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Deborah Thomas
Deborah A. Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of “Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalization, and The Politics of Culture in Jamaica“ (Duke University Press, 2004), and co-editor of the volume “Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness” (Duke University Press, 2006) with Kamari Clarke. Thomas has also co-edited a special issue of the journal Identities titled “Caribbeanist Anthropologies at the Crossroads” with Karla Slocum (2007), as well as a special issue of Feminist Review titled “Gendering Diaspora” with Tina Campt (2008). She is co-editor of the journal Transforming Anthropology, and is currently conducting research projects on violence and transnational labor migration. Prior to her life as an academic, she was a professional dancer with the New York-based Urban Bush Women. She was also a Program Director with the National Council for Research on Women.
Abstract
"Unapologetic States: Coral Gardens, Rastafari, and the
Jamaican
Body Politic"
This paper aims to explore the changing
relationships between Rastafari and the Jamaican state by
examining how the Coral Gardens “incident” is memorialized. In April 1963, following
a land dispute, a gas station was set afire and several people
were killed—events for which Rastafarians were blamed. The
government at the time responded by hunting down any and all
Rastafarians, jailing countless and beating many. Since
the 1990s, a group of Rastafarians in Western Jamaica has kept
a vigil commemorating this “Bad Friday,” and in 2007 the vigil
was folded into the year-long schedule of events designed to
commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. There,
Rastafarians testified as to their experiences, and asked that
the government make a formal apology to the Rastafarian community
and consider reparations of some sort. Drawing from historical
accounts of the incident, as well as interviews with community
elders and an ethnographic discussion of the 2007 commemoration,
the paper will consider the following questions: Who
is included in the national body of Jamaica and how has that
changed over time? How have threats to the body politic
been imagined and eradicated? And how do those who suffered
through those times envision reparations?
This topic will be presented on Saturday, April 18th at 9:00 a.m. as part of the Panel III discussion "Shifting Racializations, Violence and the Nation."
Select Publications
“Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalization, and The Politics of Culture in Jamaica,” (Duke University Press, 2004)
“Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness,”
(Duke University Press, 2006) Co-editor with Kamari Clarke.
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