Dons

The informal justice system of garrison constituencies undermines the rule of law in Jamaica but this has not received much scholarly attention. The counter society framework is used to explain garrisons as informal governance units that challenge the state. Society abhors a governance vacuum. People will replicate polices when these polices are inadequate. Governments have reduced public spending in the inner city. The criminal dons have replaced the state as the major patrons of residents and replicated state services including an informal justice system. Participant observation and focus groups revealed that the dons tried the “cases” reported and the shooters meted out punishment. A man was shot in the leg for kicking a pregnant woman. Two women were warned not to fight. Perpetrators of physical assaults and domestic abusers were beaten. Police informers, renegade shooters and borrowers who refuse to repay the dons were executed. Switching party allegiance led to expulsion from the community. Since the demise of the Western Kingston dons by law enforcement, some residents have formally reported crimes. The state must use this opportunity to support these residents, reassert its authority in the other eleven garrison constituencies and outperform the dons with effective public policies thereby making them redundant.

"Gervaise, très donnante de sa nature, lâchait, écrit Zola dans L'Assommoir, à chaque instant des litres de vin, des tasses de bouillon, des oranges, des parts de gâteau". La dynamique narrative de ce roman de la socialité s'orchestrerait-t-elle autour de la problématique de la réciprocité? Associé, par les ethnologues, au maintien de l'ordre communautaire, l'échange symbolique, en tant que double obligation rituelle et contrainte sociale d'accepter, et, ensuite, de rendre, sous une forme différente et différée, les dons reçus, sera étudié ici dans son travail de configuration sémantique, discursive et poétique.