Race, Class, and Political Symbols: Rastafari and Reggae in Jamaican Politics
“[Race, Class, and Political Symbols] examines the role played by Rastafarianism and reggae music as partisan instruments in Jamaican politics through a comparative analysis of five national elections from 1967 to 1983. . . . Waters skillfully integrates the historical context of Jamaican civil unrest, and the social milieu in which popular music is created, with the narrative of successive, increasingly critical elections and the public issues they encapsulated. The result is a judiciously researched, fascinating, empirically dense exploration of Jamaican political culture. . . .Race, Class, and Political Symbolsopens up a new domain in the investigation of the diverse and intermingled origins and usages of Jamaican political expression. . . . [It] has provided a sound and meticulous foundation for future forays into this rich Caribbean political culture.”—Brenda Gayle Plummer,Contemporary Sociology