Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Beyond Landfall: An Ethnography About Accompong After Hurricane Melissa

Lundin Johansson, Ulrika LU and Bähr, Alice LU (2026) HEKK03 20252
Department of Human Geography
Human Ecology
Abstract
On the 28th of October 2025, Category 5 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica. This thesis examines how it was experienced, narrated, and acted upon in Accompong, a sovereign Indigenous Maroon polity in Cockpit Country. Based on six weeks of ethnographic fieldwork (14 November–23 December 2025), we follow Melissa as an unfolding process rather than a bounded event. Guided by political ecology, decolonial and Caribbean ecology scholarship, and Indigenous Storywork, we take a relational approach to how aftermath unfolds through interconnected material, historical, political, and spiritual relations. Melissa is shown as lived through bodies and senses, interpreted through coexisting explanations (climate change, political motives,... (More)
On the 28th of October 2025, Category 5 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica. This thesis examines how it was experienced, narrated, and acted upon in Accompong, a sovereign Indigenous Maroon polity in Cockpit Country. Based on six weeks of ethnographic fieldwork (14 November–23 December 2025), we follow Melissa as an unfolding process rather than a bounded event. Guided by political ecology, decolonial and Caribbean ecology scholarship, and Indigenous Storywork, we take a relational approach to how aftermath unfolds through interconnected material, historical, political, and spiritual relations. Melissa is shown as lived through bodies and senses, interpreted through coexisting explanations (climate change, political motives, religion, ancestors), and met through care, skills, diaspora ties, and negotiation with outside actors. The analysis also traces how sovereignty, leadership, and internal political debates shaped response and recovery, including relations with the Jamaican Government and Jamaica’s Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness. January 6 emerges as a key point of orientation, where cultural practice and collective organization make continuity visible as recovery remains ongoing. The thesis contributes by foregrounding how people among the Accompong Maroons understand and respond to Hurricane Melissa, offering an ethnographic account of aftermath as embodied, relational, and political. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Lundin Johansson, Ulrika LU and Bähr, Alice LU
supervisor
organization
course
HEKK03 20252
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Accompong Maroons, Jamaican Maroons, Hurricane Melissa, Disaster Aftermath, Indigenous Sovereignty
language
English
id
9223803
date added to LUP
2026-03-24 10:21:47
date last changed
2026-03-24 10:21:47
@misc{9223803,
  abstract     = {{On the 28th of October 2025, Category 5 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica. This thesis examines how it was experienced, narrated, and acted upon in Accompong, a sovereign Indigenous Maroon polity in Cockpit Country. Based on six weeks of ethnographic fieldwork (14 November–23 December 2025), we follow Melissa as an unfolding process rather than a bounded event. Guided by political ecology, decolonial and Caribbean ecology scholarship, and Indigenous Storywork, we take a relational approach to how aftermath unfolds through interconnected material, historical, political, and spiritual relations. Melissa is shown as lived through bodies and senses, interpreted through coexisting explanations (climate change, political motives, religion, ancestors), and met through care, skills, diaspora ties, and negotiation with outside actors. The analysis also traces how sovereignty, leadership, and internal political debates shaped response and recovery, including relations with the Jamaican Government and Jamaica’s Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness. January 6 emerges as a key point of orientation, where cultural practice and collective organization make continuity visible as recovery remains ongoing. The thesis contributes by foregrounding how people among the Accompong Maroons understand and respond to Hurricane Melissa, offering an ethnographic account of aftermath as embodied, relational, and political.}},
  author       = {{Lundin Johansson, Ulrika and Bähr, Alice}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Beyond Landfall: An Ethnography About Accompong After Hurricane Melissa}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}