It can be said that the physical and spatial boundaries of Kingston Harbour have undergone extensive changes both natural and man-made for a modernising approach towards urban planning and expansion. Its magnetic pull stretches from the shorelines bordered by Kingston City to the north, Hunts Bay to the west, Portmore municipality, and Palisadoes spit in the south and east. This paper deals with the historical trajectory of Kingston Harbour, the world’s seventh largest natural harbour, located in Downtown Kingston, Jamaica. From the inception of the ‘Towne of Kingston’ in 1692, when the city of Port Royal was obliterated by several natural disasters to a contemporary setting marked by urban sprawl and renewal. The present study explores how the harbour has evolved from transporting a different type of goods- enslaved Africans- and transformed into a sight, site and space for cruise, community and commerce. Boasting a reputation as an in-demand logistic transhipment hub within Latin America and the Caribbean region, other maritime activities, a venue for state-sponsored cultural event, the harbour and its environs serve as a strong signifier reflecting sequences of past events particularly those that continue to influence Jamaica’s folk culture and pattern of cultural adaptation in an urban setting pre- post-Emancipation. The research takes an ethnographic approach to data collection via structured interviews conducted with open-ended questions and observations to understand the complex dynamic of analysing Downtown Kingston’s urban culture in transition or rather revitalisation intersecting the glocal, through this social landscape and how urban cultures continue to shape the urban environment and vice versa.
Marsha M. Hall has been a Research Officer at the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/ Jamaica Memory Bank (ACIJ/JMB) since 2022. Her work involves documentation of Jamaica’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, conducting interviews for the JMB, and presentations on Caribbean / African history and culture to primary, secondary, and tertiary level institutions. Marsha also acts within the capacity of a consultant to researchers on Jamaican folk culture. She holds a Master’s degree in Middle Studies from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.