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Palgrave Macmillan

Whiteness, Weddings, and Tourism in the Caribbean

Paradise for Sale

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Karen Wilkes

    1. Birmingham City University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
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  2. Introduction

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 1-13

  3. Using Intersectionality to Challenge Visual Myths of Paradise

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 15-51

  4. White Masculine Voices and Their Construction of the Colonized Woman as Sexual Primitive

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 53-90

  5. Procuring White Femininity in the Colonies

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 91-123

  6. Resurrecting Colonialism: Tourism in Jamaica During the Nineteenth Century and Beyond

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 125-170

  7. The Postfeminist Bride and the Neoliberal White Wedding in Postcolonial Jamaica

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 171-192

  8. Feted and Pampered Whiteness in a (Post)colonial Paradise

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 193-213

  9. Conclusion

    • Karen Wilkes
    Pages 215-221

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 223-239
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines myths of the Caribbean as paradise. These myths are used as a backdrop to market destination white weddings. The book is interdisciplinary and uses historical and contemporary visual texts to examine the way in which middle class white womanhood assumes a decorative, privileged, and elevated position within contemporary images of destination weddings in the Caribbean. To facilitate the notion of the Caribbean as paradise, the book argues that this production of luxury is highly dependent on the positioning of blackness as servitude. To this end, tourism marketing appropriates the Caribbean’s history of slavery; transforming the region into a site where whiteness can consume black labor as luxury.

Reviews

“This book is a timely and highly original study of the romanticization of the Caribbean alongside the representation of gender in tourist literature. In its interdisciplinary focus on the intersecting identities of gender, ‘race,’ and class, it adopts an innovative semiotic and discursive approach.” (Stuart Hanson, Senior Lecturer in Media & Communication, De Montfort University, UK, and joint editor of the CCCS Selected Working Papers, Vols. 1 & 2 (2007)).

“Wilkes establishes striking visual and discursive connections between destination weddings and the complex histories of place, race, and sex. Her flowing text makes the Caribbean landscape a palimpsest: overwritten with gendered and racialized power relations reformulated through time, from slavery through to luxury leisure consumption.” (Steve Garner, Visiting Academic, Open University, UK) 

“In this significant and innovative contribution to tourist studies, this book provides a thought-provoking analysis of the visual construction of people and place. Deeply embedded in the histories of the Caribbean, it employs discourse analysis to demonstrate the continued role of visual texts in defining contemporary understandings of the region as a tourist destination. In so doing, the book challenges the reader to think about the implications of accepting historically established narratives that label people and place as ‘playful’ paradise for tourism consumption.” (Jo-Anne Lester, Principal Lecturer in Tourism Studies, University of Brighton, UK)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Birmingham City University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

    Karen Wilkes

About the author

Karen Wilkes is Lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University, UK. Her book chapter, From the Landscape to the White Female Body, was published in the edited collection Mediating the Tourist Experience (2013). Her journal article, Colluding with Neoliberalism, was published in Feminist Review in July 2015. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Whiteness, Weddings, and Tourism in the Caribbean

  • Book Subtitle: Paradise for Sale

  • Authors: Karen Wilkes

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50391-6

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-50390-9Published: 19 August 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-50391-6Published: 18 August 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XII, 239

  • Number of Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations, 17 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Cultural Studies, Sociology of Sport and Leisure

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