“The Body and Performance in 1970s Jamaica: Toward a Decolonial Cultural Method” in Small Axe 23 (1), 150-168
This essay discusses decolonization, performance, and education in the 1970s in Jamaica and argues that embodied performances of humans existing at the margins of power are both compelling as and productive of new forms of knowledge because they teach us to challenge enduring colonial representations and create community in profound ways. Drawing on Sylvia Wynter’s work on colonial epistemologies and representation in relation to questions of race and decolonization and on Rex Nettleford’s discussion of embodiment and marronage, the author lays out a method of decolonial knowledge production and embodied performance and then reads the devising practice of Sistren Theatre Collective between 1977 and 1987 through these ideas.
Honor Ford-Smith is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. Her academic interests include race, gender, colonialism and post colonialism; Caribbean societies and diasporas; performance and social movements; and community and environmental arts and education.
Other publications from this author include:
- “Performing Queer Marronage: The work of d’bi young anitafika” in Q2Q: Queer Canadian Performance Texts (2018)
- “The Ghost of Mikey Smith: Space, Performance and Justice” in Caribbean Quarterly 63 (2-3) (2017)
- “Vigils, murals and the politics of popular commemoration in Jamaica” in At the Limits of Justice: Women of Colour respond to Terror (2014)
- 3 Jamaican Plays: A Postcolonial Anthology (1977-1987) (2011)
- My Mother’s Last Dance (1997)