Dub, Utopia and the Ruins of the Caribbean
Authors
Publication Date
2022-01Journal Title
Theory, Culture & Society
ISSN
0263-2764
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
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Davidson, J. P. (2022). Dub, Utopia and the Ruins of the Caribbean. Theory, Culture & Society https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764211025709
Abstract
<jats:p> The weathered stone, collapsed lintels and hollow roofs of the ruin have long evoked a sense of pathos, standing as monuments to the disastrous contours of history and the possibility of alternative futures. In this article, I ask: What is the meaning of the ruin in the postcolonial context of the Caribbean? There are few physical ruins in the Caribbean, resulting in a feeling of lack: the architectural landscape fails to speak to the catastrophes of slavery and colonialism. Dub, a subgenre of Jamaican reggae, responds to this sense of deprivation. The dub producers of the 1970s decomposed reggae songs, creating ruinous constructions where crucial elements of the original version are missing. Fragmented dub compositions act as icons of the traumatic history of the Caribbean and a utopian pique to the imagination, forcing the listener to fill in the gaps and imagine the world remade. </jats:p>
Keywords
Articles, W.E.B. Du Bois, dub reggae, Édouard Glissant, postcolonialism, ruins, utopia, Derek Walcott
Identifiers
10.1177_02632764211025709
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764211025709
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333206
Rights
Licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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