This talk approaches Jamaica’s current conjuncture as a field of contradiction and tension in which democracy, security, and the economy are being recomposed. Within this formation, long-standing narratives of sovereignty, dependency, resistance, and violence appear in altered ways. Drawing on conjunctural analysis and the Caribbean tradition of conceptual tension, Lewis argues that attending to these contradictions generates a critical vocabulary for apprehending contemporary Jamaican social life, unsettling the interpretive frames that have long governed Caribbean studies and development discourse.
Jovan Scott Lewis is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities. His research examines Black geographies, racial capitalism, and reparations, with particular attention to the economic and social conditions of Black life in the United States and the Caribbean. He is the author of Scammer’s Yard (2020), Violent Utopia (2022), and co-editor of The Black Geographic (2023).
This talk is co-sponsored by the Rutgers Geography Department.