Creativity, Culture,
and Spirituality
in Jamaica
Southern Jamaica
Available For Custom Journey
Experience a different side of Jamaica in this journey that will take you on a guided exploration of some of the sources and manifestations of creativity in this island renowned for the vigor and originality of its musical expressions, poetic humor and language use, dance and theater, and religiosity and spirituality.
Set against the backdrop of Southern Jamaica – both urban and rural - you will observe first hand the apparent anomalies and enigmas of this fascinating, multicultural society which boasts both the highest number of religious institutions as well as the highest homicide rate in the Caribbean, and which is justifiably proud of its homegrown reggae music and Rastafari religion yet excludes many of the Black majority from full participation in the nation's economic and political structures.
You will learn about the historical significance and development of the roots of rocking reggae music, as well as about reggae's rhythms and movements from experts who have been intrinsic to the construction of this creative genre. A Jamaican drumming expert will teach you how to build your own sound rhythms and you can follow the steps of the Manchioneal dancers who preserve traditional folk forms in their repertoire of routines.
Visits to the National Gallery, a repository of visual expressions of creativity executed by intuitives and trained artists alike, and Liberty Hall, which features the life and works of Marcus Gravey, provide more insight into Jamaican culture and individuals who have made an impact far beyond this island nation's borders.
The significance of community is an underlying theme running through the myriad tour activities. You will visit several different types of communities, including Trench Town , an inner-city community that was the conception space for reggae, and with members of the Rastafari livity. The rural portion of this tour takes you to a rural maroon village created by Africans who refused to submit to plantation enslavement. The group will hike the ancestral Cuna Cuna trail, the route that the Maroons have trod over the mountains from St. Thomas to Portland for over five hundred years.
Throughout the tour, you will hear how people in the local communities strategize to survive and fuel the fires of their dreams. Experiencing the issues and concerns facing many members of Jamaican society and learning about some of their alternative responses to conditions of poverty and marginalization can be both eye opening and transformative, revealing both the limitations and frailties of human societies as well as the hopeful potential of human creativity.
Journey Guide: Dr. Imani Tafari-Ama is an educator, activist, performer and author of the recently published Blood, Bullets and Bodies: Sexual Politics Below Jamaica's Poverty Line, which is a study of the crisis of inner-city violence in Jamaica. She has a doctorate in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies , The Hague, Netherlands. Imani has been engaged in multi-media community development work for many years in the greater Kingston area as well as around the Caribbean region and in international contexts. She herself comes from the farming community of Albion in Manchester and draws much of her inspiration from her rural childhood roots close to the earth. As a young adult, she became a Rastafari and since then has been an active and engaged member of the Livity of Rastafari; writing and discussing the Rastafari faith from the perspective of a “womanist”, as many feminist women of color prefer to be called.