer who keeps it all together, I could not have navigated it all without you both; thank you for being the backbone of this programme. To Profs. Margaret Little, Kathleen Lahey, Beverley Mullings, Brian Heap, June Castello and Sonjah Stanley Niaah who were instrumental in teaching me how to think, I salute you. iii To Auden who railed against Babylon with me, Alannah, Morgan and Danyel who chat di bad patois wid me, Aliya who buss me pon me first party, Dan the bunny, Maya the ‘hood prodigy, Alex the Trojan horse, Natasha the kindred, Dorota the listening ear, and all the people I met here in Kingston; thank you for taking a (not so) little Jamaican girl into your hearts. You are all beautiful and brilliant and I can’t wait to see the world you create.To Ian and the team at J-FLAG thank you for giving me the support I needed on the ground. To Frederick, Cedric, and Jah Truth, thank you for speaking your truths so bravely, thank you for being bad like yaws. To all the sadamites, sport, so, geighs, battyman, queens, queers, kids, chile dem, and people weh ‘just a do dem ting’ in Jamaica and the diaspora, defying ‘reality’ by remaining alive; to all the people who fight the good fights, to all the people who nuh tek back nuh chat and nah ask apology fi dem life, this work is yours. While it cannot begin to contain your lives, it is my hope that it can capture a kernel of the warrior spirit that moves through you. To the #MooreMassive who put up with my inconsistent posting, sent prayers for me, and wished me well every time they saw me…I did it. Me get di ting dem, dem outta luck now. Riddim up! To Jamaica…with love. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vii List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 2 Situating Queerness ................................................................................................................... 10 Common Sense Legalities and Black Sexualities and Neo-colonial Legalities and Black(er) Sexualities .................................................................................................................................. 11 Colonialisms, Black Geographies and the Impossibilities of Queer Dancehall ......................... 13 Brave “Battymen” and the (Im)possibilities of a Straight Dancehall ........................................ 14 Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 15 Chapter 2 Common Sense Legalities and Black Sexualities ......................................................... 20 Reading the Law as Tradition .................................................................................................... 21 Story One: ‘Farrin’ Mind’—The British Common Law is Common Sense .............................. 22 Story Two: ‘White is Alright’—The Nation is Masculine, White and Straight ........................ 26 (Read: The Nation is Black Respectable) .................................................................................. 26 Story Three: “Man a (wo)Man” - The (Gendered) Fact of Blackness ....................................... 28 Story Four: “(Wo)man a Man”—The Threat of the Black Feminine ........................................ 30 Neoliberalism, Sex Work, and the Caribbean State: Jailin’ Jezebel .......................................... 35 Chapter 3 Neo-Colonial Legalities and Black(er) Sexualities ....................................................... 41 Story Five: Yu Haffi Straight (Yu Cyan Lean) - Heterosexualization and State Sanctioned Homophobia ............................................................................................................................... 42 A Changing Tradition? .............................................................................................................. 45 Historicizing Homo Hatred ........................................................................................................ 46 Story Six: ‘Black Man Nuh Inna Dat’—The Nation is masculine, ‘Black’ and ‘Straight’ ........ 47 (Read: The Nation is Black Respectable) .................................................................................. 47 Homophobia, Neoliberalism and the Caribbean State ............................................................... 48 Story Seven: “Bad Man Dainty”—The Inherent ‘Queerness’
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