As part of the UCL Institute of the Americas Caribbean Seminar Series, Daive Dunkley will present “Women and Rastafari Politics, 1934-1960.” This event takes place on April 26, 2023, 5:30pm (12:30pm EST).

Free to attend, but you need to register: https://ucl.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArcumrqDgsHtRhyIERcqM6K-20q1yaPYLH#/registration

Description: By 1960, it was widely believed in Jamaica and overseas that Rastafari women were merely pawns of Rastafari men. This discussion included claims that women primarily followed men, did their bidding, and generally subjected themselves to exploitation as an underclass within the Rastafari movement. However, this presentation explores women’s independent and critical contributions to constructing the emergent Rastafari’s political objectives and the colonial attempts to undermine the movement as a cult of outcasts using claims about women’s devaluation and exploitation by men. The presentation will show women’s independent activism in developing Rastafari’s socialism and Black nationalism to transform Jamaica into a sovereign Black state.

Daive Dunkley is associate professor and chair of the Department of Black Studies at University of Missouri. His research focuses on the history and culture of the African diaspora, and he is the author of several books, including Leonard Percival Howell and the Genesis of Rastafari (2015) and, most recently, Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement (2021).

See more on the speaker at https://history.missouri.edu/people/dunkley

Also see https://www.amazon.com/Women-Resistance-Early-Rastafari-Movement/dp/0807175692