Meaghan Frauts

Abstract

Creative industries are understood as key to Jamaica’s resilience. Development initiatives encourage Jamaicans to recall historical resilience in the face of slavery and colonization in order to construct contemporary neoliberal-led development goals focused on creative practice. This paper asks what tensions, contradictions and erasures are made visible when grounding resilience in context specific sites? What are the implications of framing historical forms of resilience grounded in slavery and colonialism as commensurable with those traits that define the resilient subject of neoliberal development? And, what meanings of resilience are evident when local communities are confronted with a state apparatus that contributes to insecurity and attempts to discipline the celebratory and creative livelihoods made available through creative practice?

Keywords

Creative economy, resilience, Jamaica, development

From: Cultural studies 2019 33 (3)

Editor: Wang Yi