Werner Zips

Rastafari, 6 Werner Zips

Rastafari practitioners have continually resisted social sciences definitions of what outsiders called a (millenarian) movement. They maintained, against these efforts of categorization, that Rastafari, as a lived and living philosophy, combines ancient roots with ever emerging routes. These historical, dynamic, and creative dimensions challenge any homogenizing attempts to freeze the "movement" in time and space.

African origins are as important as Diasporean experiences for Rastafari in the manifold struggles to "downstroy" (Rastafarian for "destroy") slavery and oppression. This book brings together contributions from well-known Rastafari practitioners and social scientists as a counter to the unilateral politics of outside definition, identification, and misrepresentation. They discuss Rastafari's historical and contemporary global cultural dimensions and its contribution to issues such as decolonization, reparations, and repatriation.