Higglers in Kingston: Women's Informal Work in JamaicaMaking a living in the Caribbean requires resourcefulness and even a willingness to circumvent the law. Women of color in Jamaica encounter bureaucratic mazes, neighborhood territoriality, and ingrained racial and cultural prejudices. For them, it requires nothing less than a herculean effort to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. In Higglers in Kingston, Winnifred Brown-Glaude puts the reader on the ground in frenetic urban Kingston, the capital and largest city in Jamaica. She explores the lives of informal market laborers, called "higglers," across the city as they navigate a corrupt and inaccessible "official" Jamaican economy. But rather than focus merely on the present-day situation, she contextualizes how Jamaica arrived at this point, delving deep into the island's history as a former colony, a home to slaves and masters alike, and an eventual nation of competing and conflicted racial sectors. Higglers in Kingston weaves together contemporary ethnography, economic history, and sociology of race to address a broad audience of readers on a crucial economic and cultural center. |
Contents
Assessing the Whole of Informality | 1 |
Intersectionality and the Politics of Embodiment | 21 |
Higglering | 39 |
Bait of Satan? | 65 |
Natural Rebels or Just Plain Nuisances? | 91 |
Higgler ICI Businesswoman | 119 |
Dirty and Diseased | 141 |
Understanding the Nuances of Informality | 165 |
List of Higglers Interviewed | 175 |
Notes | 177 |
| 191 | |
| 211 | |
Other editions - View all
Higglers in Kingston: Women's Informal Work in Jamaica Winnifred Brown-Glaude No preview available - 2020 |
Higglers in Kingston: Women's Informal Work in Jamaica Winnifred R. Brown-Glaude No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
activities Arcade areas argued associated behaviors black women bodies brown Caribbean Chinese clothing colonial color Constant construction context continued contribute created culture customers described differences discourse distinctions dominant downtown elite embodied engaged especially examine example experiences factors families field force formal economy gender hierarchies higglers ICIs identified identity imagined important influence informal economy instance interesting interview island Jamaican kinds Kingston labor lived located market women means middle middle-class mulatto organized Papine particular peasant physical plantation political poor population position presence privileged produce race race/color racial reinforced relations reported representations represented residents respect responses reveal role sector sell sense served shape significant slaves social society sold space spatial Spring status streets structures subjects sugar suggests Sunday tions town trade understand uptown urban vendors woman