Authors

Karina Smith

Abstract

Writing in the 1980s, Honor Ford-Smith, the then Artistic Director of Sistren, described Sistren Theatre Collective’s theatre productions and outreach work as attempting to ‘resist’ the ‘cancer of silence’ that was closing down the spaces in Jamaican society in which cultural work develops. The ‘cancer of silence’ was, according to Ford-Smith, embodied in Jamaica-US relations and the IMF Structural Adjustment Program, both of which brought about decreased support for cultural production, particularly that which critiqued local and global hegemonies. Ford-Smith was also reflecting on the change in political climate engendered by Edward Seaga’s Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in the 1980s compared with that of the Michael Manley led People’s National Party (PNP) of the 1970s.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.