...Ryan Fahrenkopf English 201 Fremio Sepulveda Research Paper “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate." – Edward W. Said “Life and Debt” is a documentary directed by Stephanie Black with the screen play and voice over done by Jamaica Kincaid about how the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organizations destroyed Jamaica economically. This movie is based specifically on what happened in Jamaica but it is a model for how the IMF and first world countries have impacted the rest of the world. The film is about globalization and exposing first world countries, mainly the United States, for destroying third world countries. The Oxford English dictionary defines a documentary as a factual, realistic, applied esp. to a film or literary work, etc., based on real events or circumstance, and intended primarily for instruction purposes. “Life and Debt” mostly follows this definition because it does present real factual information, although it varies a little from the definition of a documentary because it is a little biased on the side of Jamaica. Another critical concept from the film is the term globalization. The Oxford English Dictionary defines globalization as the action, process, or fact of making global; esp. (in later use) the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international...
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...Life and Debt Life and Debt is powerful film is the first to put a human face on globalization. It demonstrates Jamaica’s economic woes begins with the arrival of a group of mostly white vacationers into the airport. En route to Montego Bay, their thrillers at the beach appear in the film as an ironic counterpoint to the economic realities of the other Jamaica, a country suffering from a 30 year IMF strictness regime and multinational domination of the traditional self-sustaining, largely agricultural economy. Jamaica is presented differently to tourists. They can go in the country with a driver’s license instead of a passport, bags are not searched and going through customs is made to be a piece of cake. Tourists are welcomed with songs describing the beauty of Jamaica as they land in Montego Bay. They arrive to their Hotels and resorts that are gated and protected with trained security guards along with vicious looking German Shepherds, hotels have beach views and design programs for tourists that includes activities around the hotel area, they tour around certain areas that appear to be nicer than most of Jamaican typical areas. Tourists pass by quite a few American chain food restaurants such as Taco Bell, McDonalds, and Baskin Robin. They assume that they are enjoying local cuisine in the cruises and hotels while it’s all imported from Miami. They don’t get to see how Jamaica doesn’t have proper sewerage and how bad the living conditions are, all in...
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...When many tribal group and ethnic minorities face the prospect of culture, it may sound odd to look for the effects of mass tourism on developing countries. Tourism is necessary for the development of a developing country like Jamaica. Stephanie Black’s film “Life and Debt” begins by, "If you come to Jamaica as a tourist, this is what you'll see..." showing Jamaica as paradise place. Another 1988 documentary directed by an Australian director Dennis O’Rourke is “Cannibal Tours”. Both film contains much ethnographic representation of the two different extreme societies; the local group and the western tourists. Tourism largely involves cultural changes and it affects the developing country. Of course, tourism never led to massacre of natural inhabitants. However it uproots local populations. Mass tourism is an increasing that is depending on global economy mutually. Tourism is necessary for developing country because of the major source of foreign exchange and economic system. Every year thousands of people visit place like Jamaica, as a result they earn foreign exchange. Of course, vacation to a place like Jamaica is a relief from monotonous life. Tourism has created employment that involves improvement the economic system of a developing country. The growth of...
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...A life in debt Imagine this, a fresh graduate, still quite warm from wearing that thick convocation robe and a suit in the middle of the tropical sun heat, entering the “real world” with a debt of at least RM20k to 40k, that is if he is from a government university. Chances are if he is a graduate from a private college or a private university (MMU, UTP, UNITEN) it would probably be above RM50k, usually in the form of the infamous acronym PTPTN (Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional). While some lucky ones may get a scholarship from either the government, private insititutions or from MBF (Mak Bapak Finance), the majority would take a loan to fund their degree in the hope that they may secure a good job in the future, get a decent wage, pay off the debt and, God willing, maybe settle down after a few years. Spending and lifestyle A graduate would want a car, or at least at some point would like to own one. Of course, he could always resort to owning a motorcycle or simply use public transportation but judging by the death rate of motorcyclists and the weather here, eventually one would dream of owning a car. Let’s face it, we’re not Japan yet, we are still an automobile nation. So how does owning a car get into the equation? Consider this, a graduate buys a standard, fuel-saving, comfortable Malaysian car, say a MyVi. A MyVi in the peninsula costs around 38k to 40k, so our graduate would then take a car loan, say a nine-year plan to buy his/her first car. Now, our...
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...The film, Life and Debt by Stephanie Black shows how Jamaicans struggle economically and racially through their daily lives due to the International Monetary Fund. The purpose of the IMF is to assist the developing countries, as well as securing financial stability; however that only destroyed the economy of Jamaica and its agriculture as well. Some of the themes that are portrayed in this film are the effects of tourism and international involvement/globalization has on the natives. Life in debt really opened my eyes regarding tourism. It did a perfect job demonstrating the separation of how the outsiders view Jamaica, as to how it actually is and the serious problems the natives face. By displaying these two distinctive points of...
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...Forever In Debt When Jamaica received its independence from Great Britain in 1962, it had all the essentials of being a new and strong country except for finances. Knowing the newly formed country of Jamaica couldn’t strive and succeed without financial help, Michael Manley (Jamaica’s prime minister at the time) made a few deals with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) to borrow funds so the country can slowly begin to grow and survive on its own. The documentary Life and Debt directed by Stephanie Black showed and talked about how the agreements made with the IMF impacted Jamaica and its economy in a horrible manor. The film gave the impression that the audience it was trying to reach out to was the average tourists. The movie always showed scenes of tourists having fun on the beach or doing other various activities, and when doing so it referred to the tourists by saying “You”. That is why I think the Audience for the movie would be tourists. Life and Debt had a fair share of both strengths and weaknesses. One of its most crucial strengths was that it interviewed and shared the story of many different people, who have been impacted by the deals made between Jamaica and the IMF. Like the farmer in the milk industry. This is good because it gives the viewer firsthand knowledge of the issues from someone directly involved in it. Another essential strength would be that the film did a good job describing how the IMF works. This is important because it doesn’t leave the audience...
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...In “Life in Debt: Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile” by Clara Han, the author sets out to survey the debt-ridden landscape found in what is a modern day población, which is the Chilean equivalent of a shanty town or ghetto called La Pincoya, Chile. The author introduces the readers to several families whom she uses as subjects to explain the socio-economic landscape as a result of the seventeen year long dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The author’s focus in the book is to “consider how the states ‘care’ in the democratic transition is inhabited by the past” (p. 3). This is framed in the sense of how the everyday life is fragmented into unequal social arrangements. That is it say that the author role is creating ethnographic...
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...the consumer vs diamonds are forever doesn’t visually offer you a black diasporic consumer.West is channeling an activism that takes place through you and the wallet. * This is an individual action of activism. Your actions connect you to the collective but its only about you. * *think about purchasing power as part of forming and narrating consumer culture. * Community manifests through consumer based or internet based sense of community. * Whats the difference in audience interpretation between sweet honey in the rock and kanye west. * Homogenization or capitalization on the distinction between cultures to make them more marketable. * How global forces of trade intensify cultural traits. * “You” in life and debt was referring to white americans. But false representation. Well incomplete anyway. * In the film: there is a world in this somewhere but I cant getinto this right now. * Listen to the you vs we in the place of consumption. The identity shifts. * Roots the movie: look it up. * Genealogical study boomed in the wake of this tv series. Xpecially in the black comm. * Tourism was centered as a developmental strategy (especially in Jamaica, Senegal, third world and developing countries) * Tourism becomes linked to this roots phenomenon. * Slave forts were”disneyfied” or arguably so, that brought in a lot of tourist dollars. * People that write about tourism: faily uniform in critiquing the commodification of...
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... that I longed to be back in the place that I came from…”(lines 60-61). This further exemplifies the complicated nature of the problem. She did not like where she was when she was there, but when she left she wanted nothing more than to go back. The author also incorporated images of nature. The most memorable instance of this was how her realization of her new life entered, “...like a flow of water dividing formerly dry and solid ground, creating two banks…”(lines 37-39). This thought provoking simile shows the audience how divided her former sense of self and her expectations of the future are. She describes her past as “so familiar and predictable,” and her future as “a gray bank, an overcast seascape on which rain was falling and no boats were in sight,”(lines 39-43). This stark difference really emphasizes her bleak outlook of the future. Here, the author once again uses weather to exhibit her dislike of her current state. When describing the negatives of her past, the narrator uses the simile, “...as if it were an old garment never to be worn again, my sad thoughts, my sad feelings, and my discontent with life in general as it presented itself to me”(lines 67-70). This simile suggests that the narrator was ready to discard her past for a more pleasant future. Immediately following this, the author writes with a dysthymic tone to show the narrator’s qualms with discarding her past. She says, “In the past, the thought of being in my present situation had been a comfort,...
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...A Small Place Essay British colonization is what led to the corruption of Antigua and society through the eyes of Jamaica Kincaid. The book shows the significance of the arrival of outside countries and people and the effect it had on Caribbean islands. Through Kincaid’s various views throughout the book, perspectives range from viewpoints of tourists traveling to the Caribbean to viewing society through the eyes of Antiguan natives; even through the eyes of Jamaica Kincaid herself as a young child during the colonization periods. Kincaid’s sour tone throughout the text shows her passion for her home country and its history as she feels Antigua has been and is corrupted by the outside presence of other nations. A majority of A Small Place is expressed through Kincaid’s personal point of view and, consequently, is written in the first-person. However, she tends to write in the second-person point of view when she’s referring to tourists and even early English colonists. Her constant use of “you” in her writing makes her claims more personal and strong in distinguishing the dislike for what the tourists represent. Her tone even gets more aggressive at times. “Do you ever try to understand why people like me cannot get over the past, cannot forgive and cannot forget? There is the Barclay’s Bank. The Barclay brothers are dead. The human beings they traded, the human beings who to them were only commodities, are dead.” (Kincaid 27) Her claims towards the tourists are...
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...A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid is an effective non fiction text because of the use of blunt words and phrases. Kincaid was able to give me one side of a story that I may have wanted to look past. As a result of this, Kincaid left me with the feeling of guilt. Throughout the text, I questioned many things about myself. Whether it was the way I act on vacations or if I was actually “an ugly person”. These effective tools that Kincaid used, such as having me question myself and think in a different perspective really enhanced the message she was tried to get across. Tourists, such as many of my relatives, who travel to the Dominican Republic each year, might not see themselves the way the natives of that particular place do. While on...
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...“A Small Place” In “A Small Place”, by Jamaica Kincaid, Kincaid reveals the native’s side on tourism. The essay is written in a second point of view and the reader is addressed directly in the essay. Kincaid places the reader in the shoes of the tourist, and tells the tourist what she would see through her travels on the island. In fact, the reader is a tourist in Antigua. Kincaid makes a connection in her essay that leaves the audience with an understanding of the corruption that goes on in the island of Antigua and how that relates to the negative view Kincaid has of tourists. Kincaid begins the essay by telling the beautiful sights and scenes Antigua has to offer. However, as the essay progresses the reader finds out how atrocious of a place Antigua is. For example, the schools are even unrecognizable: “You pass a building in a sea of dust and you think, It’s some latrines for people just passing by, but when you look again you see the building has written on it PIGLOTT’S SCHOOL”(Kincaid 1225). This is an example Kincaid uses to show how poor of a place Antigua is. This essay is written with many purposes in mind but the most important one is to change the tourists’ treatment and view of the locals. In order to make her point, Kincaid creates a feeling of compassion for the natives and instills a feeling of guilt in the tourists. Although, I think she is successful in creating sympathy for the natives, I do not think that she is successful in changing the behaviors of...
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...Place. The author writes in second person addressing the tourist (who can be us the readers or any tourist around the globe). Kincaid writes in a tone where even I despised myself for traveling. She has the ironic and provocative voice that might offend the reader. I myself have witnessed tourists at a young age and I did envy them. I thought I was going to get stuck in this polluted city my whole entire life. I saw them frolicking the beaches and drinking white wine while eating gyros as I sat behind my uncle's bar wanting to have fun too. But I have also been a tourist laying on a beautiful beach as a young man served me sushi and a pina colada. Jamaica writes “But some natives-most natives in the world-cannot go anywhere. They are too poor... They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go”(119 Kincaid). This quote made me think and realize that being a tourist is “ugly”. Natives see you in an envious way because you get to leave your unappealing life for a short vacation into their homes that they want to...
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...manipulate internal and external enemies. To prove his point, Wilks draws on the effects of globalization imposed by huge core nations on local farmers. Many of them, like the Belize farmers, where there is profitable market, they respond quickly and enthusiastically. However, when being pushed away on the market through the system of subsidization of foreigner goods, many of them quick their farm and find themselves working for these big companies. It is just nonsensical, in my opinion, to have local farmers having to compete with globalization. They will always be destroyed off the market because these core nations are able to subsidize their products, making them cheaper to consume. In class, we have watched a great video called “Life and Debt Jamaica’, which serves as a prime example of the system of subsidization of products on the market. Many foreign products in Jamaica were subsidized...
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...While watching Stephanie Black's film Life and Debt, I was not expecting to see the sad truth behind a third world nation. I never have given attention to the outside world. Living in Canada with many privileges, gave me enough ignorance to forget about the less privileged. What worried me more was the fact that they were in a debt loop by the hands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Jamaica was a developing country but lacks the strength to stand by itself. Looking at Jamaica, I was astonished to see the poverty and lack of recourses. They have many issues as a country. The film explains how this occurs over time and all of it begins at the IMF. The textbook states that the reason the IMF exists is to help rebuild Europe from the...
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