Rastafari movement and its influence through Reggae music : a qualitative study

This project explores the diversity of Reggae deejay practitioners who identify with the Rastafari movement, and investigates practitioners to determine if they are utilizing Rastafari ideology to decolonize the psyche. Through the process of development toward resistance against the prevalent forces of neocolonialism, the traditional Rastafari movement has shifted the direction from the perpetual maintenance of blackness, to cultural hybridization. Drawing on the practicality of fieldwork, this study will be conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area, which will include field observation and interviews with Reggae deejay practitioners who identify with the movement. This research explores the positionality of the practitioners, focusing on how their lives are shaped by the intersections of race, class and culture within an auto-ethnographic framework. This method will allow this study to illustrate how their identities are socially constructed by external influences, and how those influences are developed to mobilize effectively an ideology predicated on reggae???s influential capabilities. By so doing, this project\ud will contribute to the historical and global studies of decolonizing (i.e. dismantling of colonial consciousness through cultural awareness, education, and revitalization) collective projects systematically, which is critical to a more inclusive appreciation of the social movements that are being disseminated and juxtaposed due to globalization and commercialization through music