Higglers in Kingston: Women's Informal Work in Jamaica (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780826517654)

Making a living in the Caribbean requires resourcefulness and even a willingness to circumvent the law. Women of color in Jamaica encounter bureaucratic mazes, neighborhood territoriality, and ingrained racial and cultural prejudices. For them, it requires nothing less than a herculean effort to realize their entrepreneurial dreams.

In Higglers in Kingston, Winnifred Brown-Glaude puts the reader on the ground in frenetic urban Kingston, the capital and largest city in Jamaica. She explores the lives of informal market laborers, called "higglers," across the city as they navigate a corrupt and inaccessible "official" Jamaican economy. But rather than focus merely on the present-day situation, she contextualizes how Jamaica arrived at this point, delving deep into the island's history as a former colony, a home to slaves and masters alike, and an eventual nation of competing and conflicted racial sectors.

Higglers in Kingston weaves together contemporary ethnography, economic history, and sociology of race to address a broad audience of readers on a crucial economic and cultural center.

Author: Winnifred Brown-Glaude
ISBN-10: 082651765X
ISBN-13: 9780826517654
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/08/2011
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.10h x 5.90w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 12/01/2011
Reference and Research Bk News 08/01/2011 pg. 80