I find it interesting that Thomas intent was originally to not write about violence. In an effort to work in opposition to prominent narratives around Jamaica and the people who live there, she focused greatly on things outside of violence, particularly art, politics, and community action. But it is difficult to avoid topics like violence which shape so much of the everyday life anthropologists such as herself are tasked with studying. I understand the desire to combat stereotypes and focus on good. Reading this introduction I thought about the ways in which trauma and violence become the only stories ever heard about marginalized identities. Often, those are the popular stories heard by outsiders. So to decenter violence almost becomes a protest. This though, must not come at the cost of the truth of a community and what the people experience. It is with this in mind that Thomas begins to lay out the ways in which violence in Jamaica affects politics and citizenship.
She also argues that the framework of reparations should be applied the knowledge formation, specifically the kind that anthropologists engage. In this, I believe she draws on some of the ideas around abolitionist anthropology, which asks anthropologists to reject the general structure of anthropological work in order to dismantle the white supremacist and imperial nature of the discipline. I believe this claim for a new framework can be seen as the genesis of that which can replace traditional anthropology. It is one that acknowledges structural insecurities and works towards a more accurate, ethical, and embodied “cultural” analysis.