Review by Choice Review
This ethnographic inquiry into the social and cultural experience of poor urban dwellers in socially heterogeneous Kingston, Jamaica, describes how Kingstonians create meaningful lives for themselves in a milieu characterized by urbanization and globalization rather than a strong national culture. The author draws on the work of the Enlightenment philosopher Kant, for whom personhood was self-created rather than conveyed through tradition or culture, and of Georg Simmel, theorist of cosmopolitan society and Kant's intellectual disciple, who posited the existence of two distinct cultures: the individual's own imaginative culture and the external culture of history and tradition. Arguing that Jamaicans experience continual "tension" between their desire for a sense of place, geographically and socially, and their desire for freedom through geographical movement, the author demonstrates how they simultaneously develop satisfying social networks and create meaning for themselves within t he wider frameworks of cosmopolitanism and "deterritorialism" that govern their lives. Personal narratives and fieldwork diary excerpts enliven the book's otherwise dense academic prose. For advanced students and professionals familiar with basic tenets of social and cultural anthropology, philosophy, and social theory. M. A. Gwynne SUNY at Stony Brook
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
