Copyright by Traci-Ann Simone Patrice Wint 2019 The Dissertation Committee for Traci-Ann Simone Patrice Wint Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: After Paradise: Jamaican Tourism and Nationalism in the Wake of Colonialism Committee: Edmund T. Gordon, Supervisor Lyndon Gill Deborah Thomas Lisa Thompson João Vargas After Paradise: Jamaican Tourism and Nationalism in the Wake of Colonialism by Traci-Ann Simone Patrice Wint Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2019 Dedication To Naima and Zora. My music and my poetry. My inspiration and my reason. Acknowledgements One, one cocoa full basket, every mickle mek a muckle, and I could not have done this alone. My journey to this point has been circuitous and without the support of a large community of friends, family, scholars, and mentors I would not have made it through what at many times felt like a Sisyphean task. I am grateful that this work benefitted from a committee of scholars generous with their time and their knowledge, who supported me not only as a scholar but as a whole person. My advisor Edmund T. Gordon has made it clear time and time again that he does not like long introductions or awkward displays of praise, but he and I have been on this road too long for me to let his humility stop me, so even though I know this will probably make him cringe, I have to say thank you. Thank you Dr. Gordon, for taking me under your wing when I was a young, doe-eyed, overly eager graduate student with too many too big ideas and grand impractical plans. For encouraging me, and guiding me, and reminding me that yes, I can do ‘all the things’ just not all at the same time. And thank you for still being there – a steady force with a box of tissues in your office– when the shine of it all faded (as graduate study is wont to do) and the big ideas started to feel too small to matter and life got in the way. Thank you for your commitment to Black Studies and Black liberation and for always pushing me to examine how my work aligns with these politics. Thank you for always asking the hard questions. I am eternally grateful for your mentorship and for the way that you have led by example in teaching me to approach research and pedagogy with both rigour and compassion. v Likewise, I thank Lyndon Gill for encouraging me to enjoy the writing and to lean into the artistry. Lyndon, I truly appreciate your always pushing me to think beyond the obvious and to approach theorizing with equal parts precision and fancy, and I thank you for starting every interaction with a reminder to find and be light. I am grateful for Deborah Thomas and Lisa Thompson who have provided for me the best possible models of what an amazing scholar/artist/mother looks like. Thank you for pushing me intellectually while supporting me personally, for being my inspiration and my example, and for reminding me that we don’t have to choose. Thank you also to João Vargas, whose ability to ground the seemingly abstract is unmatched. Thank you for encouraging me to think through and not just about. This project would not have been possible without the interlocuters and friends, old and new, who allowed me to pick their brains and let me into their conversations, their circles, and their lives. Thank you to Lesley-Ann Welsh, Natalia Welsh, Abishai Hoilett, Duane McDonald, Keron Salmon, Dutty Bookman, Carlo Less, Brian-Paul Welsh, Carla Moore, Jaevion Nelson, Emprezz Golding, Steven Golding, the whole Team Jamaica crew, and my entire TVJ family. I would also like to thank the broad community of scholars who have shared their time, ideas, articles, and comments and have supported this project and my intellectual and professional advancement in some way. Thank you especially to Sara Blue, Simone Browne, Nicole Burrows, Craig Campbell, Charles Carnegie, Tshepo Chéry, Colleen Cohen, Kevin Foster, Juliet Hooker, Omi Jones, Minkah Makalani, Jemima Pierre, Eric Tang, and Rebecca Torres. A heartfelt thank you also to my friends, colleagues, and peers without whom this journey would have been untenable. Thank you to Sade Anderson, vi Maya Berry, Kate Bedecarre, Melissa Burch, Haile Eshe Cole, Beth Colon, Shanya Cordis, Natassja Gunasena, Eva Hodgson, Charles Holm, Mitchell Faust, Daniela Gomes, Sarah Ihmoud, Nedra Lee, Nicole Smythe-Johnson, Nicole Martin, Courtney Morris, Will Mosley, Caitlin O’Neil, Monique Ribiero, Danielle Roper, Danielle Savoury, Emily Dixon, Julian Dixon, Elizabeth Velasquez Estrada and Miriam Varghese. A special thanks to Pablo Lopez Oro for always being available by phone, text, or coffee shop, to flesh out an idea, figure out a theory or just have a good laugh. I am grateful for the community of parents – and their wonderful, amazing, spectacular small people - who have loved me and Tyrone and our small people through this process. I cannot say thank you enough to Chelsi Ohueri, J. Michael Ohueri, Mónica Jimenez, Roger Reeves, Pavithra Vasudevan, Snehal Patel, Liz Lewis, Austin Kaplan, Elizabeth Harvey, Adam Gabbert, Sara Diamond, Shani Roper, Le Tran, Andrew Ozor, Jennifer Stob, Martin Haettasch, Yadira Izquierdo and Gabino Iglesias. A very special thanks to Shani and Chelsi for talking through ideas over pizza or over the phone, on the playground, or in the backyard always over the noise of laughing/screaming kids. To Sara for sitting with me and writing with me and never making me apologize for the fevers and runny noses that so often interrupted our scholarly pursuits, and to Le for the constant encouragement (and caffeine) and understanding that mothering never stops - not even for writing retreats. Taking time to write has meant entrusting the care of my two small people into some very capable hands. Thank you so much to Semente, Donna Cammock and Carly Walker. To my mother whose constant refrain is “how can I help?”, “what do you need?”, Thank you for always knowing when I need you and for always showing up. To Auntie vii Ces, thank you for your eagle eye, and your patience and diligence in going through the document line by line, helping me to clarify and edit – all across the waters and over the phone. Thank you to all of my large and loud family for your love, kindness and unwavering support. Children stretch you in ways you never thought possible. Thank you to Naima and Zora for giving me everything I was looking for and more. And, last but most certainly not least thank you to Tyrone Hayles for being my rock, for holding my hand through this, for making sure that I eat and sleep and not just write, for allowing me to drag you along during fieldwork and listening to me ramble on about half-formed ideas as I tried to make sense of things while writing. I would you choose you over and over again. The hard part of writing acknowledgements is that as with all lists, there are gaps, important names get forgotten. If I have failed to mention you – please nuh tek it nuh way – know that though my brain may slip, my heart is grateful – so, so very grateful for all you are and all you have done. Thank you. viii Abstract After Paradise: Jamaican Tourism and Nationalism in the Wake of Colonialism Traci-Ann Simone Patrice Wint, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2019 Supervisor: Edmund T. Gordon Abstract: In the tourist’s popular imagination Jamaica is red, green and gold; reggae music played on pristine beaches, a dreadlocked man selling artwork, weed, coconuts and the big bamboo. Jamaica is tourism. Jamaica is Reggae. Jamaica is Rasta. My dissertation explores the intricacies of race, gender, and class in post-colonial Jamaica to investigate the complex relationship between tourism and national identity in places that and among people who simultaneously embrace and resist Caribbean tourism’s paradise narrative. Considering Kingston and Rastafari as a place and a movement both central and peripheral to Jamaica’s tourism product and the national imaginary, this project explores the creation and articulation of Jamaica as paradise, questions what is at stake in this presentation of Jamaica and Jamaicans as commodity and asks for whom paradise exists. More specifically, I examine the employment of a Black - specifically Rasta and urban ix aesthetic in the processes of tourism and national identity to ask how and why an abject form of Blackness has become central to the Jamaican economy and national identity. This project is interdisciplinary in its approach as it makes use of ethnographic, historical, cultural, and literary analysis, and engages creative arts both as site of analysis and as a means of expression. I make use of the historical archive to discuss the relationship between slavery and tourism, and colonialism and national identity in Jamaica and to lay the groundwork for the complicated articulation of Jamaica as paradise. Through analysis of tourism marketing paraphernalia advertisements, websites and brochures, I examine the story of Jamaica presented to possible consumers throughout the world. And through newspaper articles, participant observation, interviews and ethnography, I discuss the relationship between this presentation and Jamaicans’ daily life. Acknowledging that public commentary is an important part of the Jamaican landscape, I engage the work of newspaper and radio commentators, as well as the work of musicians, poets and cultural icons as I would academic texts.