The Globalization of Rastafari

The articles in this issue had their origins in 1998 with the Rastafari in Global Context Seminar of the Academy of American Religion (AAR). The seminar met annually for three years, with a dozen or so active participants who discussed issues and presented papers relating to the global context of Rastafari. We were an eclectic and interdisciplinary group, coming from fields as far ranging as religious studies, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, theology and literature. We were also an inclusive group, inviting onlookers and other interested parties to our meetings, and doing our best (but in the end failing) to also include Rastafari voices in our discussions. The Rastafari elder, Mortimo Planno, for example, agreed to attend, and was even offered a stipend by the AAR to offset costs, but was continually denied a visa by the US government. Over the course of time some participants in the seminar dropped out, and others, who had planned to publish papers with us, published elsewhere because they were working with especially time-sensitive data. Our hope is that these articles might serve as groundwork for additional research on Rastafari s global context, including specifically additional ethnographic work on the forms Rastafari takes in various communities worldwide, an increased emphasis on the dynamics and change within Rastafari as it continues to grow, and an increased self-awareness by scholars of Rastafari of how Rastafari s global context might reshape methodology.