Abstract

This study seeks to analyse the spread of the Rastafari Movement from Jamaica to Malawi from the early 1970s to 2018 by tracing the roots of Rastafari ideology in Malawi, analysing how the Rastafari movement was consolidated in Malawi, examining how Rastafari has struggled with the general public, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s regimes and democratic governments that followed and assess the extent to which the Rastafari Movement has been indigenized in Malawi. The study agrees with orthodox Marxists who view the rise, growth and spread of Rastafari as a result of material problems of producing food, clothing and shelters. Nevertheless, this study aims to lend a fresh perspective to the subject by seeing the rise, growth and spread of Rastafari as a consequence of the movement’s articulation of counter-hegemonic ideologies. Therefore, this qualitative research drawn from oral data, primary written sources and secondary written sources, employs Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony in this analysis of the spread of Rastafari to Malawi. The study argues that the spread of Rastafari to Malawi was aided by ideological factors that had been extant in the country since the colonial period; that these ideas were consolidated with the internationalisation of reggae music; that as Rastafari spread it was indigenised by incorporating local cultural elements but that the survival of the movement was punctuated by a struggle for acceptance.

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School	: School of Arts, Communication and Design
Issued Date	: 2021

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