Rastafari

Rastafari. The word immediately conjures a host of strong disparate images. To some the Rastafarian Movement which emerged from the ghettos of Jamaica in the 1930s is embodied by a dreadlocked youth in a haze of marijuana smoke. To others it represents an authentic organic expression of working-class culture a vibrant movement that has expanded to North America the British Isles and Africa. Ennis Barrington Edmonds moves beyond simple stereotypes to provide a compelling portrait of the Rastafarian phenomenon and chronicle how a once-obscure group much maligned and persecuted as an internal threat to Jamaican society became an international cultural force. He focuses in particular on the internal development of Rastafarianism as a social movement to track the process of this strikingly successful integration. He also demonstrates how African and Afro-Christian religions Ethiopianism and Garveyism were all fused into the Rastafari posture of resistance organised as it is around charismatic figures. Rastafari presents an intimate account of a unique movement which over the course of several decades institutionalised itself to become the international cultural political and musical force it is today.