In many ways, the tourism industries define the modern Caribbean as a region, helping to create and sustain the idea of the region as a "paradise" for visitors. In Resisting Paradise, Angelique Nixon draws on a large and diverse body of theoretical work to examine art, literature, educational programs, and the lived experiences of tourism workers that work to resist and reimagine tropes of paradise in the Caribbean tourism industry. The material Nixon examines speaks to tourism-related experiences on several islands, making her scholarly contributions more applicable to the entire region than other, similar studies. Additionally, while centered on literary texts, Nixon also examines visual art and festival alongside ethnographic approaches to create a highly interdisciplinary monograph.

In her wide-ranging introduction, Nixon deftly links the region's history of colonialism and exploitation with neocolonial practices of the tourism industry. Against that backdrop, Nixon sets out to "reveal how writers and artists, among other cultural workers, located inside and outside the region are changing and transforming the way we think of tourism and neocolonialism" (5). While following this thread in the subsequent chapters, Nixon teases out several possible models for more ethical tourism in the region.

The following two chapters examine the ways Caribbean writers challenge and resist the exploitation of tourism. Chapter 2, in which Nixon analyzes travelogue-style works by Jamaica Kinkaid and Edwidge Danticat, is particularly effective. Both authors use short historical sketches, either of the countries or individuals in them, to help reimagine and complicate narratives common in Caribbean travel literature. Nixon shows how Kinkaid's essay “A Small Place” critiques Antigua's history of colonialism, and Danticat's travel guide and memoir After the Dance highlights the carnival celebration in Jacmel, Haiti, as an act of cultural resistance. The following chapter, organized around several works of Audre Lorde and around Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, focuses on what Nixon terms their "black female travel narratives," which help to create a diasporic sense of place in the Caribbean. While otherwise effective at emphasizing a black female diasporic model of tourism, this chapter's content feels slightly too far removed from the other analyses of tourism narratives and experiences elsewhere in the book.

That critique notwithstanding, the next two chapters are the most engaging in the book for me as an ethnographer, folklorist, and ethnomusicologist. Both chapters employ critical analysis of literary texts and visual art as well as ethnographic methods, including interviews and participant-observation. Nixon uses this multifaceted analysis to further explore effective models for more ethical tourism in the Caribbean, through ongoing programs in the Bahamas and in Jamaica.

In chapter 4, Nixon explores links between tourism, culture, and education in the Bahamas, a country whose economy Nixon describes as "overly dependent on tourism" (90). Through analysis of interviews with tourism workers, of the Bahamian Junkanoo festival's increased commercialization, and of heritage and cultural tourism in culturally colonized places, Nixon questions: "Is there a way to maintain one's cultural integrity, teach one's histories, and at the same time have a successful tourism product that is disconnected from colonial ideologies?" (101). She answers that question, in part, by examining Arlene Nash Ferguson's company EduCulture, as well as the poetry of Marion Bethel and artwork of Dionne Benjamin-Smith, all of which resist exploitation and commodification of Bahamian culture in the tourism industry. Taken together, these examples suggest ways to use cultural heritage tourism to educate Bahamian youth and promote ethical tourism practices.

In the following chapter, Nixon examines Esther Figueroa's documentary Jamaica for Sale (2009) along with Edna Brodber's novel Myal (1988) and Brodber's educational/tourism project Blackspace. In Nixon's analysis of Brodber's novel and her "educo-tourism" project, Nixon is most effective in unifying her literary analysis and social/cultural analysis. Nixon asserts that Brodber’s work is a "reconceptualizing of tourism, or in other words, reworking tourism to fit the needs of the local community while using the tourist industry" (143). The book's final chapter is an examination of themes of local culture and sex in tourism-related works by Caribbean novelists Oonya Kempadoo and Michelle Cliff and poet Christian Campbell. While Nixon's discussions are rich and engaging, the sudden lack of rich ethnographic content leaves the chapter feeling less expansive and grounded than the previous two.

The book closes with a brief description of a new art tourism project at the Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas, which features exclusively Bahamian art. The art is supplemented with programming, planned by local artists and cultural workers, to market Bahamian culture, rather than "paradise," to resort guests.

Despite the previously noted unevenness of the chapters, which contribute to a minor lack of cohesion in the book, Resisting Paradise will be extremely useful for other interdisciplinary scholars doing work on the nexus of tourism, the arts, and culture, particularly in the Caribbean. Nixon opens broad theoretical ground for folklorists and ethnomusicologists to continue exploring, most notably the important but often undertheorized connection between artistic expression and resistance to neoliberal ideologies and practices in the tourism industry. In addition, Nixon calls scholarly attention to several ethical tourism projects and more potential models for ethical tourism from literary and artistic sources.

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[Review length: 852 words • Review posted on May 15, 2018]