ABSTRACT
This chapter critically examines the seminal and key full-length dancehall texts in order to ascertain: Firstly, how scholars and researchers have interpreted Jamaican dance practices in relation to spirituality and the dancing body; and secondly, how resistance and liberation themes manifest spiritual and corporeal genealogical continuities that impact notions of identity within reggae/dancehall scholarship.
Exploring the development of dancehall as a distinct cultural phenomenon, the chapter also foregrounds: Its historical context; its genealogy of Jamaican dance practice; the development of sound system culture and the Jamaican recording industry; the implicit and explicit performance and representation of both overt resistance and inherent oppositional resistance (Burton 1997; De Certeau, 1980); and the major discourses relating to gender, space and the socio-politico-economic elements that concern dancehall culture.
