Representations of Jamaican Organised Crime

Panels and interactive sessions

Day 1: Wednesday 14 June

10.00: Colonial and postcolonial criminal justice systems

Tracy Robinson (UWI, Mona), ‘Saving law: Crime, constitutions and decolonisation in the Anglophone Caribbean’

Paula Morgan (UWI, St Augustine), Danielle Watson (University of the South Pacific, Fiji) and Francis D. Boateng (University of Mississippi), ‘The Interface between Exercise of State Power and Personal Powerlessness: A study of police perceptions of factors impacting procedural legitimacy‘

Clare Anderson (University of Leicester), ‘A Visit --to Mazaruni Prison, Guyana: an historian reflects on contemporary incarceration’

Dylan Kerrigan, ‘Justice out of a State of Injustice: Bias, Trust and Fairness in the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago’

• Chair: Mellissa Ifill

12.20: Crime, violence and gender

Mellissa Ifill (University of Guyana), ‘Crime and Violence in Guyana: A Gendered Analysis’

Corin Bailey (UWI, Cave Hill), ‘Perceptions of familial responsibility as a practical constraint in judicial decision-making: Focal concerns and gender bias in sentencing on the island of Barbados’

• Chair: Clare Anderson (University of Leicester)

2.30: Writing crime and violence

Curtis Wallace (UWI, Mona), ‘Diverse Representations of Crime: Published Police Memoirs and Reminiscences in the British Colonial Caribbean’

Paula Morgan (UWI, St Augustine), ‘“Killing don’t need no reason”: Trauma and Criminality in A Brief History of Seven Killings’

Kim Robinson-Walcott (UWI, Mona), ‘Writing Violence: John Hearne’s Voices under the Window and Brian Meeks’ Paint the Town Red’

• Chair: Lucy Evans (University of Leicester)

4.30: Discussion of possible longer-term collaborative teaching initiatives

Interactive session run by Lucy Evans (University of Leicester) and Martin Halliwell (University of Leicester)

Day 2: Thursday 15 June

10.40: Organised crime in film, popular music and the media

Suzette Haughton (UWI, Mona), ‘Representations of drug trafficking and lottery scamming in Jamaican press coverage’

Sonjah N. Stanley Niaah (UWI, Mona), ‘Brand Jamaica: Mapping Crime, Notoriety and Consumption’

Emiel Martens (University of Amsterdam), ‘From The Harder They Come to Kingston Paradise: The Representation of Jamaican (Organised) Crime in Jamaican Feature Films’

Renee Figuera (UWI, St Augustine) and Wendell Wallace (UWI, St Augustine), ‘Discourse Globalisation and Translocalisation of Gangspeak with Evidence from Trinidad’

• Chair: Sharae Deckard

12.00: Policing organised crime

Anthony Harriott (UWI, Mona), ‘Organised Crime, State and Community: The Problem of Protective Silence’

Ben Bowling (King’s College London), ‘Policing the Caribbean’

• Chair: David Howard

2.10: Policy approaches to organised crime (roundtable discussion)

Horace Levy (Peace Management Initiative)

Angella Harris (Citizen Security and Justice Programme)

David Osborne (Country Representative, UK-AID / UK Department for International Development, British High Commission, Jamaica)

Miguel ‘Steppa’ Williams (Civil Society Coordinator for the USAID Community Empowerment and Transformation Project)

• Chair: Rivke Jaffe (University of Amsterdam)

3.40: Reading Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings

Sharae Deckard (University College Dublin), ‘Gender, Narcoliterature, and Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings’

Carter Mathes (Rutgers University), ‘Abstraction in Dub: Narrative Dis(Orientation) and Geopolitical Violence in A Brief History of Seven Killings’

Lucy Evans (University of Leicester), ‘The yardie figure in Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings’

• Chair: Rivke Jaffe

5.30 Visualising ‘criminal’ spaces and bodies

Artists’ discussion panel featuring Petrona Morrison, Michael ‘Flyn’ Elliott, Dwight Larmond and Cleaver Cunningham. Chaired by Petrina Dacres (Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts).

Day 3: Friday 16 June

9.30: Crime, Resilience and Myth

Interactive session led by David Howard (University of Oxford), Sharae Deckard (University College Dublin) and Dylan Kerrigan (UWI, St Augustine)

11.00: Representing Dons

Rivke Jaffe (University of Amsterdam), ‘Writing around Violence: Representing Organized Crime in Kingston, Jamaica’

Tracian Meikle (University of Amsterdam), ‘Iconization of Donmanship in Visual Culture in Kingston, Jamaica’

Petrina Dacres (Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts), ‘Public Art and the Politics of Death’

• Chair: Deborah Thomas

1.30: Making Four Days in May: Deborah Thomas in Dialogue with Varun Baker and Junior ‘Gabu’ Wedderburn

Deborah Thomas (University of Pennsylvania), Varun Baker and Junior ‘Gabu’ Wedderburn will discuss the process of creating a series of visual representations of the 2010 State of Emergency in Kingston.

3.30: Singing Security

Interactive session led by Rivke Jaffe (University of Amsterdam)

4.30: Concluding discussion reflecting on the progress of the project, and future directions for the research

Interactive session led by Lucy Evans (University of Leicester)