Publication by DPDF 2007 “Black Atlantic Studies” Fellow Chelsey Kivland.

This paper aims to present a theoretical framework for understanding the interrelated logics of performance and sovereignty as manifested in rituals of governance. The presentation of this framework, inspired as it is by my initial fieldwork on the practices of bann a pye and rara groups in Bel Air, will be introduced by a brief outline of my research project. It will then be followed by an outline of the empirical questions that such theoretical suggestions inspire for the remaining seventeen months of fieldwork.