It's Culture, Not Genes: Explaining Why Jamaican Sprinters Are the Fastest Humans on Earth

Abstract

IntroductionIN THE SIX YEARS SINCE USAIN BOLT dramatically lowered the ioo metres world record from the previous 9.72 seconds of Asafa Powell to the still incredible 9.58, the need for a scientific explanation behind the sudden dominance of Jamaicans in the short sprints has arisen. This was further stimulated and underlined by the almost total sweep of the 100 and 200 metres gold medals at both the Olympic Games and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Track and Field Championships between 2008 and 2013.To the forefront have come two main sets of explanations, both physiological. The first is that something genetically specific to Jamaicans makes them predisposed to run faster than anyone else. The second, stereotyped by the fabled Trelawny yam from Bolt's hometown, suggests that the peculiarities of the Jamaican diet might provide a sort of metabolic boost, which has now propelled them to the pinnacle of global sprinting.Less popular, but central to this article, is the premise that, whatever impact the biological factors may have, the real explanation lies not in realm of physiology and nutrition. Rather, the key elements are to be found in factors within the social environment. In other words, it is socio-cultural phenomena which have had the most influence, and not a fortuitous coincidence of characteristics wrought by some accident of nature. It is accepted that the Jamaican propensity to speed does have some biological basis. However, a set of socio-cultural factors unique to the Jamaican environment has resulted in Jamaican sprinters' historical success. Some of these factors have been enhanced by other variables since the mid to late 1990s, to produce the phenomenon of the fastest sprinters on the planet. It is not an overnight occurrence. Rather, as with most perceivable aspects of culture, it steadily evolved over time, and might have been catalysed more recently, writing a new chapter in sporting history.A statement by early sociologist Karl Marx could explain the recent historic ascendancy of the Jamaican sprinters, and perhaps synthesises the proposition of this essay. Marx declared:Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; . . . [they do] not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionising themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service . . dHaving established the analytical standpoint of this article, my goal is, first, to quantitatively determine the perceived dominance of Jamaicans, recording any trend or temporal variation. Having done that, I then present and evaluate the position of the proponents of biological factors.Culture definedThese circumstances and traditions transmitted from the past are what anthropologists and sociologists call culture. Incorporating all of the above, culture is the sum total of non-biological behaviour of a people, which they have developed and passed down across time, in coming to terms with their physical and social environment. Talcott Parsons defines it as those patterns relative to behaviour and the products of human action which may be inherited . . . passed on from generation to generation independently of the biological genes '.2 Culture comprises all areas of human social interaction and is a people's primary adaptive mechanism.The salient point is that culture does not exist in a detached vacuum. It is anchored in material realities. Cultural materialists like Marvin Harris recognise the dialectical relationship between culture and environment. Harris, a self-labelled Vulgar Marxist', asserts that the explanation of cultural phenomena lies in an understanding of practical circumstances. …