Sounds of the Citizens: Dancehall and Community in Jamaica

1. “Money Move”: The Sociality of Circulation, Violence, and Respect

Introduction 23 nation. In this final chapter, I explore the implications of these tensions for urban poor populations as they adjust to the shifting terrain of a shaky global economy and a globalized conception of neoliberal governance . At the same time, their experiences are also couched within the struggles of the Jamaican state. They are in many ways navigating the insecurities of the present moment with an added element of uncertainty as the country of their citizenship continues to engage in the old post­ colonial struggle to carve out a viable economic and political space for itself as a sovereign nation in a global era characterized by eroding sovereignty and marketization. 25 CHAPTER 1 “Money Move” The Sociality of Circulation, Violence, and Respect Now tek out some money for all your bredren . . . Make a move, make a move Make a conscious move —Barrington Levy, “Money Move” Giving and generosity in Jamaican ghetto communities are markers of reputation and respectability where other cultural markers, including the use of Standard English, European marriage patterns, and success through education, have been largely unattainable or deliberately rejected.1 These socialized values shaped by gender roles and access to employment are fundamental characteristics of ghetto culture, and, I would add, necessary ones, under circumstances in which the majority of the population is not regularly employed and in which the pool of state resources for the provision of necessary basic services has dried up.2 However, these crucial practices are rooted in a prior political moment. Before the neoliberal turn of the late 1980s, which dramatically reduced the social welfare resources available to community residents, there was an extensive period of democratic socialist policy on the part of the Jamaican state as envisioned and executed by the People’s National Party under the leadership of Michael Manley. This strategy, explicitly pursued by the party as of 1974, was not without its detractors, both within the People’s National Party itself and on the part of the opposing Jamaica Labour Party. The Cold War was in full swing, and, given the dependent nature of the Jamaican economy, a communist label could have had a significant impact on foreign invest- 26 SOUNDS OF THE CITIZENS ment. Although Jamaica was openly an adherent of the Non-Aligned Movement, the country’s warm relations with Cuba and democratic socialist domestic policies stirred up fears among the capitalist class and created hesitation among international investors and lending agencies. Even given the controversial nature of the democratic socialist path, the People’s National Party was able to cultivate a base of mass support through a party ideology that successfully incorporated previously marginalized segments of the population into the Jamaican nation, leading to heightened political engagement and electoral involvement. For the first time, impoverished black populations were made to feel like full citizens through the party embracing, and at times advancing, aspects of their culture and their class interests in a heavily elitist society (Stephens and Stephens 1986). Normative giving practices, extant throughout Jamaica, are part of a moral economy deeply impacted by Christian values and decades of democratic socialist policies marked by a state-led, mixed economy and state-sponsored efforts to encourage egalitarianism and social inclusion. These giving practices, prevalent in the daily lives of ghetto residents, must be considered in order to understand the patronage practices of members of the new black middle class. They shape local understandings of giving and receiving and, therefore, the social relations that are produced through acts of giving and receiving. Additionally, the practice of giving and sharing is imbricated with community-rooted social distinctions based on the evaluation of community members’ conduct toward others as a measure of social status. Such modes of social distinction, once characterized as exclusive to a masculine behavioral repertoire, were first identified with the label reputation within Caribbean anthropology (see Wilson 1973). However, the categories of reputation and respectability, insightfully introduced by Wilson in the 1970s in order to explain distinctly Caribbean understandings of social status within poor communities, have greater analytical utility when understood not as disparate status categories but as part of an arsenal of personal strategies utilized by Caribbean subjects in order to attain social mobility through the creation of social capital. Rather than being the property of particular gender groups or economic classes, reputation and respectability can be more fruitfully seen as interpersonal strategies employed based on deep cultural knowledge and selected from...