The Caribbean market woman is ingrained in the popular imagination as the archetype of black womanhood in countries throughout the region. Challenging this stereotype and other outdated images of black women, "Downtown Ladies" offers a more complex picture by documenting the history of independent international traders known as informal commercial importers, or ICIs who travel abroad to import and export a vast array of consumer goods sold in the public markets of Kingston, Jamaica.
Both by-products of and participants in globalization, ICIs operate on multiple levels and, since their...