Political Culture in Jamaica Before Anticolonial Nationalism

This paper considers scholarship on political culture in Jamaica in 1865, the year of the Morant Bay rebellion. It situates the historiography of political culture in relation to three trends: first, an older historiography that envisaged the rebellion as indicative of nationalist consciousness; sec...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Richards, Jake Christopher (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2017
In: History compass
Year: 2017, Volume: 15, Issue: 2, Pages: 1-11
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:This paper considers scholarship on political culture in Jamaica in 1865, the year of the Morant Bay rebellion. It situates the historiography of political culture in relation to three trends: first, an older historiography that envisaged the rebellion as indicative of nationalist consciousness; second, a more recent focus on the local politics of protest in the period 1838-1900; and third, another recent approach of explaining political culture through the dynamic relationship between metropole and colony. The paper then goes on to suggest that the latter two approaches are congenial to analysing the Underhill Meetings, a set of key political discussions prior to the rebellion which nevertheless have been underutilized in the historiography. The paper concludes by considering the possible linkages between the Underhill Meetings and the reform initiatives of the post-rebellion colonial state. Overall, it argues for the possibility of island-wide political consciousness without the need for ethno-nationalism or "imagined communities"
ISSN:1478-0542
Contains:Enthalten in: History compass
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/hic3.12332