Rex Nettleford's Contribution To Society

1034 Words5 Pages

Rex Nettleford was born in 1933 and lived as a prominent Jamaican Sociologist, dancer and choreographer who went by the motto “Life is long distance running, not sprinting.” This synopsis will highlight key points of Rex Nettleford’s contribution to society and examine why they are still relevant in today’s modern Caribbean society. Rex Nettleford had concepts regarding culture and the Caribbean especially how our African Culture impacted the Caribbean on a whole. In his Role as Vice Chancellor Emeritus of University of the West Indies (UWI), he was responsible for the 1996 introduction of Cultural studies. Mr. Nettleford believed in order to achieve excellence; individuals had to apply themselves professionally. During his active years, …show more content…

We can see how political development has played a major part in society and it is a major factor today. We have seen changes in our judicial system throughout the Caribbean and some countries still being governed under the original law and has not changed over time. Cultural changes have also developed but we still have old theories as a foundation especially with the evolution of social media being a new phenomenon and used more as a means for communication. Physical changes in society has also taken place where we are now replacing historical sites with new buildings but that does not take away from the foundations that were set from our founding fathers of …show more content…

Neddleford’s teaching profession, included educating unionist and government officials on the importance of Trade Unions and its influence on societal structure. With today’s economic system trade unions are influential with its relation to capitalism. Capitalism created the working class and the working class created trade unions, a process referred to as ‘combination’. The combination enables workers to overcome workplace competition between each other in order to compete with capitalist. Present day Trade Unions operate in order to denote capitalism and provide structure within an organization. As mentioned earlier Mr. Nettleford believed without professional application individuals would achieve nothing. Trade Unions were the first permanent self-defense put in place for the working class and still exist for this same reason