UWI, Mona To Host Rastafari Studies Conference and General Assembly

50th Anniversary of the Coral Gardens Massacre

Rastafari, Coral Gardens and African Redemption: Issues Challenges and Opportunities Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Coral Gardens Massacre.

University of the West Indies, Mona Campus and the Rastafari Community August 13 – 16, 2013

The second Rastafari Studies Conference will be hosted by the Rastafari Studies Unit and the Institute of Caribbean Studies in association with the Office of the Principal, UWI (Mona) and the Rastafari Consultation Committee from August 13 – 16, 2013. The conference will be sited on the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies and in the general Rastafari Community at venues to be announced. 

The theme for this year’s conference reads Rastafari, Coral Gardens and the African Redemption: Issues Challenges and Opportunities. All are invited to participate.

 Presentations will be seen from members of the Rastafari community, the creative sector, scholars, researchers and students. The programme will include lectures, panels, discussions, exhibitions, audio-visual and cultural presentations as well as groundings off-campus in Rastafari spaces.

The conference will seek to highlight, address and explore this issue along with other common themes such as repatriation and Africa, herb (ganja), Rastafari livity, Rasta as a global phenomenon in a changing world, and efforts to organize and centralize the community. 

The first conference hosted in 2010 commemorated two important anniversaries; the 50th anniversary of the publication of the “Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica” and the inception of the Rastafari movement itself in 1930. This year’s conference will emerge to memorialize the 50th anniversary of the Coral Gardens Massacre. The events of Holy Thursday April 1963 resulted in the persecution and imprisonment of many adherents of the Rastafari faith and crackdown on the Movement island-wide. Many surviving victims still seek restitution from the Jamaican government for this day, a cry for justice that has largely gone unanswered.