Caribbean labour politics in the age of Garvey, 1918-1938

Bibliographic Data

ID2357308
AuthorsAdam Ewing
Year2013
Volume55
Issue1
Pages23-45
Publication date2013-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRace & Class (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-3968 • E-ISSN: 1741-3125
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0306396813486586
OpenAlexW1979589995
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited4

This article examines the impact of Garveyism - the political brainchild of Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey - in the articulation of post first world war labour politics in the greater Caribbean region. Garveyism nurtured a platform of race-first, worker-oriented, anti-colonial politics that both gave encouragement to, and provided a language of grievance for, a series of strikes, riots and rebellions after the war. During the reactionary era that followed, Garveyites nimbly scaled back the stridency of their politics, replacing their emphasis on direct action and worker resistance with a labour politics that privileged organisation building and constitutional reform, but which continued to project the implications of the work in global terms, joined to Garveyites' end goal of African liberation and racial redemption. By the mid-1930s, a new labour politics emerged that both surpassed Garveyist labour organising in its stridency and relied on Garveyist tropes of racial solidarity; one that distanced itself from Garveyist labour organisers while boasting a leadership that had been nurtured within the Garvey movement

Articulation (sociology · Colonialism · Direct action · Grievance · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Racism · Reactionary · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Solidarity · African history and culture studies · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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