• DOI:10.1080/13691830120090476
• Corpus ID: 143625821

Rasta, race and revolution: Transnational connections in socialist Cuba

@article{Hansing2001RastaRA,
  title={Rasta, race and revolution: Transnational connections in socialist Cuba},
  author={Katrin Hansing},
  journal={Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies},
  year={2001},
  volume={27},
  pages={733 - 747}
}

• Katrin Hansing
• Published 1 October 2001
• Political Science
• Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

Within the past three decades the Jamaican Rastafari movement has been transformed from a local Caribbean to a global cultural phenomenon. Reggae music and other popular cultural media have been the primary catalysts in this international spread of the movement. As a result, Rastafari has lost its original territorial moorings and become a travelling culture. Global in scope, Rastafari has nevertheless been localised in very different ways, depending on where the movement has been appropriated. This article examines the processes involved in the transnational journey of the movement's ideas, images and music and the multiple mechanisms involved in its indigenisation with specific reference to Rastafari's emergence and development in Cuba. In particular it looks at how the movement has entered the island, why and by whom it has been taken on, and how it manifests itself locally.