SOAN 007C. Distinguishing Difference: Music, Memory, and Jamaican Marronage

(Cross-listed as MUSI 007C)
This course examines music and performance as key elements in articulations of identity, belonging, and difference in the contexts of Jamaican marronage. The Jamaican Maroon community is considered to be a monolith by some, situated firmly in Jamaica’s colonial and pre-emancipation past. This course explores the Jamaican Maroon communities of Charles Town, Scotts Hall, Moore Town, Accompong Town, and Trelawny-Flagstaff whose 17th and 18th century ancestors waged a successful war against the colonial British. These communities are dynamic, diverse, and relevant in discourse related to present-day Jamaica. Students will learn the ways in which the socio-cultural significance of those freedom fighters’ descendants is manifested in their music, dance, cultural icons, and spiritual practice. Jamaican Maroon cultural practices and social and political ideologies can become sites of collaboration, co-optation, and even contestation between and within Jamaican Maroon communities, and between Jamaican Maroons, the Jamaican state, and the global community.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Eligible for BLST
Spring 2025. Stewart.
Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology

Access the class schedule to search for sections.