Abstract:
Working Title: “At the Ideological Cross Roads: Interrogating (Jamaican) Masculinities in Contemporary Urban Culture through Historical Discourse.” By arguing about the centrality of history in the development paradigms of Jamaican gender (identities), contemporarily, this paper looks at the intersection of history and urbanization as a representation of Jamaican popular culture, primarily Dancehall. It examines how historical processes such as slavery, colonialism and racial/class prejudices have impacted the development of Jamaican masculinities as discourses of power in the society. It further argues that the resemanticisation of the sign (of the body), therefore, observed through the prisms of popular culture, namely Dancehall music/culture, offers the possibilities for changing power dynamics in the society, specifically as it relates to race and class.