Cultural DNA builds on developments within indigenous Caribbean feminisms and gender studies as well as feminist anthropological currents to explore the nature of the rural Afro-Jamaican gender system, drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork in rural Jamaica. It is a cultural story of gender in rural Jamaica, specifically an ethnography of anthropological knowledge about the gender systems of rural Afro-Jamaicans in the community of Frankfield, Clarendon. It makes significant contributions to Caribbean feminist thought by offering novel ways of conceiving, portraying and reflecting on the significance of the dominant gender system through the use of a unique metaphor that posits a figurative relationship, comparing the role of gender in culture to DNA in biological life. In so doing, it asserts an ongoing, important role for non-native ethnography in the study of Caribbean gender dynamics.
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Arriving, Departing and Arriving Again
In Search of Gender Trails: Archive, Folklore and Cultural Memory
Laying Foundations: A Patchwork Gendered History of Frankfield
The Rural Black Jamaican Gender System: Case Study, Frankfield
Storying Gender through Personal Narratives
A Metaphor Comes to Life: Service Learning, HIV/AIDS and Cross-Cultural Knowledge
Reflections on the Culture-Gender Spiral
Notes
References
Index