Demeaned but empowered : the social power of the urban poor in Jamaica / Obika Gray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gray, Obika, 1948-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban poor--Political activity--Jamaica.

Urban poor.

Urban poor--Political activity.

Crime.

Community power.

Patronage, Political.

Jamaica.

Jamaica--Social conditions.

Social conditions.

Patronage, Political--Jamaica.

Community power--Jamaica.

Crime--Jamaica.

Physical Description:

xi, 429 ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Kingston, Jamaica : University of the West Indies Press, 2004.

Summary:

Gray's central thesis asserts that the Jamaican state is a form of predatory state that incorporates contradictory social forces into an arrangement that is hierarchical, often brutal and ultimately debilitating to democracy. He introduces a series of constructs to support this argument, but the more interesting and novel theses are to be found in his vivid description of the social forces that resist the predatory state and how they have carved out a modicum of autonomy based on what he describes as an elaborate value system of "badness/honour."

Contents:

Rethinking power : political clientelism and political subordination in Jamaica

A fateful alliance

Fulcrums of power in the ghetto

Exile, space, moral culture and social identity in the ghetto

Badness-honour and the invigorated authority of the urban poor

A fettered freedom : warfare and solidarity in the ghetto

Crime, politics and moral culture

The struggle for benefits

Uncaptured rebels

Criminal self-organization and cultural extremism

The cultural contradictions of power : badness-honour and liberal democracy

Epilogue: The ordeal of social reconstruction in Jamaica.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 407-411) and index.

ISBN:

9766401535

OCLC:

55650836