z-logo
Premium
Visibility as concealment: Informal football matches and wealth disparities in rural Jamaica (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate )
Author(s) -
Tantam William
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8322.12087
Subject(s) - socioeconomic status , football , competition (biology) , sociology , inequality , negotiation , subsistence agriculture , social class , gender studies , demographic economics , geography , political science , demography , population , economics , social science , law , ecology , mathematical analysis , mathematics , archaeology , biology , agriculture
Every weekday evening men from Black River (a coastal Jamaican town) and the nearby communities of New Town, Logwood, and Spring Park play ‘pick‐up ball’ (informal football matches) together. Some of the players are wealthy and well educated and are respected in the communities. Others are unemployed, dependent upon relatives, wives, girlfriends, or cash‐in hand employment opportunities for subsistence. My presentation proceeds from the question: why do these groups play football together? I argue that men of higher socioeconomic status aim to counteract disparities in the economic sphere with competition in the social sphere. By visibly mixing and competing with men of different socioeconomic statuses, wealthier men aim to conceal these disparities. My work proceeds from an understanding of Jamaica as a country with significant and growing inequalities of wealth and class. By looking at the social lives of higher class men in Black River, I argue that these men aim to negotiate potentially volatile socioeconomic conditions through competition and ‘strategic socializing.’ In a sense, these men aim to conceal socioeconomic disparities by making themselves visible as individuals.

This content is not available in your region!

Continue researching here.

Having issues? You can contact us here