Book addict studies violence
Published:Monday | May 10, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer
When he was a youngster, one of Herbert Gayle's teachers told him the way out of the poverty in which he and his family lived was through reading. Gayle, who was already a precocious chap, listened to his teacher and became hooked on books.
Gayle's addiction was so severe that he would go way into the morasses of Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, to find peace and solitude to read. Also, he would take his father's fishing boat way out to sea, anchor it to a reef, and immerse himself in his books in the broiling sun. There were times when night caught him at sea because he fell asleep in the boat.
But it got even more intense. One night, he said, "My mother had told me to go to my bed as I had read enough for the night, and that too much reading would hurt my eyes. We had no electricity and she had put out the 'Home Sweet Home' (lamp), so I lit a candle and went under the bed with it. Of course, it caught the end of the sheet and I called for help."
associated with uwi
Today, he's the one people are turning to for assistance. He is Dr Gayle, a social anthropologist in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus, who lectures in integrated methodologies, qualitative research, Caribbean culture, anthropological practice and urban anthropology. He has long been associated with UWI, from being a student, research assistant, research fellow, tutor, assistant lecturer, to his current position.
Holding Jamaica School Certificate subjects before he was a teenager, his academic achievements are very impressive and read like this, inter alia: Diploma in teacher education (Sam Sharpe Teachers' College in St James); Bachelor of Arts in history with social sciences (UWI); Master of Science in sociology of development (UWI); Master of Philosophy (University of Wales Swansea, on scholarship); Doctor of Philosophy in social anthropology (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, England).
Dr Gayle was also a 2001-03 research fellowship recipient at UWI and a 2002-03 Urban Research Scholarship beneficiary from the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies Limited, University of Essex, England. The anthropology of violence was his area of research for his PhD. Also called the anthropology of violence and terror by some universities, it is a combination of social anthropology and violence studies. His specialisations are community war and gang violence.
"I always wanted to study violence, but the decision was finalised when members of the executive of Operation Trident of the Metropolitan Police Service, London, came to have a meeting with us at UWI and told us (social scientists) that they needed help, as the five boroughs (out of 31) dominated by Jamaicans accounted for a third of all murders in London," he said.
expert for law firms
Dr Gayle is now a well-known researcher/scholar of social violence, a violence expert if you will. He's "the only trained anthropologist of social violence in the Caribbean - only person with years of experience living with and studying youth gangs in Jamaica, Central America, the United States of America and Europe; working with governments of two other Caribbean states to reduce violence; and a gang expert for three law firms in Europe".
The man who nearly burned down his family's house because of his zest for the written word has also had his own work published and read around the world. They are, among others, Young Boys Learning to Fear, Hate and Harm: Recipe For Sustaining Tribal Political Violence In Jamaica's Garrisons, Father Nurturing in Jamaica, in Ja People, Volume 10, Number 2; The Adolescents of St Catherine: A Study of their Reproductive Health and Survivability; Adolescent Male Survivability in Jamaica, published and funded by Futures Group International, USAID. He has done 38 studies since 1994 (principal investigator of 21) including 11 major government reports on violence, youth, reproductive health, gender and solid waste management with Professor Barry Chevannes and Horace Levy.
In explaining the high level of violence in Jamaica he said, "In the most general sense, anthropologists theorise that feuds are possible in (a) harsh ecological conditions - hunger, social isolation and exclusion, where insufficient resources force individuals or groups to compete in order to survive. Competition becomes violent in the absence of (b) an effective central political authority - police, judiciary, and central government consensual power.
"Violent competition results in murder where lethal weapons are available. In harsh environments, individuals increase their chances of survival by (c) organising themselves into social units that can have an advantage over 'others'. Community people are organised for full-scale war by persons who want power, and (d) political mobilisation. Fix any one of these areas and the murder rate has to dip below 30 per every 100,000 persons. That is the essence of my work."
He said further, "According to the 2009 Human Development Report, Jamaica has the second-worst male education participation in the entire world (only Lesotho is worse). This cannot be changed without the inclusion of fathers. My thesis on Transatlantic Homicide (2007) provides some answers in profiling 'shottas'. They are most likely between ages 15 and 25, did not complete secondary school, and have no father or constant male supervision."
So, what is Dr Gayle doing with all of this expertise in social violence?
"The most work I do in Jamaica is free service to educate the masses about the problem we have, through the many researches that I have done. I am not employed to the Government or consulted by them. I basically help anyone who asks. I, however, do consultative work abroad with tremendous help to Jamaica, especially in the area of asylum to reduce the number of Jamaicans deported," he said.
"My expertise helps me to contribute to the three agencies I dedicate my time to: Fathers Incorporated, Hush the Guns and Children First. Over the last three years, I have had to deal with six cases of fathers who came to us, having decided to kill themselves and their partners or entire family. I was able to pull them back into sanity. Though, honestly, I still cannot guarantee that none will revert to their depression."
Other social outreach programmes and organisations that Dr Gayle is associated with are: Jamaica Social Policy Evaluation (volunteer), Griffin Trust, Violence Prevention Alliance - UWI and Ministry of Health (member), and the Centre for Studies in Public Safety and Justice (member).