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Scammer’s Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica PDF

246 Pages·2020·3.313 MB·English
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Scammer’s Yard This page intentionally left blank Scammer’s Yard The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica Jovan Scott Lewis University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London A version of chapter 2 was originally published as “Structural Readjustment: Crime, Development, and Repair in the Jamaican Lottery Scam / Reajustamento Estrutural: Crime, Desenvolvimento, e Reparacao Na Burla Da Lotaria Jamaicana,” Anthropological Quarterly 91, no. 3 (2018). Copyright 2020 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lewis, Jovan Scott, author. Title: Scammer’s yard : the crime of black repair in Jamaica / Jovan Scott Lewis. Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020020413 (print) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0997-0 (hc) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0998-7 (pb) Subjects: LCSH: Blacks—Jamaica—Social conditions. | Crime—Sociological aspects. | Jamaica—Social conditions—21st century. | Jamaica—Economic conditions—21st century. Classification: LCC HV6699.J25 L49 2020 (print) | DDC 364.16/3097292—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020413 UMP BmB 2020 For Rhys. May you never feel the need for repair. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS .................. introduction To Be Poor Is a Crime 1 1. The Plantation Remains 25 A History of Sufferation 2. Free Zones 59 Manipulated Development after Structural Adjustment 3. Black Markets 97 The Color of Crime 4. Repairing Blackness 139 Seizing Reparations through the Scam conclusion Black Life beyond Repair 177 acknowledgments 189 notes 193 bibliography 213 index 227 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION .................. To Be Poor Is a Crime Scammer’s Yard is a study of life lived within the over- lapping wakes of colonial independence and structural adjustment in Jamaica. It tells how each of these equally weighted and enduring mo- ments defines and delimits the scope and scale of opportunity for poor, urban Jamaicans. This is a story about three friends who mitigate these conditions through their participation in the Jamaican lottery scam— an intricate scheme that led dozens of primarily elderly, White Americans to send scammers tens of thousands of U.S. dollars. Their practice of the scam demonstrates the complex mechanisms by which they refashion themselves and their country, as well as the broader global relations within which they both are set. Understanding that the world as it exists was not meant for them, they draw on novel logics of capital, criminality, and Blackness as a formulary for postcolonial Black repair to make a world for themselves and on their terms. The impetus behind this process was simple. Omar, Junior, and Dwayne were young, poor, and Black and they wanted money. Money that was lasting, impactful, and meaningful. In other words, they wanted money so that they could “make life” in their city of Montego Bay. They had lived much too long without it, and that life was one that they no longer wished to endure. It was a life of sufferation: an inescapable condi- tion of chronic poverty that was foundational to life’s experience and life’s very quality. That money could equate to life was not a remarkable fact for them. Money had always set life’s tone. It was as if they intrinsically 1

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