Resisting the ‘cancer of silence’: The formation of sistren’s ‘feminist democracy’

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.