Strangers in Paradise: Trevor, Marley, and Me: Reggae Music and the Foreigner Other

Abstract

The “immigrant” position calls forth a sense of “strangeness” as a constructed Other. What happens when the self is experienced as a limited, hybridized version of the self one might otherwise be, with opportunity to shape one’s identity? Intersubjectivity is conceptualized as a generative, developmental space in which the “I-ness of me” locates fertile ground for such a project. How do analyst and patient negotiate mutual experiences of alienation in a shared culture of origin, as they encounter experiences of foreignness in a foreign land? As with relational spaces, the construct, “immigrant” is positioned as a thing in itself—a transitional space—in which Otherness might be interrogated. The work of crossing boundaries at the meeting points of race and class is discussed, as two Jamaicans, embedded in the power of Reggae music, engage in psychoanalytic, and socio-political “talk.” Or, is it that we dance?1 A lamellophonic instrument rooted in African culture. It is a wooden music box, or thumb piano, with a circular hole for sound in front, center. Rectangular metal tines of various lengths, tuned for variation in pitch, are placed vertically across the hole. These are plucked by the musician who sits on the box. Rhumba boxes maintain the bassline of the music.