In this final session, we will turn our attention to a form of consumption that became increasingly important and conspicuous in the modern world – tourism. Focusing on the history of American and European tourists in the Caribbean, we will examine the historical origins of tourism in the region and how, through the commodification of landscapes, bodies and emotions, the Caribbean was transformed into a ‘playground’. We will also address some key concepts in the study of tourism, including ‘tourist gaze’, ‘imaginative geography’ and what Mimi Sheller terms ‘Edenism’ and ‘Hedonism’. Finally, the session will involve the analysis of examples of the material and visual culture of Caribbean tourism.

Note: please bring with you an object associated with tourism – whether your own practice or that of others, e.g. a souvenir, postcard, guide etc.

Seminar Questions

1. What is tourism and (why) does it matter to historians? What forms of consumption does it involve?
2. What role was tourism to have in the creation of the ‘New Jamaica’? How did photography feature in this?
3. ‘The Caribbean and its peoples have been consumed by the West for centuries’.

Required Reading

Sheller, Mimi, Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies (London: Routledge, 2003), chapter 2 (‘Iconic islands’) and chapter 4 (‘Orienting the Caribbean’)

Thompson, Krista A., An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography, and Framing the Caribbean Picturesque (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), chapter 1 (‘Framing “The New Jamaica”: Feasting on the picturesque tropical landscape’)

Urry, John, The Tourist Gaze 3.0: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies (Los Angeles: Sage, 2011 edition) – scan chapter 1 (‘Theories’), focusing on the concept of 'tourist gaze' especially

Supplementary Reading

Cocks, Catherine, Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)

Daye, Marcella, Chambers, Donna and Roberts, Sherma (eds), New Perspectives in Caribbean Tourism (New York: Routledge, 2008)

Gmelch, George, Behind the Smile: The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2003)

Jolliffe, Lee (ed.), Sugar Heritage and Tourism in Transition (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Channel View Publications, 2012)

Merrill, Dennis, Negotiating Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America (Chapel Hill, NC, 2009)

Scott, Blake C., Unpacked: A History of Caribbean Tourism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022)

Skwiot, Christine, The Purposes of Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Cuba and Hawaiʻi (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010)

Strachan, Ian G., Paradise and Plantation: Tourism and Culture in the Anglophone Caribbean (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002)

Walton, John K. (ed.) Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity and Conflict (Clevedon: Channel View Publications, 2005)

Wilkes, Karen, Whiteness, Weddings, and Tourism in the Caribbean: Paradise for Sale (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

Wood, A.G., The Business of Leisure: Tourism History in Latin America and the Caribbean (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021)