ABSTRACT
The discussion of culture and ideology in Selton Town and Vermount makes clear that the areas do not represent the social poles of Kingston or Jamaican society. Selton Town and Vermount despite their rather limited social distance from each other were redefined by residents according to culture paradigms that do represent the much greater social distances that exist in Jamaica. For Vermount residents an inside toilet, a private lot, a house owned and a car bought were very important things indeed. For residents of Selton Town tenement yards, noisy lanes, manual labor and a claimed spiritual superiority were also very important. This chapter uses the notion of culture to refer to the different ways in which people organize their lives. Ideology has been used to describe the systems of belief by which conflicting interests are legitimized.
