Take me to my paradise : tourism and nationalism in the British Virgin Islands / Colleen Ballerino Cohen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Colleen Ballerino.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tourism--British Virgin Islands.

Tourism.

Culture and tourism--British Virgin Islands.

Culture and tourism.

Nationalism--British Virgin Islands.

Nationalism.

British Virgin Islands--Social life and customs.

British Virgin Islands.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (290 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) markets itself to international visitors as a paradise. But just whose paradise is it? Colleen Ballerino Cohen looks at the many players in the BVI tourism culture, from the tourists who leave their graffiti at beach bars that are popularized in song, to the waiters who serve them and the singers who entertain them. Interweaving more than twenty years of field notes, Cohen provides a firsthand analysis of how tourism transformed the BVI from a small neglected British colony to a modern nation that competes in a global economic market. With its close reading of everything from advertisements to political manifestos and constitutional reforms, Take Me to My Paradise deepens our understanding of how nationalism develops hand-in-hand with tourism, and documents the uneven impact of economic prosperity upon different populations. We hear multiple voices, including immigrants working in a tourism economy, nationalists struggling to maintain some control, and the anthropologist trying to make sense of it all. The result is a richly detailed and accessible ethnography on the impact of tourism on a country that came into being as a tourist destination.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

A Note on Notes and Names

Introduction: Take Me to My Paradise

Chapter 1: Tourism’s Paradise

Chapter 2. Making Paradise as a Tourist Desti-Nation

Chapter 3. “Nature’s Little Secrets”

Chapter 4. Cultural Negotiations

Chapter 5. Like Looking at Ourselves in a Mirror

Chapter 6. Stanley’s Swing and Other Intimate Encounters

Chapter 7. Of Festivals, Calypso Kings, and Beauty Queens

Chapter 8. Performing Paradise and Making Culture

Conclusion: Technically, It’s a Country

References

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-86419-3

0-8135-5031-9

OCLC:

768294567