Abstract:

Sports came to play a significant role in nation building in a number of countries – especially those newly-independent states emerging on the end of decolonising movements in the middle of the twentieth century. Jamaica was no exception. Here, the process of nation-building was one that had to confront the legacies of European colonization and enslavement. It was almost inevitable that sport would play a key role in these processes. Jamaica had intimate experience with the power of sport as a political and ideological weapon in colonial times. Cricket in particular had initially served as a tool of British cultural imperialism and was one of the main ways in which agents and agencies of this mission sought to disseminate British cultural values. It was also initially an exclusive institution characterised by significant race and class prejudices. However, cricket (and other sports) became a medium of resistance to the very ideologies it was meant to inculcate, and in so doing, had by the middle of the twentieth century come to function as an ideological weapon of an anti-colonial, creole nationalism. In post-independence Jamaica, sport increasingly featured in public policy and resources were dedicated to the promotion and development of sporting activities. This presentation seeks to examine the ways in which successive Jamaican governments have employed sport to achieve various developmental objectives; but will also look more broadly at the impact of sport on nation-building on Jamaica. It argues that while sport did indeed help to achieve a number of important objectives, we must be cognisant of ways in which this influence might be overstated as well as ways in which sport served to undermine these objectives.

Bio:

Dr Julian Cresser is Lecturer in History, and Head of the Department of History and Archaeology, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. His main research interest is sports studies – particularly, the role of sport in nation building in the Caribbean. He has authored and co-authored journal articles on the history of cricket in Jamaica and links between participation in sport and juvenile delinquency in the Caribbean. In addition, Dr Cresser has an interest in the use of digital media in the teaching and presentation of History. His courses include: Digital History, Sport in the Caribbean since 1850, and the Idea of Caribbean Nationhood. He has also taught extensively in the Department’s Heritage programmes, and has served on the board of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. Before joining the Department, he worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank, where his work involved archival and ethnographic research on Afro-Caribbean intangible cultural expressions. In 2019, Dr Cresser was the O’Connor Visiting Assistant Professor in Caribbean Studies at Colgate University, in Hamilton, New York.