An In-Depth Analysis of the Impact of Tourism on Local Barbadian Culture Pearl E
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Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2011 Bartenders Know Best: An In-Depth Analysis of the Impact of Tourism on Local Barbadian Culture Pearl E. Jurist-Schoen Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the Anthropology Commons, and the Tourism and Travel Commons Recommended Citation Jurist-Schoen, Pearl E., "Bartenders Know Best: An In-Depth Analysis of the Impact of Tourism on Local Barbadian Culture" (2011). Honors Theses. 1006. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/1006 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bartenders Know Best: An In-Depth Analysis of the Impact of Tourism on Local Barbadian Culture By Pearl Jurist-Schoen Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Department of Anthropology UNION COLLEGE March, 2011 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following people for assisting me in my research, the construction of my senior thesis, and contributing to my academic experience in Barbados: George and Sharon Gmelch, Liz Garland, Chelsea Tussing, my Bajan host family, all of my bartender informants, the villagers of Checker Hall, Colin Jordan, Gale Yearwood, and all of my other wonderful Bajan informants and friends. i ABSTRACT Pearl Jurist-Schoen Bartenders Know Best: An In-Depth Analysis of the Impact of Tourism on Local Barbadian Culture The purpose of my thesis is, through my own field research, to analyze the impact of tourism on local Barbadian culture. Caribbean tourism draws strong criticisms from anthropologists due to the region’s geographical location and environmental landscape, its history of colonialism, and the economic vulnerabilities that result from the wealth discrepancy between the local people and the tourists that vacation there. On the very small and densely populated island of Barbados, nearly every person is impacted by tourism. The focus of my ethnography is the cultural exchanges between guests and hosts, most specifically bartenders. A bar harbors many important elements of the Caribbean tourism literature; neocolonialism, service versus servitude, and authenticity and genuineness. Bartenders arguably have the most intimate and in-depth interactions with tourists, and their encounters with tourists are extremely representative of many issues surrounding Caribbean tourism, providing a good way to explore the impacts of tourism on local culture in a very micro setting. I use my knowledge of the culture and my first-hand interviews with bartenders to draw my own conclusions about the role of tourism in Barbados, how the locals feel about it, and whether it is as detrimental to social life as the literature suggests. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1 ......................................................................................................................... 36 The Presence of Tourism in Barbados CHAPTER 2 ......................................................................................................................... 52 Interactions between Hosts and Guests: Bartenders' Experiences Working in the Tourism Industry CHAPTER 3 ......................................................................................................................... 83 The Impact of Tourism on Local Bajan Culture CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 115 REFERENCES CITED ......................................................................................................... 119 iii Introduction As we approached McBride’s, a popular bar among tourists, we heard the bass solo from a well-known Red Hot Chili Peppers song coming from the open door. From inside, the bar was loud, dark, smoky, and filled wall-to-wall with white tourists dancing to the band’s music. The band consisted of 3 white males, probably 20-something in age. Their set list was all familiar American sing-alongs that everyone in the bar seemed to know and proceeded to belt out the songs’ choruses. There were a few black men there, but they kept to themselves, usually perched at a table along the side of the dance floor. There were two bartenders working, and working hard. They were in heavy demand so there wasn’t much chatting going on. The dominant group of customers was a British netball team; about 15 20-year girls. They demanded the attention of everyone in the bar with their skimpy outfits and the way they were dancing on the stage with the band members. Three of the girls were sporting knitted black, red, yellow, and green beanie hats that they had clearly bought as souvenirs. To me this was funny because in my time in Barbados, I had yet to see a Bajan (the widely-used colloquial term for Barbadian) wear something like that, but to them, that was the perfect token for them to remember their trip to Barbados. They were loud and, in my opinion, pretty obnoxious. I left McBride’s thinking about how much that bar was designed to attract young European and North American tourists with their music selections. Even the bar’s name is familiar and caters to a First World Western tourist. I wasn’t sure if the staff found their job irritating and the customers disrespectful, but it 1 was an unsettling thought thinking that they probably had to deal with impertinent tourists like that, and that on the surface, I could easily be confused for one of them. Travel and tourism are global practices and most of the world’s people have somehow been involved with tourism; either as tourists themselves or as hosts to tourists. Because the practice is so heavily centered upon leisure, the study of tourism has been slow to be taken seriously as a legitimate field of study. However, over the past 40 years, the anthropology of tourism has exploded and has gained legitimacy among scholars for uncovering the effects of tourism on local culture, particularly during a time of intense globalization. This subject is very important because most people would admit to enjoying travel, but don’t consider the consequences and effects that they could have on the people and places they visit. Anthropologists aim to uncover these issues. There are specific issues that are highlighted in the scholarly literature of tourism such as the political economy, the commodification of culture, authenticity, and the implications of the interactions between hosts and guests. As two cultures interact through tourism, the cultural exchanges that persist often draw much negative criticism from anthropologists. Caribbean tourism in particular draws criticism due to the region’s geographical location and environmental landscape, its history of colonialism, and the economic vulnerabilities that result from the wealth discrepancy between the local people and the tourists that vacation there. My own field work in Barbados aims to address the issues brought forth by other anthropologists, and to assess the cultural exchanges that occur between hosts and guests. The specific setting that I chose to explore is the bar. A bar harbors many important elements of the Caribbean tourism literature; neocolonialism, service versus servitude, and authenticity 2 and genuineness. Bartenders arguably have the most intimate and in-depth interactions with tourists, and their encounters with tourists are extremely representative of many issues surrounding Caribbean tourism, providing a good way to explore the impacts of tourism on local culture in a very micro setting. While on an anthropology field program in Tasmania with Professor George Gmelch, I developed a passion and a knack for travel, exploration, and field work. George encouraged me to apply for one of Union College’s Summer Research Fellowships which ultimately granted me the funds to spend 6 weeks in Barbados assisting him with his research for his second edition of Behind the Smile: The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism (2003). This book is a series of narratives and interviews with numerous individuals working in different sectors of Barbados’ tourism industry. The purpose of the book’s second edition is to uncover the ways in which tourism has changed in Barbados over the past decade, taking into account such things as globalization, information/communicative technology, and the 2008-9 global financial crisis and what these mean for the future of Barbados’ biggest market. My personal job was to update facts/statistics, contact some of the informants to ask follow-up questions, and take detailed field notes about basically anything that related to tourism and culture change in Barbados. In preparation for this research on tourism, I took an anthropology course in tourism to become familiar with the major issues and topics in the scholarly discourse. Therefore, prior to my field work in Barbados, I possessed the knowledge and credibility to think critically about the topic and issues at hand. As I settled into my Barbados home and become comfortable in my surroundings, I decided to conduct my own additional research to use for