KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Spokesperson on Culture, Creative Industries and Information, Nekeisha Burchell, says Jamaica must stop treating culture as a “side conversation” and begin recognising it as serious infrastructure capable of reviving struggling rural communities and restoring economic life to forgotten parts of the country.

Making her maiden Sectoral Debate contribution in Parliament under the theme “Culture Is Not Decoration. It is Infrastructure,” Burchell argued that many rural Jamaican communities, once sustained by industries such as banana cultivation, bauxite mining, rail transport and agricultural trade, have experienced severe economic decline following the collapse or withdrawal of those sectors.

“There are communities across Jamaica that once had economic life flowing through them,” Burchell said. “The railway passed through them. Banana trucks moved through them. Agriculture sustained them. Small businesses survived because industries existed around them. But after many of those systems disappeared, economic life dried up and entire communities were left struggling to redefine themselves.”

According to Burchell, Jamaica now has an opportunity to use culture, heritage, storytelling and tourism as drivers of economic renewal, particularly in rural communities rich in history, identity and cultural assets. “Culture is not ornamental. Culture does the work of infrastructure,” she stated. “It drives movement, commerce, tourism, jobs, identity and economic participation. If properly structured, culture can become a powerful tool for revitalising communities that have too often been overlooked.”

The St James Southern Member of Parliament pointed specifically to the story of National Hero Sam Sharpe as an example of untapped rural economic potential rooted in Jamaican heritage. “Too often we reduce Sam Sharpe to a portrait on a dollar bill, a mural on a wall somewhere, or a once-a-year ceremony attended by a sprinkling of people in Catadupa Square,” Burchell said. “But Sam Sharpe is not simply Jamaican history. He is world history. What he ignited accelerated the collapse of slavery across the British Empire itself.”

Burchell proposed the development of immersive heritage tourism experiences across sections of rural St James connected to the 1831 Christmas War, including Croydon, Lapland, Kensington, Mocho and surrounding districts tied to Sharpe’s life and movement.

She envisioned heritage trails, dramatised storytelling experiences, cultural festivals, artisan markets, live performances, culinary tourism, educational tourism initiatives and community museums directly involving local residents, artists, farmers, tour guides, transportation operators and small businesses.

But Burchell also argued that Jamaica must begin modernising the way it tells the stories of its national heroes, particularly to younger generations. “We should not only teach Sam Sharpe. We should dramatise him, animate him, write novels about him, produce films and streaming series about him, build merchandise around him, create educational gaming content around him and make his story emotionally alive for young Jamaicans,” Burchell stated. “Other countries build billion-dollar industries around fictional superheroes. Jamaica possesses real heroes whose courage changed world history itself.”

Burchell argued that Jamaica’s cultural economy must move beyond symbolic remembrance and instead create what she described as “living cultural ecosystems” rooted in authentic Jamaican identity. “That is how tourism moves beyond resort walls,” Burchell said. “That is how ordinary communities participate directly in the monetisation of their own heritage and identity. That is how local economies begin to breathe again.”

She further argued that the global response to the recent visit by international influencer IShowSpeed demonstrated that Jamaica’s greatest tourism asset remains the authentic Jamaican experience itself. “What captured global attention was not polished advertising,” she said. “It was Jamaican humour, Jamaican language, Jamaican energy, Jamaican food, Jamaican music and Jamaican personality.”

Burchell said Jamaica must move beyond treating culture as occasional entertainment tied only to annual festivals and instead develop recurring cultural activations and storytelling ecosystems across both urban and rural communities. “The land of reggae should sound like reggae. The birthplace of dancehall should move with dancehall,” Burchell declared. “Culture cannot only exist as an event. It must exist as an environment.”

She warned that while Jamaica profits symbolically from its global cultural identity, many of the communities and individuals responsible for producing that identity continue to experience economic exclusion and underinvestment. “Jamaica is a cultural superpower with a developing economy,” Burchell said. “The question now is whether we are finally prepared to structure culture seriously enough for the people who create Jamaican culture to benefit meaningfully from its economic value.”