The Role of Ganja in Rastafari Culture

In Jamaica during the early 1930’s, Rastafari began as a socio-religious movement that formed to reject the “hegemonic and homogenizing British imperial culture that dominated Jamaica’s colonial society” and also to create an identity that would re-appropriate African heritage (Edmonds, 2012:1). In the beginning, Rastas were comprised of a small population in Jamaica, but Rastafari has since evolved into an international movement consisting of somewhere between 700,000 and 100,000 people worldwide (Edmonds, 2012:71). One characteristic that widely defines Rastas is their belief in Haile Ras Tafari Selassie I — former emperor of Ethiopia — as the divine black liberator in human form (Edmonds, 2012). Other Rastafari core values include livity, or natural living, smoking ganja, reasoning (the ritual smoking of ganja to reach higher understanding through conversation), reggae, dreadlocks, dreadtalk and the rejection of establishments, conformity and the Babylonian spirit. <a href="https://medium.com/@a_free.frequency/the-role-of-ganja-in-rastafari-culture-4237d409424b">Visit Now</a>